Understanding What It Mean To Connect With Nature.

Isaac Leon
4 min readJan 1, 2020

--

The connection with nature in the present is interpreted as our separation from routine life in the city and the reconnection of being in a part of a lot of greenery, such as in a forest or in a park, but that’s a misinterpretation of what it means to be connected with nature. Next, I’ll provide five basic questions about how we can connect with nature everywhere in the world.

Technological advances play a very important role in this separation because we have lost the notion of being connected to nature. We associate that nature is the wild thing that we see through our technological device, (television, magazine, mobile device, etc.) increasing the ignorance between human and nature.

What does it mean to be connected to nature?

To understand our connection to nature, we first must understand what nature is.

Nature is composed of organism (living) and its environment (habitat) that surrounds it. (e.g. A pigeon in the city; although the city is an inorganic environment, made by humans, that is still part of the nature of the pigeon that lives in it.)

It is common to misinterpret that nature is anything that is green such as the forest, a bush, or mountains, etc., when nature is all around us.

Now, to find that it means being connected to nature we have to recognize that we as human beings, we are part of nature, regardless of the location, whether in the city or the jungle, and that we can never be separated from it.

It is a mistake that we, as beings of logical reasoning, think that nature and human are two separate components and that the habitat in which we decide to live separates us from it. (e.g. It is wrong to say that living in the city is the same as living far from nature.) When it is quite the opposite and we have always been part of nature since our birth.

To know the meaning of our connection with nature is to understand that everything around us is nature, regardless of location, and that we have always been a part of it.

Why is it important to connect with nature?

The importance of understanding our connection with nature is necessary to have a personal growth and a deeper connection with it.

From the beginning of our humanity on earth, we have tried to understand and interpret our connection between ourselves and nature. Until the sun today, we continue to seek that connection with nature.

By understanding that we are part of nature we can have better knowledge about the “why” of the events around us. (e.g. By showing irritation when you are hungry, it is a natural behavior of all living beings and understanding that behavior is a way of demonstrating the “why” that happens.)

How can we connect with nature?

In order to connect with nature, we need to reflect on the following: recognize, on a personal level, that we are part of that nature and that she surrounds us and is everywhere. (e.g. The oxygen we breathe is part of our nature as it is a product of it.)

You must have the will to accept that nature is everywhere.

Where can we connect with nature?

The connection with nature does not necessarily imply that we must go to a forest or the park in order to connect with it; one can connect with nature from the very center of the city.

We must recognize where nature is. In a forest nature is composed of extreme amounts of plants and animals.

In the city, no matter what it is, it will always have elements that represent nature and its animals that reside in them. (e.g. trees, shrubs, birds, dogs, cats, etc.

In both habitats the human can reside within them maintaining an equal knowledge about what nature is and our connection to it.

When do we have to connect with nature?

This connection should not be rushed, as it is part of our personal growth and we take our time to understand this connection that we have with nature.

But it doesn’t mean we’ll connect when we touch an animal where we have a phobia.

The moment when we will know when we are connected to nature will be when we personally accept that everything (animal, human, plants, the planet) is part of the same ecosystem.

In relation to time, it is good to recognize that the notion of time does not exist within nature since we have been born submerged in natural elements, from the womb of our mothers to the moment of our death, and we will never cease to be part of She.

Sign up to discover human stories that deepen your understanding of the world.

Free

Distraction-free reading. No ads.

Organize your knowledge with lists and highlights.

Tell your story. Find your audience.

Membership

Read member-only stories

Support writers you read most

Earn money for your writing

Listen to audio narrations

Read offline with the Medium app

--

--

Isaac Leon
Isaac Leon

Written by Isaac Leon

Amateur Writer | Photographer | Cartoonist | Puerto Rico

No responses yet