Better Together: Connecting with Nature

The following article was written by Janelle Lincks and features ATRA’s Better Together theme with a focus on connecting with nature. Lincks is a Boulder-based trail runner who is sponsored by Satisfy Running.

I sit near the top of a mesa above a valley steadily falling into the Colorado River. Mesas and mountains unfold in every direction from my vantage, those nearest crisp and defined cut through the azure sky, while the peaks further out form shapes and lines that fade into blue distance. Silver patches of sagebrush contrast with the deep emerald of Gambel oak, a relaxing palette of color enlivened with red and blue sprays of scarlet gilia and rocky mountain penstemon in bloom.

I’ll start running up this mesa shortly and I’m excited at the thought of the plant communities changing as I gain elevation, oaks gradually giving way to aspen groves and towering fir and spruce trees, shade dappled understories carpeted with columbines and ferns. I’ll run in an effort to reach the beauty of these scenes and make them real, to move beyond the limits of my senses that render mere paintings in my mind, to touch and to know the stone and water that bring forth the life abounding around me. This fundamental effort to move from abstraction to raw reality, to get out of my mind and into the world has taken me down many trails.

One of the gardens at Lincks’ first post-college gardening job.

Better Together: An appreciation of plants and gardening

My interest in gardening began when I had a job canvassing for an environmental nonprofit. Going door to door to the homes of Colorado residents I took delight in seeing all of the different things people were growing in their yards. Fall evenings found me captivated by scenes of freshly formed rosehips beneath the soft amber glow of street lights, handmade ceramics split open to spill out earth and flowers, ivy vines climbing towers of red brick through the sheer might of thousands of tiny tendrils. I wanted a hand in the dynamic artwork that I found growing out of every corner and crevice where light and water could reach in the urban spaces I traveled. I also found comfort in recognizing different plants as I familiarized myself with this new world.

Plants started feeling like allies, when I was shot down at the door the plants along the sidewalk seemed to console me and encourage me to keep on with the fight. Eventually I made gardening my full time occupation and I’ve spent the past decade learning about plants and their cultivation in different settings. Spending the majority of my free time in wilderness areas further entrenched me in the world of our green ancestors. Every time I turn a corner on a trail, gain or lose elevation, hit areas of dense forest or open meadows, the diversity and possibilities of plant communities invite me further into their miracles and mysteries. Over the years questions about the plants we grow in our backyards and those growing wild just beyond, and often within, our fence lines took root in my mind and ultimately steered the course of my life’s explorations.

High ideals about the natural world

I grew up in one of the many sprawling developments along Colorado’s Front Range. In the midst of this suburban dream disconnected from nature I developed high ideals about the natural world without much experience or understanding of it. I remember spouting some of these environmentalist ideals to a running teammate in college who politely pointed out I had a disposable plastic water bottle in my hand. Today most of civilization resides on a blanket of concrete, asphalt, buildings and artificial landscaping over land scoured of the plants and animals that once called it home. Our infrastructure invisibly supplies us with a seemingly infinite stream of resources and so we don’t think much about those resources or their origin.

I ran countless miles alongside the Clear Creek-fed Highline Canal in Denver before realizing it supplied the water to the reservoir a quarter mile from my childhood home. This disconnect between us and our natural resources gives rise to an often equally disconnected land ethic. I’m a nature lover that has spent work weeks maintaining swaths of Kentucky bluegrass using water and oil. I have planted countless numbers of annuals that were produced in energy intensive greenhouses and require ample water and fertilizer to perform well for the span of their season long existence. I have found both peace and beauty in these artificially managed spaces. But when I sit atop mesas like the one where I began this article, I wonder if the cost of maintaining such spaces is worth it, especially considering how frequently we all flee to wilderness areas for solace.

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” (A Sand County Almanac, Leopold 3)

In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold reflected on the ecological consequences of a century of land management that forced much of the American West into a vision utterly incompatible with its environmental reality. He wrote this as Americans were in the process of becoming entirely dependent on an economic system that obscures the connection between labor and the goods it supplies with the ultimate abstraction of currency. We’ve since been catapulted, possibly irretrievably, into an oblivion of material consumerism that masquerades our wants as needs and commodifies everything it lays eyes on.

Environmentally the consequences of such illusions have been dire. The U.S consumes 16% of the world’s energy while constituting merely 4% of its population. How ironic that we all turn on our AC units for relief from the summer heat only for the emissions it generates to contribute to a warming planet. What are we sacrificing in the name of comfort? What if we choose to adapt to the conditions of our environment rather than force artificial conditions on our environment?

Enjoy a sunset from a campsite.

Formed by the natural environment

There is so much to be gained from increasing our contact with and understanding of nature. We learn about ourselves in times of struggle and spaces of discomfort, the opportunity to adapt is taken from us if we move from one climate-controlled space to the next. We, like all other species, were born from and are continually formed by the natural environment, it seems a great peril as well as a spiritual tragedy to attempt to remove ourselves from it. Learning about and experiencing the plants, animals, geology and hydrology of the places we inhabit expands our sense of self and creates the biocentric thinking Leopold advocated as the salvation of the natural world.

I remember a run in Utah where the headwind was an unrelenting force making every step a hard-fought challenge. I cursed out loud and it blew stronger, seeming to spite me. Then I became aware of all of the strange and beautiful rock formations that drew me to this area. They were formed by the wind. What strange and beautiful things might form within me if I embrace that force, accept it without emotional judgment or thoughts of retreat? I looked around and saw the stems of rabbitbrush and flower stalks of yucca submitting to the powerful force sweeping through the valley. The twisted limbs of junipers spiraling out of gnarled trunks seemed to be the very embodiment of the force that sculpted them. With no way of moving they, like the rock formations, accepted this power and their fate of an existence shaped by it. Such experiences of natural forces are something I find vital to shaping my existence.

Better Together: changing and evolving

I hope not to proselytize, I am constantly becoming aware of hypocrisies in my behavior and working to amend them. I’ve never met the people involved with the manufacturing of my car or tent and have spent very little time understanding the mechanics or fabrication behind either. I feel guilty every extra mile I drive into the remote campsites I call home. But, I’ve done what I can. I quit gardening because I got tired of ripping plants out of the earth for aesthetic reasons, watering non-native grasses and annuals for similarly vain objectives. I got a job doing ecological monitoring instead and now bear witness directly to the consequences over a century of abuse has had on land in the West.

I know I have so much more to do…but what? Where do we go from here? Are we forever enslaved to a system that creates complacent comfort, waste and pollution while disconnecting us from the natural world upon which our very existence depends?

One of Lincks’ favorite spots somewhere in the Sonoran desert.

Filled with hope

“We must be devolving,” a friend remarked in a discussion about the so-called ‘state of things.’ I think about the young child I saw at the farmer’s market days earlier asking where the recycle bin was. I think about the solar panels cropping up on roofs in the town I walked through shortly after. I think about all of the hikers, runners, climbers and all other manner of outdoor explorers that populate trails and campgrounds on weekends. I’m filled with hope.

We are often removed from the environment beneath our feet that once reigned free of concrete, asphalt and turf, but I sense strongly that we all seek the stories it holds. The land will share its stories if only we have ears to listen.

Better Together: find, create, and build connections

Lately I’ve seen suburban yards growing wild with prairie smoke and milkweed, xeriscaped kingdoms of plants rooted in the history of the place they’re growing. We all have the ability to connect to the places we inhabit in a deep and meaningful way. This could be as simple as going for a hike and becoming acquainted with local flora and fauna. It could be taken a step further by propagating the plants you meet in your own yard. It could even be something as small as shutting the water off between dishes with a momentary reflection and appreciation of the great journey made for that water to flow from your faucet.

It’s unrealistic and even unnecessary for us to return to completely self-sufficient lifestyles. In fact we are poised with even greater opportunities for conservation and respect of our resources given the platform of comfort and time that supports most of our society. There is no denying we are Better Together when it comes to connecting with the natural world around us. We can make choices every day that factor in the importance of the natural resources and environment they will impact.

I run through a grove of sub-alpine firs, my inhale meets the exhale of the trees as I’m suddenly intoxicated by the fresh forest aroma. Laying in my tent hours earlier the howls of coyotes sounded out in the cool morning air inviting me into the day. I can’t help but release a howl myself, overjoyed at the grace of the forest, the sky, the meadows in bloom, the earth beneath my feet. In this moment I am complete. And you, dear reader, who has stuck with me to the end of these thoughts, have the power to strengthen your connection to the natural world and save our ailing planet. Whether your summit is a rocky mountain top, a backyard garden, a moment out of the office to listen to the birds, let your senses rise to it. From the mountains you climb reflect the light and truth you find out to a world that is just beginning to open its eyes.

Janelle Lincks, Better Together on the trails.