Nature does talk.

I grew up on a Caribbean island where nature was an essential part of my childhood. Most days you could find me climbing on laurel of India trees, playing pirates way up on the branches, or just reading a Tarzan comic book. Or if anyone leaned on a nearby, sea-rusted seawall, they could see me diving with my friends into the azure waters that surround my island. I played with hibiscus flowers from very tall hibiscus bushes hanging over the separating wall between our neighbor’s house and our tiny apartment, cutting them down with my samurai sword (a nice curved stick) because in my imagination they were the enemy I needed to destroy (I have since apologized to the hibiscus many times for my cruelty). I stole Filipino mangoes from that same neighbor, deliciously heaping around the tree she had in her yard. I still hear her cursing at us boys, “Salgan de aqui, gamberros!” Get out of here, hoodlums! I think she was a Spaniard because of the use of gamberros. But we were not, just kids after a delicious snack that was going to rot on the ground anyways. I hunted lizards with my slingshot, and birds out of the air with a Bebe gun (another apology). Please, don’t think I was cruel human, but just a kid growing up in an under developed country when electronic entertainment did not exist.

Anyway, throughout my adult years I have redeemed my old ways.

I listen to the wind tell me things. I stand still as the sun rises and thank God/the Universe. I allow the tranquility of the lake behind our home to remind me to Be Still and Know that… I pick up small caterpillars around our house and put them out on the grass. I watch and follow and talk to hawks, owls, deer, curly tailed lizards, turtles, and fish. I buried Pip, our Gerbil, right under our lemon tree, with pomp and ceremony and said a prayer I composed. I take pictures of the sky in many of its dramatic poses. I listen because nature talks.

There are many today that are doing good things for Nature, to save our Earth. Yet, many need to get it right: not for this Earth that belongs to us, but we that belong to her. Many gurus are saying that Our Mother Earth is talking to us, asking us to change our ways. I changed mine, and although I don’t consider myself a fanatic, or a conservationist in the full sense of the word, I think I have a close and solid relationship with Nature, with Earth. All one has to do is to begin to observe, to quiet down and to listen.

My 17 year old J… has been able to caress the back of a big carp that roams our lake, and he tells me that frogs stare at him for a long time. I believe he has a special relationship with nature.

“Do you know what frog means in animal medicine?” he asks.

“Not off the top of my head, but we could find out,” I answer.

And we read together: “Frog teaches us to honor our tears […] find a way to rid yourself of distractions and to replace the mud with clear energy […] An ability of Frog medicine people is to give support and energy where it is needed.” (Medicine Cards, Jamie Sams and David Carson, St. Martin’s Press, 1999)

There’s a look of acknowledgement in my son’s eyes. “Yes, I get it. That’s me. That’s what’s going on right now. The frogs have been talking to me.”

You don’t have to be a shaman to hear nature talk. When you get that wonderful feeling watching a slow, multicolored sunset and hear the evening surf lapping the shore, you are having your own private conversation with nature.

Copyright 2017, J. G. Herrera

Picture Copyright 2017, J. G. Herrera