Nature – it comes to me in song

By

Joe Baust

 Music opens the heart so the mind can learn—Noel Paul Stookey

In a recent post to the Connecting to Nature Blog, I wrote there are times when I see images that beckon me to go outside and experience the natural world. But there are other times when I need the respite of nature, I cannot do it, so I search pictures that calm my mind. It works until I can escape to the out-of-doors.

Each of us will have a need to feel, touch, experience nature, but cannot at that very moment. Our learning styles being so diverse, different, we use our coping skills and adapt. We find a way to help us dream to help us feel. We are not only alive at that point, but we are given a temporary salve for nature, to tide us over until we can immerse ourselves in nature.

Some of us have a poem, text, a story, and a photo, a painting that will calm us temporarily. For me songs and lyrics make that connection. Sometimes when I am out-of-doors I also think of a song or lyric that helps me become ensconced in feeling the natural world more intensely.

For instance, this song recorded by Three Dog Night and written by Paul Williams – “Out In the Country” always comes to mind:

“Whenever I need to leave it all behind
Or feel the need to get away-ay-ay
I find a quiet place, far from the human race
Out in the country 

Before the breathin' air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the night-time
Out where the rivers like to run
I stand alone and take back somethin' worth rememberin' 

Whenever I feel them closing in on me
Or need a bit of room to move
When life becomes too fast, I find relief at last
Out in the country”

(Out in the County - Recroded by Three Dog Night and written by Paul Davis)

Or this song I use to make me think of being in the wind:

“Well, it's not far down to paradise, at least it's not for me
And if the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility
Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see. Believe me.”

(Sailing – Christopher Cross)

“Sit by a mountain stream
See her waters rise
Listen to the pretty sound of music as she flies

Find me in my field of grass
Mother Nature’s son
Swaying daises sing a lazy song beneath the sun.”

(Mother Nature’s Son – John Denver)

As I write this blog post more and more songs come to my mind that allows me to drift into nature:

“And the nights were full of stars
And when you grew tired you
Could close your eyes
Yes the stars were there for wishing
And the wind was there for kites
And the morning sun was
There for rise and shine.

(Catch Another Butterfly – John Denver)

As Liz Stookey – Sunde (daughter to Noel Paul Stookey of the famous group Peter, Paul and Mary): “If you do not use the power of music to create a transformative moment, it is a crime.” A thought we in environmental education should embrace. How can we create a more permanent and transformative moment?

I seek not to supplant a natural experience for people, but I am suggesting that sometimes the way we create images, something to help us further connect to the natural world, music can be a vehicle. I also know that some people understand and are simpatico with my thought of music and others would scoff at something so disconnected from having a “real” experience in nature.

A national conference had a luncheon for a number of participants. A noted musician, songwriter, and activist wanted to spend some time making a connection to the arts and the environment. Some persons were immediately entranced, but several others were so oriented to finishing their agenda for the group, it was an inconvenience to them. Yet, what was missed was the opportunity to be “transformative.” Unfortunately this opportunity was squandered and lost in a task-driven agenda. The music could have been a connection to the purpose of the session; however, it wasn’t. It could have been a segue. Alas, it wasn’t. It was a missed opportunity!

I visited my daughter’s kindergarten classroom at a school in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a busy place where children were active, engaged, and loving to learn. One thing I noted of interest, she used music and singing to move children from station to station, from the classroom to lunch or the bathroom. Nary a child was out-of-hand, and the children were attentive in their singing and participating in music.

Likewise, with a residential pre-service elementary education environmental education, we were in the midst of a theme hike about making connections to nature. A colleague wondered out into the woods and met our group. He played a Mouth-Harp that included rhythms and music about animals. We were in the midst of connecting to those “critters” because we did not see any animals at the time. But it was a way of getting the students to think about them. Each student went out and selected natural items that could be used as a tympanic instrument. Some chose rocks, some chose groups of leaves, and some would find some of the most interesting items for making rhythms. From that experience they learned about how humans made sounds, how they created rhythms as they also sang about the animals they might find in the forest habitat. By the way, they also learned about whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and for once maybe felt the rhythms of the earth and the music that people have always tried to duplicate. What they experienced, what they sang, and the music they heard and felt in the natural world was made a bit more permanent.

As I am thinking about this experience the students loved, another song comes to mind:

“Celebrate morning
The cry of a loon on a lake in the night
The dreams that are born in the dawn’s early light

Celebrate morning
Celebrate living

The laughter that sings in the heart of a child
The freedom that flies at the call of the wild

Celebrate living
Celebrate evening

The stars that appear in the loss of the sun
Whispering winds, we are one, we are one.”

(Earth Day – Everyday – John Denver)

Or this one:

“Open up your eyes and see the brand new day
Clear blue sky and brightly shining sun
Open up your ears and hear the breeze say
Everything that’s cold and gray is gone

Open up your hands and feel the rain come on down
Taste the wind and smell the flowers sweet perfume
Open up your mind and let the light shine in
The earth had been reborn and life goes on”

(Season Suite: Spring – John Denver)

Or this:

Where have all the flowers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time ago.

(Where Have All the Flowers Gone – Peter Seeger)

Stookey-Sunde brings us back to the purpose of music and what I believe is a way of making a connection to the natural world: “ So with all that it conjures up (music) – all that it makes us see, all that it helps us to experience, and all that it allows us to feel…”

Is it not uncanny how music and environmental education are kindred spirits, they “awaken” our eyes and ears, our feelings, our sense of touch? But like anything, it takes time and if we are eager to do a one-and-done in the out-of-doors, often we do not allow ourselves to make those bonds. Perhaps we feel it takes away from the lesson. Au Contraire – it helps make more permanent those threads we like our groups to see, feel, and interconnect – perfect for piecing together knowledge.

Sometimes we may want to think of how a local crisis is shared and through the power of music, it comes to mind:

“Now that our mountain is growing
With hungry people for wealth
How come it’s you that’s a-going
And I’m left all along by myself?
We used to hunt the cool caverns
Deep in our forest of green…”

(Coming of the Road – Peter, Paul and Mary)

Or what about making a garden:

“Whose garden was this?
It must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I’ve seen pictures of flowers
And I’d love to have smelled one?

Whose river was this?
You say it ran freely?
Blue was its color?
I’ve seen blue in some pictures
And I’d love to have been there!

(Whose Garden Was This – John Denver)

And this one:

Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground.

(Garden Song – John Denver)

And this:

“As the blackbird in the spring
'neath the willow tree
sat and piped
I heard him sing…”

(Aura Lea – the music used by E. Presley for Love Me Tender)

Some people find it distracting to have lyrics with music. So in order to meet the needs of those who may want music only, here are some suggestions:

• A Walk in the Black Forest – Horst Jankowski
• Canadian Sunset – Roger Williams and others
• Firebird – Stravinsky (do listen to the 1918 recording that has been upgraded – it is magnificent)
• I Dreamed There Was No War – The Eagles
• Obrigado Brazil – Yo-Yo Ma
• Songs Without Words – Dudley Moore
• The Evening Star (Movie Soundtrack)
• Tommy Emmanual – Live on Stage
• Soundtracks for Movies: Schindler’s List – John Williams; Patch Adams.

The connection between environmental education and music for me is natural. The musical memories I have allow me to take a trip to nature when I cannot. I would like to challenge those of you reading this post to add songs and music to this list so others may have the opportunity to create their own memories. Please post it on our blog.

Sometimes what we fail to be able to do in words alone is better-said accompanying music. Then if we sing these words together…we have a common voice and a memorable one. Music makes it better, voices make it broader. Because as the Bee Gees have told us: “It’s only words and words are all I have….”

But even as the late folk singer Harry Chapin has said about words and lyrics, crafting it into a song is sometimes a tough proposition. He tells us:

Now sometimes words can serve me well
Sometimes words can go to hell
For all that they do
And for every dream that took me high
There's been a dream that's passed me by
I know it's so true.

(In a Life – Harry Chapin)

In spite of our inability at times to make connections, to remember things, music has a way of reminding us. After all what we do in environmental education is good “story telling.” What could make it better is having something to remind us – words as lyrics, stories in music. This allows us to re-experience we have had in the out-of-doors; it recreates the time and place, the feelings and the memories.

I hear music and I hear and feel environmental education. When I cannot get outside, a song beams me outside. I feel the wind, the sounds of birds, the rain, the snow, touching a tree…all of these experiences come back to me through a musical interlude. For me, it is a kind of dreaming that has made a world of difference in my life. As the lyric goes:

I’m the kid who has this habit of dreaming
Sometimes gets me in trouble too
But the truth is, I could no more stop dreaming
Than I could make them all come true.

(The Kid – Peter Paul and Mary and David Wilcox)

Photo: Joe Baust - reminds me of the song - The Flower That Shattered the Stone – John Denver

"Earth is our mother
Just turning around
With her trees in the forest
And roots underground

Our father above us
Whose sigh is the wind
Paint us a rainbow
Without any end

As the river runs freely
The mountain does rise
Let me touch with my fingers
And see with my eyes
In the hearts of the children
A pure love still grows

Like a bright star in Heaven
That lights our way home
Like the flower that shattered the stone"

(The Flower That Shattered the Stone - John Denver)