…when I look up it’s not my father’s quirky smile or his customary cut-off jeans and white socks to his knees, instead it is a…

I sit on the rocky river bank watching the orange glow of the sun sink behind the hills as I wait for my father’s old legs to catch up to my own young, over-energetic strides after a long day of fishing. I sit listening to the river impatiently, the coolness of the setting sun soaks into my tiny frame. I stare down at the different colors of the rocks and wrap my hands around my knees for warmth as I curse my father for his long saunter back downstream.

Finally, the familiar sound of feet scrambling over rocks, but when I look up it’s not my father’s quirky smile or his customary cut-off jeans and white socks to his knees, instead it is a small Whitetail fawn that has emerged from the safety of the underbrush.

We stare at each other from opposing sides of the river, frozen in disbelief; two separate entities, two worlds meeting unexpectedly. An unnatural staring contest as each creature lies in a state of shocked paralysis. After what seems like hours but really is only seconds, as happens in moments of hyped emotions, the young fawn bends its long, graceful neck and drinks from the cool water. I stare, no longer cold, no longer conscience of the vanishing sun or the calm gush of the river; everything has faded into a state of completeness.

The fawn’s ears and white tail flick upwards, as its head shoots up and it leaps from the golden, fading light of the sun into the darkness of the underbrush. In a blink of an eye it’s gone. Around the river bend comes my father, his shadow cast behind him on the rocks. He greets me with a smile, my only response is an awed silence mistaken for tiredness.

I never told my father about the deer; I never knew why, but I felt that it belonged to me and no one else. It was mine. In that brief instant, even as a child, I felt absorbed, yet removed…something no amount of words could describe. In my short lifetime I’ve been lucky enough to experience this feeling more than once: from sitting on the edge of an Appalachian creek watching Rainbows dance and glitter under the water losing myself in the babbling brook to the shock of watching an owl gliding effortlessly through the beams of our car’s headlights and grabbing a scurrying squirrel.

Without realizing it these experiences have become part of my being, part of my subconscious, and as I have grown these experiences have taken on more meaning. These experiences have come to define who I am, shaped my perspective on the world, and become the basis of my faith.

For me, these moments in Nature have taken on a spiritual meaning. Nature has the ability to make me feel inferior, inconsequential; yet at the same time part of something beyond my knowledge. Nature is something that was here before me and will exist long after I have faded from this world. It ties ideas, generations, and cultures to one another, and remains one of the best teachers I could have asked for.

What’s my point? Well, I’m not sure.

What’s my point? Well, I’m not sure. I just know that often times I feel bombarded by the brutality of the world. War, death, and disease seem to have consumed our everyday lives, and yet for me an hour in the solace of Nature can rejuvenate my soul. So as we deal with life as it comes to us, just remember how the simple beauty of a flower, leaf, or cloud can inspire and revitalize a person’s mind, soul, and heart to limitless proportions.

At High Trails Outdoor Science School, we literally force our instructors to write about elementary outdoor education, teaching outside, learning outside, our dirty classroom (the forest…gosh), environmental science, outdoor science, and all other tree hugging student and kid loving things that keep us engaged, passionate, driven, loving our job, digging our life, and spreading the word to anyone whose attention we can hold for long enough to actually make it through reading this entire sentence. Whew…. www.dirtyclassroom.com