Brien Carr - Defining Nature - Gary Snyder

Snyder's wrestling with the definition of nature was actually very interesting to me and was also very influential in the process of writing my paper. Snyder points to the roots of the word nature and the different connotations that it may be used as in different understandings. I grew up in Gloucester, Va, a rural area that, at that time, had very little suburban construction and housing developmental areas. Each school that I attended had its own rendition of a nature trail for people to experience nature in an educational setting. In the 5th grade, my class took a over-night field trip to Prince William county to study wildlife. The property I lived on was about 2 acres of private forest that had been undisturbed some parts since the civil war trail on the back of the property had been used by Confederate soldiers. I grew up on nature. It was a drug. I experienced it as what I could do, touch, see, smell, taste. I learned about survial and natural respect from the boy's organization I was apart of. Looking back to this time, I can see that I believed certain things about nature, but did not understand what they meant. I believed that nature was more than the physical things I could experience. It also had a spiritual quality that embraced. On top of that I could see the imaginative qualities that it evoked in myself. Snyder touches on these themes when he speaks about the idea that ALL things are natural, because they exist in the natural world.