In the Ground of Our Unknowing

Throughout the pandemic, my relationship with nature has grown more than I could have ever imagined.  When I was finally able to step outside those hospital doors after contracting the virus, I had a new outlook on life. I took so many things in my life for granted. I am not sure if I would have ever truly opened my eyes to see the beauty in the environment surrounding me without going through this experience. Having oxygen is something we never truly think about until we lack it. When I returned home with very little energy, I spent most of my days staring at the beautiful blue sky and clouds that hovered above me. Some nights I would watch the sunset across the lake. Each day the colors would be different. This is something I never truly paid attention to before. It was a new beginning, a breath of real fresh air. After all, I did not know if I would ever reach the outside world again, and now that I am able to I have a new appreciation for nature. 

When reading, "In the Ground for Our Unknowing" by David Abram, I realized how much I resonated with what he was stating. There is so much beauty on this earth that we failed to recognize until the pandemic hit. It is almost as if it was a wake up call for us to open our eyes and truly look at our environment around us. To take a look at all the good, bad, and the ugly within the world. Abram's use of personification in his writing is something that really stood out to me. Abram stated, "the land itself is stirring and starting to stretch its limbs, long-forgotten sensory organs beginning to sip the air and sample the water, grasses and needles drinking in the sky without the intermediating sting of chemical haze"(2). It was like once we were put on pause, the earth was finally able to catch its breath again, yet so many of the people living on the earth were losing theirs. When the world was still, we could notice things we had never seen before, rather than being engulfed with technology that consumes our daily lives. We could enjoy the little things in life. We could enjoy the birds singing outside our windows or wave to the neighbors we've never spoken to before.  Like Abram stated, it was truly "Luminous beauty in the midst of shuddering terror"(4). There is a good and bad to almost everything in life. I will not say that technology is the worst thing to ever happen to us, because the truth is, it also has brought many of us together in times of disaster. I like to believe that the pandemic was a lesson to all. There are other things on this earth that we need to notice, we can no longer walk blindly.