As we are out and about in our world, which is also the world of nature, there are many opportunities to see, hear, smell or touch something 'cool' that are natural moments. It's a moment that might make us just whisper inside ourselves, WOW, which I contend is the acronym for 'With-Out-Words'.
A Natural Moment takes us out of ourselves and makes us feel part of a bigger something.To increase the chances of Natural Moments, two things have to happen: A) be outdoors and B) pay attention.
A Natural Moment that I recently experienced:
I took my youngest, Nathaniel, to a local mall for a bit of Mother's Day shopping. When we got out of the car we saw, no, we were in the middle of, waves, close-to-the-ground, of delicate white petals being blown first in one direction and then in another. We just watched for two minutes as the waves of petals scooted across the strip mall parking lot, around cars, some being 'caught' in puddles. Nathaniel said it was like snowflakes that never melt. We wondered where the final resting places would be for the petals. Or even it there is such a thing as a 'final place'.
There is no 'right' place for nature, for Natural Moments, for the chance to say WOW. Every place, even the mall parking lot, can be a nature place.
~Ed Bieber is the Owner/Director of The Nature Place Day Camp. He has a B.A. degree from Rutgers University in Botany, M.S. from Michigan State University in Outdoor Education and New York State Permanent Teaching Certification, N-6. Ed has worked professionally, since 1970, with over 250,000 children (and still counting!), adults and families in the outdoors.