I’ve been asked that question twice recently, in very different contexts. The first time was after I described a hike I’d just taken in Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains. The trail was narrow and rocky and picked its way across a steep mountainside. It was hot, the footing was tricky, and I’m 73 years old with a gimpy knee. Exhilarating but hard. The second time was after I mentioned a political demonstration I’d just attended — one of many.
But both times, I answered that question about what keeps me going with no hesitation: wildflowers.
That mountain hike was through an area dominated by rocks that originated in the earth’s mantle and were transformed by great pressure on the deep seafloor before being uplifted millions of years ago. These rocks are low in calcium and other soil nutrients and high in metals like chromium that are toxic to most plants. So any plants able to survive and grow here are special, and to see them, and their beautiful flowers, you have to hike into places that seem barren until you walk slowly and look carefully.
My greatest reward on the Siskiyou Mountains hike was the split-hair paintbrush, its flowers a unique delicate lavender, their outline softened by downy silver hairs. Then there were the hardy succulent stonecrops, the oddly twisted flowers of parrots-beak, and the delicate blossoms of Lewis flax, their color the same cerulean blue as the sky. Finally, at the end of the trail, I came to a glade with tall beargrass in bloom, their tiny star-shaped flowers gathered into white globes that seemed to hang weightless in the air. All in all, an incomparable reward for my aches and pains.
The political demonstration was completely different. Joining some friends and neighbors, I went from a burning sense of outrage about a senseless foreign war and also a strong sense of civic duty. I admit it often seems futile to make these gestures of resistance in a little town in southern Oregon. But I don’t stop, and what keeps me going, what gives me the energy and will to speak up, is time spent outside with flowers, birds and the beauty of wild landscapes. In short, the nurturing grace of nature.
I know many people are suffering from the corruption and incompetence of this administration. As a conservation biologist, I am outraged at the attacks on our federal public lands and the dismantling of responsible stewardship by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service. As a scientist, I am appalled at the defunding and mismanagement of our nation’s scientific enterprise, from the National Science Foundation to the Centers for Disease Control. As a citizen, I am furious at the attempts to undermine our system of free and fair elections. As a human being, I am sickened by the treatment of our immigrant friends and neighbors.
Turning away is of no help, while keeping going as long as it takes seems to require two kinds of response: Resistance, then recharge.
Resistance can take as many forms as there are outrages to resist, from writing letters to the editor, to registering voters, to taking to the streets to protest or when immigration agents show up. Recharge, too, will be different for different people. But for everyone, I recommend that it includes time in nature. Most of us have an intuitive understanding that time spent outdoors is good for our mental health. A recent spate of research confirms these benefits, such as lowered blood pressure, improved immune function, and reduced stress hormones — all have been shown to correlate with time spent in nature.
My hike across a hot, rocky mountainside would definitely not qualify for what the Japanese call “forest bathing.” Nor would sitting quietly in a busy city park or your own backyard. But time outdoors doesn’t have to be challenging or fancy to get us out of ourselves and away from screens, giving us the chance to reconnect with the living, breathing Earth.
It just feels good. Resist. Recharge. Repeat. And don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers.
Pepper Trail is a conservation biologist and contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He writes in Oregon.
Hiking the rugged Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon, photo by Pepper Trail
