Santa Rosa Writing Prompts
I have always recognized nature’s importance in my life but I do not usually take into account the thought that humans and nature are connected together. During the Saturday pod with Cause Hanna I realized just how important we can be towards the world. We affect and in many instances destroy the world and although the Earth would be significantly better if it was not inhabited by greedy little homosapiens. However the connection with nature was ever present as we were hiking through the island and looking at the shrubbery I realized that man affects nature and then has to try to fix it. For example: the sheep that destroyed the previous greenery were removed and now the faculty and students are trying to restore it. However the world affects us as well, the natural disasters that happen uproot lives and cities but there are beautiful moments in nature when you feel as one. Chemically we need the nature so that we can live and biologically we are bound to the earth but most importantly we are bound atomically, humans are directly linked to the earth. We breathe in nature, we are made out of stardust and we hold a certain amount “power” over the future of the planet whether that be in a good or bad path.
Not only did I feel connected to the island but I was also able to experience this through the eyes of four different professors. Each professor let us “see” the island in different ways. Matt Furmansky showed us the flow of nature and how it can be incorporated into any form of art, Dr. Alisson Alvarado let us glimpse into the world of genealogy and the correlation between species. Cause Hanna taught us a brief overview of what it is like to work with living organisms as well obtaining them, each professor brought us a different perspective of nature but they all shared the same awe of what nature is capable of doing. It was odd laying down on the bed and being able to hear everything that was going on outside, the chirping of the birds, the gusts of wind or the rustling of the trees. Being able to simply lay down and feel connected to my surroundings is odd to me, I usually hear cars or people when I am laying down, not the peace and tranquility that was there in the island.
Although it may sound cheesy or cliché, everything we as humans do directly impacts the Earth. Whether it is in a good or bad way is up to us but in the end each move we make changes the world and defines our lives. The way we treat others and nature is a reflection upon ourselves and who we are, the Santa Rosa Island retreat really defined that for me. No matter the place or time we are still one with nature because without it we would be nothing.
