#167 / Rush, Rush, Rush

In the Summer 2016 edition of Earth Island Journal, John de Graaf has written about "Finding Time For Our Parks." de Graaf notes that "a generation ago, the average Yosemite visitor spent 48 hours at the park." Today, the average visit lasts 4.8 hours. "Rush, rush, rush" is how one staff person at the park put it. "I see that every day."

Many of us say (it's a common complaint) that we need "more time." 

Step Into Nature. Slow down. You'll have "more time."

de Graaf's article points out that many park visitors, nowadays, experience our National Parks only through a camera lens. We are consumed, in other words, not with experiencing Nature directly, but with our efforts to render Nature subservient to our own created realities, the photo albums we put together, to show where we've been, to show we've been alive. 

That is a mistake! It is always a mistake to think that our assignment here on Earth is to subject the World of Nature to our human projects. Rather, what we need to do is to give up on our own projects as a primary purpose, and to make primary in our life a celebration of the World of Nature that sustains all that exists.

Want more time? Step Into Nature. Slow down. You'll have "more time."

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour.

       - William Blake

Image Credit:

http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/finding_time_for_our_parks/