Speak for the Trees

written by Josie Hammond and Liv Adao

Good evening, fellow tree huggers! We hope you had a marvelous Mary Oliver Monday. Long time no see, happy November! We have been soaking in these incredible crisp fall days and hope you are too. In fact, today, we had our first snow of the year in Nashville! Tonight we want to discuss our October, more specifically, our screen-less October. This somewhat social-media “detox” challenge was a test of our ability to be in the present and truly seek opportunities to look more. Here are some things we learned along the way. But wait, wait, wait, first, let’s listen to what Mary Oliver has to say about the art of looking!

Starting out with such a banger line. Mary beautifully writes that yes, “there are things you can’t reach” in this world, and yet that should not hinder you from still reaching out to them daily. The world is filled with infinite, mysterious, and glorious intricacies that we can only unveil if we look with open eyes and open arms. This notion of constant observation and childlike wonder is exactly what Mary encourages us to hold on to. So, some advice from Mary Oliver is to never stop looking.

Time for some reflection on this past month without social media. Our screen time quickly went down to only a few hours after deleting Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. And to be honest, we were pretty bored. But a good bored. The nature of our world right now would have you believe that boredom is the absolute enemy—the name of the game in the 21st century is constant and ever-present mental stimulation. We play games on our phones while we watch a movie, we listen to podcasts while making dinner, we scroll and scroll and scroll—we find any and every way to avoid any sort of silence that might give way to actual purposeful thought. This past month, we became familiar with silence and the true value of “boredom,” allowing ourselves to just sit with ourselves and our surroundings. And when we did engage with media in some way, we found it more enjoyable engaging in a type of media that was intentional and rooted in an actual purpose rather than to pass the time or rot on a device. Our healthier outlets were reading, listening to music and podcasts, watching movies, and even simply doing nothing! We think that it is too easy to become sucked into the delusion that constantly consuming media and entertainment is normal. There is no denying that social media has its benefits; it can connect people with each other and provide a sense of creative outlet, but when it starts to get harmful is when we lose sight of the actual purpose we are going on it for. Next time you go on your phone, think, am I actually opening this app to do something, or am I just opening this app because I have nothing to do. Because the truth is that you do have things to do. Things to notice, discover, and ponder on. But these things are not confined to a screen; they are in our reality, only found by looking.

Now, how does this relate to the environment? Excellent question! We believe that the natural world is tied to almost all aspects of looking and staying present. When we spend less time on our devices, we are quite literally able to spend more time looking up at the beautiful world around us and appreciate the glorious gift that is the world we live in. It’s easy when we spend all our time on the little rectangle that is our phone to imagine and internalize the idea that that is all our world is. We quickly become trapped in some claustrophobic net of who our date to the next dance will be, if we should’ve gone to the football game, if we should try the new absurd anti-wrinkle hacks everyone is always promoting. We spiral further and further into our own brains and lose track of the very ground beneath our feet. Really, words cannot describe the benefit of simply going outside and touching some grass. Mother nature offers a consistent and nurturing presence that does literally ground us. So, it is quintessential to spend time outside and be reminding of her beauty, admiring and also fighting to maintain and protect her.

We live in a world that is constantly prioritizing the advancements towards technology and modernization to the point of no longer even needing the physical world around us—but how crazy is that? We scroll on Pinterest and pin aesthetic pictures of people hiking through mountains, or a spectacular sunset across the lake, but we forget that these same spectacular scenes are available to us right outside!!! Life is all around us, waiting to be enjoyed and acknowledged and really, truly, looked at.

Goodnight, tree huggers, and thank you for reading this. You have some homework tonight. We ask that you intentionally seek boredom and really look at something this week, big or small. Don’t be shy to report it back to us :)))