Nature Journal: Part 12

For my twelfth nature journal, I decided to write about my experience in Charleston, South Carolina during fall break. While there are a number of things I could have written about, my experience in the Atlantic Ocean was by far the most impactful. I had the opportunity to spend several days on the beach taking in all the world around me had to offer. On our final day, several of us decided to walk out to a sandbar a couple hundred yards offshore. What we thought would be a five-minute swim turned into half an hour of dodging waves and trying to maintain focus on the sandbar barely visible above the horizon. It was not until we reached a point that I could no longer feel the sand beneath my feet that I started to think about insignificant I am in comparison to the world around me. I was swimming in an ocean stretching thousands of miles across the globe. I was just a speck of dust floating along with no control of my own. The currents and waves guided my every move. I had never felt so powerless but so powerful at the same time. Although before we studied the work of Aldo Leopold in class, my experience in the Atlantic Ocean was the first thing that came to mind when I first read the quote, “to think like a mountain.” I believe there is the same sense of timelessness associated with the ocean as a mountain. I would even go as far as to say to think like an ocean is to think bigger than a mountain. Unlike a mountain, the ocean controls so many aspects of life on earth including climate regulation. The sheer power of the ocean overwhelmed me in the same way the waves crashed over my head. Once we made it to the sandbar and looked back at the shoreline, I could not help but think of how vast the world is and what we are potentially risking if we do not step up and take care of the world around us.