The concept of mottainai encompasses the idea of respecting resources and not wasting them, along with an inherent recognition of their value. (BBC)
Author: Dr. Dean
Walking on sunshine
Peabody Sisters: Igniting American Romanticism
Can Redwoods Save the World?
Not by themselves, but the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is out to show how they can help. (Atlas Obscura)
Drifting Through The Night
Margaret Fuller
Nature makes children happier, science shows
As my wife, daughters and I hiked through the woods at one of the many state parks near our home, I explained to them how we were doing three things that were simultaneously boosting our happiness at that moment. . . (CNN)
The Smithsonian has released more than 2.8 million images you can use for free
Included are images from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo. (The Verge)
Radical Transcendentalism: Emerson, Muir and the Experience of Nature
The uniquely American Transcendentalist School which formed in Harvard-influenced 1830’s Cambridge brought a New Idea regarding man, spirit, and nature to a young country struggling to find its own voice . . . (Sierra Club)
Walt Whitman and the Soul of Democracy
Whitman looks across America and sees himself in whomever he meets: “the horseman in his saddle,/Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,/The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,/The female soothing a child–the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,/The young fellow hoeing corn.” (The Atlantic)
A Photographer’s Guide To ‘Slow Seeing’ The Beauty In Everyday Nature
Janelle Lynch invites you to look closer, and slower. She’d want you to see each image as a world in itself — not an accidental grouping of plant matter, but a well-ordered composition created by nature and fixed in time and space by her 8-by-10-inch large-format camera.
Her implicit message is that one needs only to be still, take your time and pay close attention to find the beauty that surrounds you. But, like meditation, this seemingly simple act is often more difficult than it appears.
(NPR)
Dean’s List 