Nature's Genius at Jenny Creek

 

“Nature is mythical and mystical always, and spends her whole genius on the least work.” These words by Henry David Thoreau are obviously true, if we but take the time to look and really observe what is around us. Years ago, I wrote an essay about Jenny Creek, which is a small watershed run-off that comes into Mary Lake and then burbles down to the Sacramento River. It is still there, although the housing development to the south and west of Mary Lake has turned Jenny Creek – at least the section above the lake – into more of a culvert than a riparian stream.

Curious how people want nature around them, but then pave it over, plant non-native trees, name subdivisions with woodsy names, plant lawns and flower beds, over-fertilize, over-pesticide, over-trim, over-water, and generally try to conform the natural world into an ersatz version of “See, I can control nature.” When, if they just stop the fear of the natural world and actually look at it, they will see that it is perfect just as it is. In fact, it is numinous and holy, just as it is.

Once, while walking around Mary Lake, I stopped by a small backwater of Jenny Creek where it flowed from a culvert under the road (about 40 feet away) and eddied before it merged into the lake. Here, in this small area – maybe 3 feet across, if that – was a world of tadpoles and skaters bounded by whisker-thin grass and small flowers that were no bigger than the pupil of the eye. I crouched down to look at more closely and it became more complex with more creatures, more flowers, more tracks across the mud-bottom of the tiny pond. This little area was teeming with life and living in its own world of reality separated – yet a part of – everything else.

It reminded me of an old Disney nature movie from over 50 years ago(?). It was called, “Nature's Half Acre” and was the first film I saw as child where the microcosm was presented so that the macrocosm was equally reflected and made relevant. The film of the ecstatic complexity and ecological symbiosis of this acre of wild-ness was a mind-expander for a young child. The engaging show and the message of true interconnectivity and inter-being of all things made a deep impression and has stayed with me all these years.

So perhaps rather than plant equally spaced flowers in an overly manicured and chemically enhanced bed and perhaps have a ficus or two indoors (which is not a bad thing, certainly, as the mere presence of natural greenery can soften the sterility of a room), we should just go out into the natural world – even if it is just a culvert or sub-division run-off filled with life – and stop, crouch down, and really see the resilience and exuberance of nature.  Namaste’.