This was a really neat post Sarah! I found your post particularly interesting because I can completely relate to the major points of your thoughts. I myself have many fears of nature or shall we say the “wilderness”. I must admit, that I am still terrified of the dark. For me to be able to do anything when it is dark out, such as a walk, or when the power goes out, or even if the lights in the house happened to be turned off, it is a major hurdle. There are many genuine concerns I have with the “darkness” that I never really considered to explore until your post. One idea that captured me was the point you made about overcoming your fears and really letting nature take a hold of you, sinking into the surroundings. So I stopped to ask myself, “what is it that scares me so much about the dark, about being in the wilderness when it is dark out, about nature itself”. I wonder how something as natural as darkness could scare me so much. I have resolved that it is simply the fear of the unknown. I have yet to let myself go, to understand the things around me in nature, so I may know them, become comfortable enough to lose the fear. I take sunshine, the simple yet complex and natural part of nature, for granted. I never stop to think what life would be like without the sun, without light. Similar to Emerson’s view, “But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches. ……. If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!” (Emerson, 5) Here we see him saying, that because the stars are always there, we take them for granted, we do not understand the incredible phenomenon that they have always been. But if they were to disappear and never return or if they were to occur once in a “thousand years” our view of them would be so different.
As I have begun to realize that I take nature’s natural occurrences for granted and understand that although darkness may seem scary, if I could let myself understand nature, try to explore the animals, the plants, and the scenery, just maybe I could feel comfortable enough to be in the dark. There is always the ability to overcome, but having first, the willingness to understand something outside of me, realizing the possibility that I may not find answers for it all, is the first step in “finding” nature. I have failed to see, as you seem to have done on your walk, the beauty in nature at many times and places. I see nature as beautiful, but in my own manipulated, man-made way. I see nature as beautiful when man has “made” it that way. I have seen things outside my house as beautiful when it is sunny and bright out with a light breeze, flowers blooming, etc. However, I have failed to see the beauty in the rain, the thunder storms, the leaves blowing around, because I focus too much on the fact that it is not “pretty” out. Emerson so kindly points out that “Even the corpse has its own beauty.” (Emerson, 9) Similar to what we discussed in class and your thoughts, it takes us realizing that I must see connections between myself and nature not as a match, being pitted against one and other, but rather a difference in two natural forms of life. Is there really a separation between nature and us or do we put it there? We search to find answers for things, such as you suggested with our “whys”. However, we should really be looking to accept not interrogate nature, to find the “whats”- what connection does nature have to me, or myself to nature. Accepting the beauty of the scenery around us, “blink our eyes or draw breath” and discontinuing the research but rather focusing on what is already there, what is within ourselves, to find something more than facts, this can lead to us finding beauty in and at all times. Just maybe this is the answer to my fear of darkness, to understand my own sense of the dark, and realize that “I am not solitary whilst I read and white, though nobody is with me.” (Emerson 5)
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