The other day I was walking upon the Tantramar Marsh with my friend Jo Anne. We were having a catch up, chatting away. Then I looked at the dirt road ahead and I said, "We could be in an old western movie. It looks like a hundred years ago."
Stretched out in front of us there was only land. That land was flat and surrounded by dykes that Acadian settlers built in the 17th century that met the tides of the Bay of Fundy. We were surrounded by nothing but the natural world as far as the eye could see. There were no houses, no barns, no cars, no people. Just us and the land.
People tell me all the time they love nature. Artists say they are inspired by nature. Some even say it is their temple.
It is, of course, easy to love. When we walk the marsh or the woods it brings us back to the simplest things in life. It brings us closer to the source of all things. There are few distractions, and those that come are majestic. A hawk diving in a field, three eagles flying high, a coyote across the creek. They too are reminders of how simply the other creatures in the world live. That all they ever need are the basics of life. Myself, on the other hand am more of a gatherer than a hunter. Though I aim to live simply, well, the creatures put me to shame.
An anthropologist once told me that even the most primitive human societies are complex. Even when we live as simply as we can there are still layers and layers. We feel and think and these beautiful things make us more complex. So we need the natural world to calm us, to bring us back to what's important. To remind us that what we really need are the essentials, warmth, kindness, love, food, water, and for me I would add art and creativity to that, or perhaps that comes under love. See, already I complicate things, like the anthropologist told me humans do. And that is because I feel and think, which is the root of being an artist. It is because we feel and think that we can be creative.
Nature inspires that in us. It is not enough for us to walk it, we want to reflect what we felt, what we saw, and we can. We all have gifts. There is not one single one of us who are not creative. It is one of the gifts of being human.
Does an eagle find joy when it soars? Does he know joy? Or is just an eagle who does what eagles do?
We can find joy and we can know joy. It can come from a walk across a field, or down a dirt road, or in the woods. It can also come from making. From taking our story and making it real. A poem, a painting, a rug. We all have it in us.
