A divided road

During the past few years, I had come to spend a great deal of my time outside of school running around in the slough behind Axtell Park Junior High school. I had come to feel most at home here in nature’s world. More than just a get away from the cold world of civilization, as I considered it in the beginning, my young mind was coming to understand this natural world in a very intimate way. Everything about this world made perfect sense. There was balance in this world and self-renewal.


There was no waste in nature’s way. Everything had a purpose. When the leaves were no longer needed at the end of the summer, the trees would drop them to replenish the soil with nutrients for the next summer’s growth. The food chain was the perfect example of perpetual self-renewal. Even an old can that someone had thrown away was put to use as a home for some little creature.


So different from the world of mankind, where balance was not considered and renewable products were becoming less desirable. It was the decade of the ‘70’s, during which we were becoming a throwaway society. With fast food restaurants popping up everywhere and practically everything was being made to be disposable, litter was becoming commonplace, a part of the scenery.


It was during these years that something disturbing was happening to my secret home. When I first discovered this place, there was nothing but a large chunk of mostly undeveloped land. There was a large field in the midst of this land that was being farmed, usually for corn or soybeans. This didn’t bother me. It was still green and remained pretty wild. What did bother me was that this land was slowly being ripped apart to make room for the construction of apartment complexes. This was like losing my home to me. I felt for the animals, and this saddened me.


It was in seeing these changes to an innocent land that gave me insight into the plight of the American Indian as their home was being altered by the arrival of a new people. This was a people who had no respect for the grand scheme of things, a people who had consideration only for their own selfish and destructive desires, a people who knew little of the interdependence that has sustained life on this planet for so long and has nurtured us.


This year, however, it was no small piece being taken away. Western Avenue was being constructed right through the very heart of this land to bridge another connection to the West Sioux neighborhood. What made this so, very hard for me was not just that it was being done but that it was being done in my plain view. One of my last classes of the day was on the west side of this school. This gave me a clear view of the workers as they were destroying all that meant so much to me, and I could do nothing but watch. This was tearing me up inside.


After my classes finished, I would go behind the school to see more closely the damage that was being done. What was once what my friends and I called the main trail was now becoming a main road as the trees were being torn away to make more room. I knew each one of these trees so very well. They were like family to me. I remembered climbing them so many times. Their branches were like arms that held me securely while I would read a good book, becoming lost in a world from some other time. Now I was looking at them lying there, ripped from the earth, as if they were victims of a horrible war. I cried.


I was feeling the pull of two distinct worlds inside of me as I had felt so many times before. One was the world of today, the world of technology and all that fascinated me about this world. In this moment, seeing the consequences of that world made it seem cold and evil. The other was the world of yesterday, longing to be left alone. This world felt hurt as just another of many wrongs had been done unto it.


The pull of these two worlds was becoming a struggle, internal to me that I was coming to feel more, growing stronger in both directions as my world was changing. I was feeling myself being ripped apart by two possible futures that seemed to be in total contradiction, one from the other. I wanted both worlds but saw no way for these two worlds to live in harmony.


I was feeling a great attraction for the wisdom I had received from the natural world. A wisdom that could not be had even from the best books I had read. There was something very magical about the experience of finding what looked like miniature tadpoles in a discarded container holding stagnant water and keeping this container to watch them grow, only to find out later they weren’t tadpoles at all but mosquito larvae. And to watch them crawl from under the water, coming to stand on the water and later fly away.


The same feeling could be had from watching a lowly caterpillar spin its cocoon, and later watch the butterfly as it emerges and opens its wings to dry in the sun before flying away, or from watching a beaver busily building his dam, creating an oasis for countless other animals. Or even catching a cicada to see what had been making that incredibly loud tune during the late summer months. Experiencing these things gives a child so much more than could be had from any classroom experience.


The child gains more than just knowledge. He gains a respect for life and for all of life’s creatures. His world becomes more than a mere resource for self-indulgent and often wasteful activities. It becomes a friend and personal guide to all of life’s concerns. It promotes inquiry into self and innocent curiosity of the world around us.


This passage was excerpted from my book Inside the Glass, a personal memoir. I would like to dedicate today’s posting to my sister Diane Moberly (1952-2010) who passed on this past week. Her funeral is today. She had mentioned once this particular part of the book as having quite an impact.


A little off the normal theme of this blog, but I wanted to share it with you.



Jeffrey Brandt

Author of Close Your Eyes to Find Your Way: A Guide to Discovering Your Higher Self.






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