music
ambience: dawn chorus, Ventana Wilderness
Spring is a good time to rediscover the natural world, particularly if you have a special place to return to and learn from. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
“I feel regenerated when I come out here in the spring. Ah, it’s taking an example – from the plants to begin with, and then of course the animals are coming out of their wintertime habitats and returning.”
John Brennan is an adopted member of California’s Esalen tribe. Every spring, he and others return to Ventana wilderness near Monterey, bringing groups of people interested in learning more about the land and traditional Indian ways.
“Well I remember coming from New York City when I was thirteen, and, and our father took us on a tour of the National Parks of the west – and, you know, each ‘wow’ I said was more heartfelt and deeper than the, than the prior one. The experience of seeing nature unfolding from the perspective of someone who had grown up in a major urban area. I’ll, I’ll never forget those times, and the, the surprise and awe that I felt in seeing these things. So I thought that it was very important, as I gain some age here, to be able to provide that experience of observing for the first time, or learning in a deeper sense what was out here – and how one could blend into that. But I’ve learned to provide the opportunity to people from urban areas to have that same experience. We’ve taken for example groups of troubled children from the inner city and brought them up to the wilderness – and they’re just awestruck. ‘What are all of those?’ Well, those are all the stars. ‘Where have they been?’ They’re there, but they hadn’t seen them. Perhaps no one had ever pointed them out.”
Please visit our website at pulseplanet.com. .Pulse of the Planet is presented with support provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
music