About Paying Attention

          Thomas Friedman writes (pp. 314 - 316) that we humans need to see Nature in order to want to save it.  He quotes Gandhi:  "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves".  He quotes Amory Lovins on what's the most important thing an environmentalist can do today:  "Pay attention".  He describes an indigenous guide who took his family through Peruvian rainforest:  "He was always and only paying attention to what was happening around him."  
         And I think: I may not be planting enough trees and shrubs, or putting them into the Earth in places that will really matter, but I am certainly paying attention.  I'm seeing more when I'm out there than I saw before, I'm seeing our woods on days of the year - whole weeks of a year - I would have missed before because of the rain.  The rain that I now plant right through (though I don't always head out into it!!).  I'm seeing little changes in bud growth, flowers' emergence, leaves unfolding.  
         Today I was down by the river for a long time, and saw the water turn and tumble, reflect light, accept the rain.  I saw an osprey return to its nest (atop an old utility pole, relocated to river's edge just for this mated pair)  with something long and thin in its talons - a snake?  a fish of some sort?  part of something?