How to Talk to Nature

It is no secret that many people are disconnected from nature in the modern/colonial world. Some more than others. Even if nature is around us, we don’t necessarily know how to communicate with it. We might be more apt to pick up our food from a grocery store than grow it ourselves. This is commonplace. This is part of modern/colonial life. “Normal.” Routine.

Although the natural world’s health is directly related to our health as human beings, the modern/colonial world does not treat nature as valuable. Nature is commonly polluted with harmful chemicals and other substances that inevitably return to our bodies. (Life does not have to be this way. It is this way because of the lust for money and power by some people at the expense of others. Such a mindset was not born into these people, but rather was taught to them. Who taught them to destroy the world at the expense of their species’ health and wellbeing? What systems upheld or failed to critique such destructive teachings? This is why we need new ways of learning.)

If we feel disconnected from the Earth, we can begin to feel more connected simply by making a small gesture of acknowledgement to the nature that surrounds us, in whatever form that may be. Whether it be by saying “thank you” to the water after we take a shower or by talking to some trees or the ocean about a life struggle or a deeply important question, it is the action that matters. People may say that such actions are meaningless because they assume that no response will be received: water cannot speak our language, trees don’t talk to us like they do in an animated movie, the ocean isn’t sentient - they say. So why would you talk to these things when you won’t receive a rational type of response?

Because the mere act of acting changes you. It is the act of acknowledgement that inserts change within yourself. Talking to nature creates a feeling of relation between yourself and the water, or the trees, or the ocean that is deeper than before. It is the act of doing that is enough, not the promise of receiving or obtaining something out of the action that makes it worth doing. This act of talking to nature without the promise of receiving something in return opens possibilities that we as human beings cannot possibly understand. Nature’s networks are huge and vast, unseen yet felt. Talking to nature, without expectation, creates such openings. You will see.