Trees are the Bee's Knees

I would love to live somewhere “with fine trees in groups and groves and avenues.”[1] From what I have seen, Oxford seems like a place I will have to visit, for it “is [a] scarce spot in the world.”[2] [3] As you can see in the botanical gardens, nature is allowed to simply grow and flourish. It is amazing to me that we don’t appreciate the natural world more. But here in Austin, Texas, many people do show love for the environment. The Oxford Botanical garden pictures reminded me that there was one right down the road! The Zilker Botanical Garden is a wordless place: no words can describe its beauty, for it gives a “natural man contentment.”[4] [5] As our class walked along Waller Creek, I reconnected with my love for tree climbing, (although it was mainly statues that day) seeing everything in its natural environment, and just feeling a sense of euphoria from nature. I made a promise to myself that I would make time to come to the creek with my camera and just be in nature’s presence as I remind myself that, as Samantha said, we are “all part of nature.” While reading, I felt a new connection with the creek: “a child walks and runs up and down the bed of a creek.”[6] As a child, I spend most of my time at the creek behind my old house playing in the bright warming sun, fishing for minnows and crawfish, covering my body in clay at clay land, climbing up a rope to the caves, imagining I was lost and had to survive, making grilled cheese sandwiches on a sun heated metal sheet, and even being chased by snakes! [7] As we discussed early in class, we don’t want to lose the kid in us, the free-spirited, imaginative ball of energy, and nature allows me to never lose that because it feeds my “natural appetite for discovery, [my] primitive curiosity,”[8] and my joy for life. [9]

            Joseph Jones “traveled extensively throughout the world,” so I trust that he knew a good creek when he saw one. I think Jones was right: we need “to cultivate a fresh acquaintance” with nature “for our own mental health.”[10] I feel very passionate about “preserving every natural pocket”[11] of land, and this is perhaps where the wind will blow my career. I, like Jones, consider nature “a positive agency of survival,” so I feel an even stronger desire to daily take the time to become formless, and nameless and just be one with nature. [12]

“Waller Creek began as no more than trickle along a stretch of Cretaceous limestone,”[13] and because nature was able to take its course, it is an amazing place today, where I hope to have many significant experiences that help shape me as I create myself at this University.

 

 

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[1]  “Site of a University,” in U.T. and Leadership, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2008), 315.

[2] “Site of a University,” 317.

[3] http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/302/scheduleframeset.html

[4] J. Frank Dobie, “The Mustangs,” in U.T. and Leadership, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2008), 748.

[5] http://www.soulofthegarden.com/Images/April04%20ZilkerOriental.jpg

[6] Joseph Jones, “Cretaceous Limestone Gutter,” in U.T. and Leadership, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2008), 666.

[7] http://www.grilledcheeseinvitational.com/images/newlogo.gif

[8] Jones, 666.

[9] http://www.picturevictoria.vic.gov.au/site/coburg/images/16942.jpg

[10] Jones, 666.

[11] Joseph Jones, “Preface Codger on the Rocks,” in U.T. and Leadership, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2008), 661.

[12] http://www.thegreatillusion.com/mother%20nature%20new.jpg

[13] Joseph Jones, “Cretaceous Limestone Gutter,” in U.T. and Leadership, ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2008), 663.