Not Annie Dillard

In many Eastern traditions, the world of nature is considered to be maya, or illusion, while in other Eastern and Global South traditions, nature is mother. Western tradition has often teetered between the assertion that nature is God’s good creation and that it has been “frustrated” by human sin. In more recent times, the world around us has been regarded as the expression of random selection and chance. Explore some aspect of nature (as in the non-human world) and write a short piece (fiction, poem, mini-essay) in which your descriptions reflect and reveal your philosophical understanding of nature..."without actually stating directly what your philosophical position is."


Yeah....... I must have written about this topic a million times, although not in this manner... well, perhaps yes.




I wait for that moment when my toes will meet
the waters edge, waiting just for me,
it is there that I know who I am


I look up and speak words out into the air 
sometimes silently, some times aloud
I can feel my body shift as it becomes
a part of the water, before I enter I am there


Walking along, I glimpse signs of life and death, 
shells that once held something living, now vomited up
as a gift to that one and one alone who will find it lovely
and gather it to keep


Visible signs of life, baby sea turtles, urchins and crabs
all there before me and as I look I see myself in them
I am part of this too, it is in me and of me
there are dangers here coral rock and sea life
unable to identify me - seeing me as a source of food
biting, scraping, rashing.... smiling I think much like life
on the other side of the dune
a different world?  No it is the the same.  All things come of beauty, 
it is for me to see with new eyes, to watch, to become.