Nature: The Natural World

But in nature, in my worn and woven path around the pond I was finally not on guard, certainly not thinking “Am I doing this right?” And in nature the Child, (my Child Self), found acceptance.

It has always been my belief and experience that all children have a relationship to, and a need for the natural world. Even the urban child finds a spot of dirt, notices a bird song, wonders at clouds in the sky and feels grass with hands and feet. It does not take much to enliven this connection as nature, and gardening programs have shown us in even the most industrial urban areas. The connection is innate from birth because we too are a part of nature. It also does not take much to alienate the child from nature when negative introjections about the natural world occur.

No matter how alien this idea may seem to you, be aware, a child of nature is who you were born to be and who has been born to you. Your Child and your Child Self will be served by accepting this notion. The price of non-acceptance is very high. 

I spoke about helpers earlier in the book and saved for this chapter several stories about nature as a helper. It is important to pay attention to how your Child will find helpers in the natural world, and to notice how your Child Self did as well. 

When I was four years old I was drawn to being outside. There I would talk to the grass, the sky and the animals. I had already learned through the reactions of others that my relationship to the natural world was not an exact fit for those around me. I was born into a family that came from urban poverty and was trying hard to fit into middle class suburban life. Screens were the focus of the household and nature was not. One day I was looking at the blades of grass and just felt them talk to me. “Hello,” I said. And the grass answered back a cheerful hello. Ecstatic at my new found friends, I took my little person self inside and went to search for someone to tell the news to. My mother’s reaction was less than enthusiastic. I sensed that the feeling of connection to my grassy friends could not be right, mostly because no one had told me that it was. No one engaged in the world of nature with me and in fact excluded and rejected my “dirt girl” self when it showed up covered in mud and muck. This internalized a belief that I must have something wrong with me. The little grassy, smiley friends stained my fingers green as I returned to the lawn and ripped them from their muddy holes shoved them in my pockets, and thought “I’ll just take them home with me, but I won’t show anyone. 

So, how do we bring this connection to the natural world into the life of the Child? How do we foster it for the sake of the Child Self that may be unconsciously bereft from the separation forced on them by opinions, prejudice and circumstances? We start with love. Express love and wonder for everything you see, smell, taste and touch in the natural world. Show respect for nature and the natural world, even if your contact with it is limited. Enter the Child you are raising, and your Child Self into an equal partnership with the natural world. It may surprise you and yet feel familiar. 

To the Child (for those of you who do not naturally feel this connection): 

“I don’t know much about all this nature stuff but I see you are watching an ant. Do you want to know something about ants? I wonder how they can lift and carry something so big. When they are in the house I feel like I have to get rid of them, but out here they seem to belong. I guess it would make sense to find out more about ants, even if I don’t want them in the house”. 

This goes for mice, rats and pigeons. After all it is not their fault and they were not created to vex you. 

To the Child Self (especially if you were not permitted, encouraged or able to love the natural world). 

“Little one, I know you are lonely for something, something that you were a part of, the earth the sky, nature? Whatever it is, let’s go find it together, slowly at first. And its ok if you never like bugs. It is not your fault you grew up learning that you were not a part of nature”. 

Again, no matter how alien this may seem to you, you need to accept this part of yourself, and of your Child. The price of separation from the natural world is very high, we can see evidence of that in the environmental crisis that is all around us.

There is a freedom, one that seems to be more limited now in many societies for numerous reasons, that being in nature can offer the child spirit. Rides down streets on bikes, running through neighborhoods with packs of friends, or one special buddy in the summer who wanders with you until sunset. Having the opportunity to be free in any aspect of the natural world is a great teacher and perhaps a potential “helper” to the Child, and to the Child Self. 

I am 7 years old. I walked out of the house around 4:00 in the afternoon, it was not dusk, it was pre dusk. Must have been April or May. The ground was saturated and muddy. It felt good walking on it, like walking on a sponge, nothing jarring my bones like cement did. I had a destination, a goal. There was a pond from an old farm that remained behind the suburban houses, each one identical to the one I lived in.  I walked behind them, over the then unfenced private lawns. I crowned the hill over the pond and slid- stepped my way down. The pond could not have been very big, it was wet and soggy and smelled of sulfur and fish and dirt. I stayed on the edge and began to walk around the circumference. It was like a claiming, walking a groove into the earth stating my existence on it.  This was a sacred place, because out there in the profane world I was subject to ridicule. But in nature, in my worn and woven path around the pond I was finally not on guard, certainly not thinking “Am I doing this right?” And in nature the Child, (my Child Self), found acceptance.

We need to show the Child respect for nature and the natural world, not dominion over it. Most of us have been taught that we are not only the masters of nature, and that we can take all we want from it, but that we are also responsible for all the damage to natural things. We have come to believe that we are alone are responsible for the repair. This is known as a human centric perspective, a view of the universe that does not serve nature or us. If we would cease from holding the self-image as saviors of the natural world and of having dominion over nature, we would change our relationship to one of partnership and stewardship. 

Having permission to be one with the natural world gives the Child, and the Child Self, the ability to be in balance. To not struggle with superiority over the natural world, or conversely, with inadequacy in comparison to it. 

©D'vorah Horn 2025. We invite you to share this work, but please do not copy any portion without attribution to D'vorah Horn.