When I was young, I spent hour upon hour playing in the back woods of my home, watching chipmunks scurry past, chasing garter snakes through the trails, trying to catch fish with my bare hands in the stream. Consequently, my first thought, whenever anyone says the word "nature", is of animals. I have always maintained a strong connection with the animal kingdom. My childhood home was always been filled with animals: dogs, cats, mice; we even had a hedgehog once, and my plan, before deciding on illustration, was to become a veterinarian.
This class, though, has refocused my attention on the parts of nature that aren't quite so "alive". As the breeze rolls through the rustling leaves, as the rolling brook splashes against the fallen oak, I see life all around me. Each drop of rain, each spring elm bud, represents a cycle from which each one of us has come and to which each one of us will someday return. (Can you tell that Lion King is my favorite movie? I might as well break out in song.) But until you have been awakened to the immensity of that life, you are ignorant to its beauty and consequentially will not be empowered to act on its behalf. And that is the goal of this course, I suppose, to bring that beauty, that life, to our attention, to bring it to the forefront of our minds so that we, as the next generation, will be motivated for its protection.
Haha, a hedgehog, that's fantastic :D
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