Journey to the Botans

September 24, 2:00pm
After having class in the Botans on Wednesday, I had been craving to go back and enjoy the peaceful atmosphere the garden provided by my lonesone so that I may have some down time. By the afternoon on Friday, this urge had become so overwhelming that I quite literally dropped everything I had been doing, got up, and left. I stopped at the bridge on the left of the Botans and gazed into the water for a while; it had been a long time sicne I was able to be at peace with the world around me to this level. Staring into the water had a calming effect on me and I was able to zone out the corrupted world, thus entering into a quiet place without thinking. I was unaware of exactly how long I had spaced out for- it could have been hours for all i know. What I DO know is that my world of silence was shattered by the random quacking of a duck. I looked up at the sound only to see a female mallard standing on a rock in the water with her head cocked sideways as if to say "You there! Stupid human! What on Earth are you doing?". At that point, I was in such an odd space that I ended up asking the duck in an "oh no you didn't" type voice "Did you just QUACK at me?". (Of course I would have felt crazy and terribly embarassed had someone come along and seen me talking to a duck, but luckily for me, no one did). The mallard did an awkward head-bobbing movement in response to my question. It almost looked as though she were nodding her head in response to my question! She then quacked again, never taking her eyes off me. I was unsure of how to react to her this time, so I just stood there awkwardly and stared at her. It was then that another female mallard jumped up on the rock beside her. I instantly found myself looking around to spot their mates. Sure enough, a few feet down the stream there were 2 mallard boys swimmingand poking around in the bottom for food. While the males were of beeing preoccupiedwith their food and swimming around without a care in the world, it was the females that were on red alert and wouldn't take their eyes off me. I couldn't help but laugh; the concept was just so typical. I decided to let the poor females get back to their routines so I walked to the other side of the bridge and gazed into the water there instead. I noticed the reflection of a tree branch up above me. The tree was in the Christmas tree family, though of which subspecies, I couldn't be sure. 2 branches of this tree curved part way over the stream before curving back around towards the bank. I couldn't help but wonder why the branches ahd such peculiar behavior. No answers came to mind. Then it hit me. As I was staring at these 2 branches I had my first "Oh, duh!" naturalist moment: No branches have leaves/needles/etc. growing out the bottom of the branch. Although this is without a doubt a fairly stupid discovery, it was in that moment that lot of things "clicked" for me. Though the branches were obviously growing where they were for photosynthesis-related purposes, I couldn't help but find a metaphor in my viewpoint of the tree. True, people have observed the undersides of trees many a time, but just now many of them have noticed that there are no needles or leaves growing on the undersides of branches? And just how many of them have though that the views that humans have of trees on a day-to-day basis is only one side of the story? The view I had of this tree was just like the basic view that non-naturalists have on life. Most humans would only view one side of this tree, and think they've seen all there is to see, that there view is the only one that there is, but naturalists, would stop and ponder one side of the tree from the next, or what a birds view of the tree would be like from above looking down. Where as most humans don't think about their daily actions in relation to the rest of the world outside of how it would effect other humans, naturalists would think about their actions in retrospect with the rest of the world.
I meandered towards the Botans with a barrage of life-changing thoughts filling my head. And to think - it all started with me talking to a duck.