I decided to sit in a different spot this time that I visit the ponds. Last time my back was to the people that hustled by, but now it is time to face them. Time to see what I am like for the majority of my day and for an hour I will try with all my might to be totally opposite. I am reminded of what Prof. Bump said in class about now I should try to just be and not try to become. So for the next hour I will sit still and be. To try to find the connection or the big picture of the ponds and me I try to not be me. I transcend from me to someone else and sit and listen. The birds five a happy chirp and it surrounds me. I hear the wind as it breezes gently through the branches and it occasionally catches a blade of grass and it sings me a song. The wind gently presses upon my face, just enough to let me know that it is there and it soothes me. It brings me to a place within myself that is sometimes hard to find. Everything seems so gentle and peaceful. The way the grass blows is like some sort of a pattern but not so structured. The trees move as if they are dancing with the wind. The wind is the leader and the tree is the follower who moves gracefully and beautifully on the limbs of the trees. Why do birds seem to flock to this place? Maybe they know about the true relaxation and peace that comes from being surrounded by gentleness. I am so away from the norm right now. I love the way the wind brushes over me. A huge, black, noisy, flying insect just landed on me and I tried to kill it. Tell me how am I suppose to connect with that? My emotions are totally different now. I seem to be very selective in what I enjoy in nature or try to connect with and what I don't want to connect with. Am I being fair? To see one side of something but not open my eyes enough to look at the whole picture. I wonder what beauty lies in the eyes of a pigeon or a squirrel? What do they find captivating and unbelievable? What is their heaven on earth? Forester states in "The Other Side of the Hedge", "Even when the water was out of my eyes, I was still dazed, for I had never been in so large a space, nor seen such grass and sunshine." P.389. I feel like that sometimes, like even though my eyes are clear and open I am so dazed. Like right now for instance, I am looking. Listening, and all I can do is sit hear and wonder in my dazed state. This is all one thing. Looking around at the nature, wind and animals we all belong to one thing and have one common bond, we live. The movements of the wind scream life, the way the animals communicate are all about life. In "Vocabularies of Nature" by Burch he talks of life and its correlation with nature. Burch quotes Ernst Cassirer in saying, "the firm belief in the unity of life eclipses all those differences that, from our own point of view, seem unmistakable and ineffaceable." Ernst also comments on the "society of life." The society of life is the total package of all that is encompassed in it. We all are encompassed in it, not only the obvious or the beautiful but everything connects and reacts off of one another. Thus creating the entire society composed of not the basic forms of nature or the most common but everything in life.