Therese Miller ENGL 3534 November 14, 2013 Nature Narrative Freedom in Nature From the side of the

volcano, I sit on the rocks looking out at Gods beautiful creation. My feet dangle below me, not knowing or caring how long a drop it is. The view encircles me, everywhere I look I see the beauty of the untouched world. The adjacent volcano, Popocatepetl, is wrapped in clouds underneath the bright blue sky. Not a human soul in sight, I am simply wrapped up in my thoughts and in nature. I look upon the rolling mountains, the vast expanse of trees and I feel the power of the world inside of me; I feel larger than life, but at the same time I feel like a small piece of a large puzzle. I embrace the paradox of my insignificance and my importance in this world through the beauty of the world that is engulfing me. My mind is racing yet I am at peace. It seems like time has stopped passing because I have no constraints. In this moment I am drowning in the beauty and power of the world and in this moment I understand what it feels like to be free. Last year for spring break I travelled to Cholula, Mexico with a group of students from the Newman Community, the Catholic Campus Ministry at Virginia Tech. Before this trip, I had never been on a week-long service trip and I had never been out of the country, so this was definitely a new experience for me. While in Cholula I was able to experience a completely new society with a completely new culture, which I had expected. What I did not anticipate was to

experience a completely different relationship with the land. I felt as though I had entered a new world, and in many ways I had. In Mexico, they deal with many issues that we do not think twice about in the United States. One of these is water. Most of the United States has easy access to clean water and in copious amounts. We easily have the ability to fill up a water bottle with clean drinking water and we have the ability to shower daily without worrying about running out of water. However, this is not the case in Mexico. Clean drinking water must be delivered to them and showers should only be taken every other day at most. They cannot even flush the toilet every time they go to the bathroom, something that would never be socially acceptable in the United States. Experiencing this issue first-hand really helped me understand the water crisis on a deeper level and appreciate the need to use less water and pollute less. While we were there, one of our main projects was building an eco-toilet. The organization we partnered with, Community Links, had a community farm which had no place for bathroom use. We built the toilet by digging a hole deep into the ground where the excrement is used to create fertilizer. In this way, the eco-toilets, help to conserve water and the create fertilizer for their farms. The use of eco-toilets shows the difference between the stereotypical American relationship with the land and this communitys relationship with the land. Due to the lack of clean water, this community must respect the land in order to live in a healthy way. After learning about this new way of life, and this new relationship with the land we moved even further away from society and traveled up a dormant volcano reaching over 10,000

feet in altitude. We stayed at a hermitage that a single priest and a single stone cutter built with their bare hands. This gave the building a sense of purity; even though the hermitage was manmade it seemed to be a natural part of the mountain. The stones were all placed in such a way not only to reflect art but to reflect nature. The beauty of the art was so entangled with the beauty of the mountain that the two could not be separated. The buildings were disguised in the mountainside as if nothing was out of place. They did not use machines, they did not change the land, rather they built with the mountain; this hermitage was made not only by these two men but by the mountain as well. We watched the sun set across all of Cholula as if we watched it from heaven. Looking down at the place that had been our home for the past two days and their neighboring towns, and their neighbors neighboring town, the landscape seemed to reach out into eternity. The stars emerged through the twilight sky, sometimes falling from their resting place above towards the sublime, dark mountains below. As a scanned the silhouettes of these mountains I saw a small red flame. It grew larger and larger devouring the side of the volcano. It was a terrible and beautiful sight. To my eyes it was a small flicker and I could turn away to the peaceful stars watching over the other mountains but I knew that it the heat of the flames, animals ran for their lives, the fire consumed trees, and entire ecosystem was disrupted. While I saw the destruction the fire would cause, I knew that naturally it would allow the area to replenish. This fire was simply a part of the cycle of life.

The next morning the sun returned to illuminate the breath-taking world that lay before me, the fire had diminished and all seemed right again. My group took some time to be alone so we all went our separate ways and each found a spot on this dormant volcano that we claimed as our own. I found myself a spot on the edge of the rocks, a quick rush of adrenalin raced through me. I was comforted by the embrace I felt of Mother Nature wrapping me up on all sides and the hands of God I felt keeping me safe. I could see nothing but the natural landscape, hear nothing but the birds, smell nothing but the mountain air, and I could feel the power of God and power of nature all around me. I felt like I was a part of nature that nature was a part of me. I had witnessed the cycle of life through the wildfire and now I was a part of it. I was put on this Earth not to control nature but to live as a part of it. Looking out at this beautiful landscape that surrounded me on all sides, I understood that no matter how hard we tried, there would be no controlling this land. We can build dams, cut down trees, remove mountainsides, but in the end this is not a force to be reckoned with. Nature holds a freedom we can never reach because we always search for control. But here, on this dormant volcano, away from America, away from society, even away from the others in my group, this was the closest I have ever felt to that freedom. Freedom. I was not constrained by time. I was not constrained by expectations. I was not constrained by society. I had total and complete freedom. Because thats the thing about nature is it has no expectations, it never passes judgment. Nature transcends time and space. In this time, lost in nature, consumed by its freedom I was able to get in touch with my truest, most natural

self. Often when we try to meet expectations set by society or people in our lives, we move further away from who we want to be. Based on what others think of us, we may abandon parts of ourselves. We are easily influenced by the people who surround us. But in nature, I am not expected to do anything, I am not judged, I am not influenced; I have total freedom to be who I am and who I want to be. By losing myself in the natural world for one single hour, I had found myself. I had always seen my experiences in nature as an escape. I would flee from reality to the peaceful mountains or forest or beach. What I did not realize until this moment was that nature should not be an escape from reality because nature is reality. I am a part of this powerful force and it is a part elements my mirror of beauty and mountains faith and the of God. The on my face tells of me. The around me act as my values. The sublimity of the remind me of my power and beauty warmth of the sun me of eternal gift

of sunshine it gives to the Earth which reminds me of the eternal gift of love my family and friends have given me. The freedom of the breeze blowing around me in every direction reminds me of my dreams I want to follow and the directions I want to go in life. Nature reminds me of what I care most about in this world; its as if nature reflects what is in my heart. I forget about school, to-do lists, applications, fitting in, making everyone happy, pointless drama, etc. All that matters now are the people I love and living in peace; peace in my heart and peace in nature.

I hear a bell echo endlessly through the mountains and I am ripped from this heavenly peace of mind and heart. But time was up and reality needed me back. I went back to my group, I went back down the mountain and at the end of the week I had to come back to the United States. 10 hours after I landed I had to come back to school and slowly all those constraints came back; I had assignments to do, applications to fill out, goals to reach, people to please. I felt the freedom that had consumed me disappear and I was being imprisoned in society yet again. I had come back to the place I called home but I was so lost. I knew that I could not stay in Mexico forever but did not know how hard it would be to return. I came back to the same people, the same place, and the same life with a whole new understanding of the world. It took me a little while but I was able to fit my new self into my old life and I better understood my role in society because I had separated myself from it. Even though it was only one week, that week spent in a new culture, living close to nature taught me so much that I can now use in my life here. Despite the fact that it was hard to transition back into society in retrospect, I understand my place so much better now than I ever did before I left. I was able to understand my true self through nature and now I have to integrate that person into society because the two are not completely mutually exclusive. I simply must remind myself that I have the power of nature and the power of God inside of me. I must remind myself that I have the freedom to reject the constraints of society as I see fit in my own life. And, finally, I need to understand that nature is not an escape from life but it is life itself. But I will never forget those mountains that echoed this vision, that breeze that inspired me and the birds that sang to me a song of self-discovery.