Seeing The Trees Despite The Forest

Meriwether Lewis.

Now he’s an interesting one to study.

One of the most interesting things about him, on his quest to discover the West, at least for me at this point in my own woodsy becoming, was his interest in and orientation toward detail. Not so much the administration and regimentation involved in putting together the Corps of Discovery, getting it moving upriver, Westward, and back again … daring and burdensome endeavor that it was. But in noticing, cataloging, and capturing the myriad details of the vast and changing natural landscape that surrounded him as he went.

It was this bent for natural details, I think anyway, that got him assigned the primary role to lead the Corps … his ability to see the trees despite the forest. His mission? Cast aside all the hearsay notions and speculations and PERSONALLY DISCOVER what’s really OUT THERE!  I think (this is totally speculation on my part) that Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether to do what he wanted to do himself but couldn’t because of his Presidential and personal responsibilities at Montecello.

The expression … see the trees despite the forest … is a good one and has been applied in a lot of ways to a wide assortment of things – though I’ve never heard it used or applied in this outdoor community in the sense that I’m using it and encouraging its use.

See the trees despite the forest … regardless the location or size of the woodlot. Every woodlot, small or large, has an education beneath its canopy. Even if the course offering is a refresher course. This business of seeing the trees is something that I’ve always injected, in one way or another, into the basics of fire, hydration, shelter, and food when working with students. How effective those injections have been is yet to be determined.

How do we do this? How do we see the trees despite the forest?

SLOW DOWN.

This is hard for us to do.

Our lives are not oriented around slowing down. Not in an economy designed for production.

We are driven to produce. Busyness is a sign and byproduct of production. Up early … off to work … clock the hours … fill the work orders … meet the quotas … increase the profits … get it done, get it done, get it done. Then go try to pack as much busyness as we can into a little time off.

The driving force of busyness becomes our lifestyle. Busyness is, in some regards, a necessary evil. This busyness is a tragedy that we need to leave at home when we go to the woods.

One of the sad realities happening here in our locale is the closing of our favorite park. We are heartsick about the news but not surprised.

It’s an out of the way place where Shirli and I have enjoyed many a weekend primitive camping trip over the years. It was also one of my favorite places to do skills camps. It’s not that it is so out of the way that distance makes it impractical for a weekend getaway. The problem is that folks don’t take to the woods to escape their busyness. Folks no longer see the woods as a place of renewal. Woods … for the sake of the woods … can no longer compete with the busyness of beaches, amusement parks, videos, iPhones, ad infinitum.

TUNE IN

There are several diagnostic questions that I ask of students after a training weekend. The questions vary depending upon the students and the nature of the exercises.

I asked this question at the conclusion of a 3 Night 4 Day trip …

For you as an individual, what was the most difficult thing about these past 4 days and 3 nights?

The most interesting response?

Dealing with the lack of stimulation.

Stimulation?

It’s not that we have a lack of stimulation in a woodland environment. To the contrary. We are surrounded by sources of stimulation. Some of them can be in your face and under your feet obvious … and dangerous.  Like a Diamondback coiled and rattling a foot in front of you. Or a cougar stalking your camp at 2 in the morning. Been there. Done that. Mark those off my bucket list. Once is enough for each of those rarities. Some of them are slight and subtle. Most of them are slight and subtle until we tune in to their obvious presence that is constantly inviting us to observe them.

Our senses of sight, smell, and hearing serve important roles in a woodland environment. These senses not only serve to protect us from danger. They also serve to inform us of a lot of other things. Good things. Simply sitting in the woods for an hour with nothing but our senses can be a nice hour of stimulating and personally renewing education.

What do you think about for an hour?

Only what you see, smell, and hear. Turn off all the other mental traffic and tune in to the sights, smells and sounds that surround you. This is especially difficult at first considering most people, regardless their age, seem to have a need to be constantly engaged talking or doing something.

CHRONICLE

Our brain is designed to record things and is constantly mapping and making notes.

It would be good if we could remember it all but the volume of records generated daily is more than most of us can keep up with unless we are particularly “gifted.” I realized long ago that I am not one of the particularly gifted ones.

Don’t rely simply on memory. Make good use of the 3-P’s … Pencil, Paper, Photograph.

Make brief written notes in a small portable notebook that allows you to easily keep up with them. I prefer a mechanical pencil with a 7mm medium lead and carry a small notepad in my shirt pocket (One with a sewn binding so the pages don’t come unglued and fall out). Use whatever you prefer. The main thing is to treat pencil and paper as everyday carry. Keep it with you always.

This isn’t a Dear Diary. Nor is it a journal where you go into a lot of deep philosophical reflection and detail. There are other places and times that are more appropriate for that.

Keep it simple. Things like … Heard a strange bird call but didn’t see the bird … go online and listen to the calls of birds. Then follow up on it. The brief notes can be about any number of things you see, hear, smell, or sense. Note them on paper. Go back and look at the notes. Follow up with some research. If you can identify the sound made by the bird go on a search for pictures of the bird and be on a look-out for it when you go to the woods.

I have a love-hate relationship with cell phones. More so now that our cell numbers have been made public and every scammer and telemarketer can ring us up at random.

One of the things that I love about having this cell phone with me is that the built-in camera takes decent pictures. I rely on it as a camera a lot when out in the woods. It saves on carrying a camera hung around my neck all the time.

Back when Meriwether (and a lot of adventurers before him) went on missions of discovery, meticulous drawings had to be made of things. Me? I have trouble staying inside the lines with crayons and a coloring book. My phone-camera not only captures images. It also captures the images in color. A picture saves having to harvest and bring home samples of everything that I see. Pictures allow me to compare things with pictures and descriptions in guidebooks and on the internet.

Slow down. Tune in. Chronicle.

See the trees despite the forest.