There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
by the deep sea and the music in its roar;
I LOVE NOT MAN THE LESS, BUT NATURE MORE.
- George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Nature has always been my retreat, my fresh of breath air, that one thing that constantly brings me back on solid ground when I feel like I'm about to fly away and get lost into oblivion. Nature holds beauty and power to the highest. When you see the vastness of a canyon, the ocean, a sunrise there are no words to describe the gasp you let through your lips. It beholds beauty on the largest scale, when you look at the out stretched galaxy. It contains beauty in the smallest petal of that glorious spring flower. And yet within all that peaceful and calm claiming beauty it holds a power larger than any human could imagine possessing. The power to destroy an entire species with one blow. Nature amazes and baffles me most because of the power it holds within me. At the exact same moment nature makes me feel so powerful, it gives me a sense of confidence that truly makes me believe I could take on the world and conquer it. And yet in that same instant, I feel more insignificant, more inadequate and smaller than I ever have.
There truly is a pleasure of getting lost within the grasps of the wild. There is a rapture that forces repentance of the evilest kind when you kneel into the earth. There is a sense of community, a sense of society that is accepting and calming, because of the lack of judgment not company. When you sit amongst the grains of the earth and you listen to the music it strums, the way it strums the strings of your soul. You can only come to the conclusion, that everything in life is not loved less, but that your heart and spirit have grown to love, to crave, nature more.