NATURE RULES!!!
One way or another this is a fact, a fact of LIFE.
Not get to science-y on you but humans evolved in Nature… naturally, just like the Blue Whales, Sparrows and Spiders. But along with our big brained superiority complex came the notion that we, as humans, are above Nature, better than Nature, need to be separated from Nature.
FAIL
This separation began on a tiny fissure and has become a vast crevasse. So many of us are miles from a living connection to fresh air, water, tress, plants and the sounds of a health forest. Miles from enjoying the types of nutrition that our bodies were evolved to process naturally. All of our five senses evolved in Nature, crave Nature and still belong in Nature. We desire to see, hear, smell taste and feel Nature (even if on a subliminal, primordial level).
Landscape painting is a selfish endeavour. My office is out there where the five senses can flourish. Stress is notably absent. My body free of the destructive effects of adrenalin and cortisol.
FREE
Free to be 100% present on a quiet, misty early October Morning in Algonquin Park. Free to deeply breathe in the misty air, rife with Oxygen and the smell of the damp driftwood on the shore of Canisbay Lake. But this is not a solitary experience. I am not alone.
A haunting howl breaks the silence and surrounds me as if coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. The moments creep by as that howling continues but does not reveal its source. Then, a gentle disturbance in the water only metres away. Mystery solved. The Loon. This is every day for the loon, still firmly seated in its Natural habitat. For us it seems like a daunting amount of effort to be out there where, in fact, we should be, we are meant to be, with the loon.
It we can’t be out there then it helps to bring the “out there” back to where people do live. I do my small part by capturing the moment in oil paint on small panel and return from out there to share it with others craving that connection to Nature.
It is a visual reminder of the feeling I had in my heart that morning. But we need to be out there, to connect. Engage all five senses. From the air we breathe, to the food we eat, to the clothes we wear, lets get closer to where we belong in Nature.