Falling in Love with the Natural World – Ecological and Emotional Literacy

Join the Creation Care team for a discussion with John Bates, writer/author of the biweekly column, “A Northwoods Almanac,” for the Lakeland Times in Minoqua.

Falling in Love with the Natural World – Ecological and Emotional Literacy – John Bates

The study of the natural world requires a deep connection to two landscapes. One is the outer landscape – our observations of, and experiences with, the natural world. This grants us a scientific understanding, wherein we begin to gain a sense of place via our ecological literacy.

The second is our connection via our emotional literacy to our inner landscape. Here we work to find the emotional translation of our ecological understandings into the way we enact our lives.

Physicist Chet Raymo wrote, “Two things are required to truly see, knowledge and love. Without love, we don’t look. Without knowledge, we don’t know what it is we are seeing.”

What we are seeking in nature is much larger than science. We want an intimate relationship, a sacred connection, the discovery that we are indeed part of a living community that is mostly non-human, and that has value and purpose in itself. We want to belong. We seek a membership within this Earth, and to the specific places we find ourselves.

John Bates is the author of ten books on the Northwoods and Upper Midwest, and a contributor to seven others. John has been featured on Wisconsin Public Television several times and has been a frequent guest on Wisconsin Pubic Radio. He has worked as a state forest naturalist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and owns Trails North, a naturalist guide service. He also conducts outdoor classes for the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, Nicolet College, the North Lakeland Discovery Center, and many others. For thirty-one years he has written a biweekly column, “A Northwoods Almanac,” for the Lakeland Times in Minocqua, Wisconsin.