Something strange has happened to us all regarding nature. It has become an unnatural part of who we are. When we talk of something that is \u201cnatural\u201d, we usually mean to say it is something that has remained in its ultimate, original, and healthy state. It\u2019s the default of things, as they are. But if we look closer at our day-to-day routine, we\u2019ll see that it is this routine that has become our default, which is not at all in any way close to anything in its original or ultimate state, nor is it always healthy. While people today spend their lives in an urban setting, around the office space or in an industrialized zone, being out in nature has become the exception for most of us, and happens only when we stray away from our regular routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s not the case for everyone. There are still some side-line professions in which work is done necessarily out in nature. Three fascinating examples of people who occupy such roles, have exposed the effects that the daily interaction with nature has on life. The work that each of them does \u2013 a forest fire lookout in Montana, perfume rose pickers in Provence, and a tree climber in California \u2013 is remarkably different: their activities, pace, and goals are not at all the same. But their meditative state of being \u2013 which in a city would demand an effort \u2013 blooms forth in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1994 Leif Haugen joined a friend on a special mission: he spent an entire summer with him in an isolated hut on top of a hill, right in the heart of a forest in Montana. Their job was to watch their surroundings throughout the day, on the lookout for fires. Haugen was so personally taken by the experience, he has never missed a summer there since, serving as a fire lookout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes, weeks go by without any human contact. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty quiet existence,\u201d Haugen says, \u201cIt is really just you and the wind, and the time just melts away\u201d. His daily routine is run by nature. He wakes up at daybreak, with the sun\u2019s earliest rays shining through the hut\u2019s windows, makes coffee, and sits outside on the deck to watch it rise. He then takes a walk in the forest, and the rest of the day is free. Excepts for regular radio check-ins he must do twice a day, Haugen has no other tasks, and \u201cthat might be the only time I really talk, unless I\u2019m talking to myself\u201d. The work he does is just to be there and watch the view. As he explains, this creates a very direct experience of reality, with nothing mediating between you and nature in its very being. \u201cYou just find yourself sitting on the porch watching the world go by for hours on end, it\u2019s beautiful\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n