Noland Trail, Noah Ryan

I have recently been trying to change my relationship with the world from an I-It to an I-You. When walking on the Noland Trail, I realized that it is easy to see the human influence on the place, and it is easy, also, to see my own personal impact, small as it may be. What I want to understand is the places influence on me.
The first thing the the place does is fill the senses with itself. Dillard discusses how writing makes one a writer. If one spends time in a place, and fills their sense with the place, the way it sounds and smells and so on, then their mind is in some way formed as something filled with and created by the place.
In relation to something we talked about in class a long time ago, the place also inhabits us. The thoughts it inspires and the feelings we get from it are the place entering us and becoming part of us. One such thought that was inspired by my walk on the Noland Trail was that while humans have had a great deal of influence on the landscape, the most influential beings by far are the trees. They determine the animals and plants that can live in the area, and they inspired our species to make little trails between them. They keep the river from being an eroding influence, and them provide food and shelter to thousands of beings.
I am trying here to leave behind the tradition that would deny the trees any agency in this matter. I have been able to encounter a tree before, but never for more than a second. My self consciousness of my situation and the power of my cultural indoctrination make it very difficult to see a plant as a You. Dillard has some good things to say about losing the ego to be able to interact with the animals she is always interrogating, which makes me think of the change in the I-You relationship that the I will experience. In other words, it seems that to have an I-You relationship with the beings around her, Dillard forgets her I, or maybe changes it into something less self-conscious and limited.