In one of my favorite cases, Basho used nature (or the retraction thereof) as a chastisement for some of his poetry students. He had noticed that some of his devotees were so obsessed with experiencing nature and turning it into poetry that they were neglecting their wives and children. I often refer to this one when business (church and vocational) forces me away from home:

For the men who say
“I can’t abide my children!”
There are no flowers.

I’m reminded me of the famous story about Chuang Tzu and the logician. Chuang (who has much in common with a nature poet) and a logician (who also moonlights as a doctor of laws) are walking along the dam of the River Hao. Chuange rapturously says, “Look at the school of tiny fish darting about wherever is their pleasure!”

“Is it not as likely that these fish are just blandly doing what fish do? You’re only anthropomorphizing; as you are not yourself a fish, how would you know of their pleasures?”

“By your same argument, you’re not me, so how would you know that I would not know of the pleasures of fish?”

“True, I’m not you and would not know what you know; but neither are you a fish and so would not know of the pleasures of fish.”

“Return to your original question: you asked me how would I know of the pleasure of fish; notice that you have admitted of my knowledge by your very question. And how I know of the pleasure of fish is by my standing here by the Hao.“

Basho on his own poetic travels

Stillness–
penetrating the rock,
cicada’s cry.

Saigyo, after discussing the Buddha’ law with a fellow monk-poet.

Linked worlds,
linked lives:
on an upright shaft of bamboo,
every joint is strong and straight.

Anonymous death poem:

Autumn gusts–
I have no further business
in this world.

The romantics (on both sides of the Atlantic) believed nature could improve and instruct us. Emerson in particular argued that nature could substitute for scripture. In the midst of their celebrations, Darwin’s work appeared, making a case that has been more influential than Wordsworth, Coleridge, Emerson and the rest that nature could more properly be understood as material arranging and rearranging itself.

I side with those who believe nature is a mirror in which we tend to find what we bring with us. I think experiencing nature is of enormous importance in living a good life and at the same time I’m made nervous by such claims because I’ve so often encountered them in arguments that were decidedly headed in bad directions.

I doubt expansive claims about what nature might accomplish with the human heart. Hedonists tend to love nature’s beauties and to seek them out, and this love coexists quite easily with many lusts, including blood lust. Still, a good person who sees nature as God’s creation can be lifted and instructed by contemplating the sublime and attending to the details.

A current preoccupation of mine is how children are affected by growing up in urban, artificial environments with little direct experience of nature. My belief is that they are a bit insane, and sometimes more than a bit. This seems mostly because those artificial environments are unintelligent and constructed partly of lies, but I can’t help thinking that regular experiences outside of those artificial environments would help them feel that the world they know is not all the world that is, which would be a move toward sanity.

I believe regular experiences of tramping through the woods have helped me and my family live better lives, though without regular Sunday school the effect might have been quite different.