Today was Easter. The day started out a little gloomy but ended up being very beautiful. Today for my blog I decided to take a trip to my grandmother’s house in King George, Virginia. My grandmother has a lot of land that I like to walk around on as it is very quiet and secluded. Today I heard and saw a lot of things I always associate with spring. One thing I associate with spring, shown in the photo above, is wisteria flowers. I always remember the smell of the wisteria flowers being prominent when coming to my grandparent’s farm in the spring. To me, the flowers represent all the enjoyment that spring brings me. I know as soon as I smell the sweet and floral scent of wisteria that spring is here, which usually means school is near its end and warm weather is on its way. My reflection of how meaningful wisteria are to me reminded me of the reading, “The Serviceberry” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. In her article she reflects on how things that nature gives us are “gifts” as we have to do nothing to receive them. (Kimmerer, paragraph 6) This made me further reflect on my personal relationship with nature. I find that, to me, the natural environment often becomes sort of a background thought, an idea that also emerged in Joshua Barnett’s book, Mourning in the Anthropocene. (Barnett, xi) I know I care for the environment, however, I do not care for it as actively as it does to me. The environment constantly offers me an outlet to unwind in. However, I find my response back is to always take. I take an experience away every time I am in nature but fail to reciprocate the “gifts” it has given me.(Kimmerer, paragraph 6)This reflection has made me much more conscious as to what I do to support nature back. That may be something as small picking up trash that I see on the road, or it could be as big as giving to a local wildlife charity. Nature gives me a lot of itself on the daily, I find it is my time to openly reciprocate.
Bibliography:
Barnett, Joshua Trey. Mourning in the Anthropocene: Ecological Grief and Earthly Coexistence. Michigan State University Press, 2022.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. “The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance.” Emergence Magazine, https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/the-serviceberry/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2025.
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