Nature Walk

The Emerson-Thoreau experience of 2007 didn't quite live up to my expectiations.. Even though it was scorching hot outside, everything in nature looked beautiful to me. While everything was beautiful, I tried to connect with nature, but it was just about impossible with all the laughter, yelling, and the lawn mower roaring. Although I didn’t “connect” with nature, I did have the sense that everything in my little world at that very moment was ok and almost understood why Emerson and Thoreau looked at things the way that they did.
We started out experience as we walked out the doors of T.L. Hanna. I walked outside and the sunlight squeezed my eyeballs and a heat wave hit me. I tripped over the large gravel until we finally came to the entrance of the woods. Creeping into the woods, trying not to disturb anything, I saw all kinds of God’s wonderful creations. I saw a brilliantly colored, crimson red, lady bug making its way through the maze of leaves. As I continued to walk, I saw a million glossy leaves shining in the few rays of sunlight that came through the canopy and making a warm blanket over my head. I weaved through the woods trying not to let branches hit me in the face. I only spent a total of ten minutes in the woods, but I saw of these beautiful things.
This ten-minute experience in the woods was supposed to give us a taste of how Emerson and Thoreau saw things. Thoreau lived in the woods for two years and this is what he said about it, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Thoreau went into the woods to be with nature and to just try something new. Sometimes in life, you just need to get away and not think about all the struggles that you are going through. Emerson thought this same thing, and he said, “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.” Everyone needs to go into solitude every once in a while, and he says that you can’t do that in a room somewhere and that you need to go out into nature to do that. Great use of quotes. Very nicely written.
As I look back on my experience in the woods, I see that I was trying to make a connection the same way that Emerson and Thoreau were. I was trying to see the beauty of it and how awesome God’s creations were. It also helped me to just get away from the classroom and get into nature. After this experience I can see how Emerson and Thoreau’s view on nature can apply to us in everyday life. We need to try new things, discover new things, and get into nature and out of the house.