Human relationships in nature

I had an idea this past week, to use naturalist quotes at critical transitions during the graduation festivities of the latest group of Maine Master Naturalist students. I was drawing from the class's assigned reading list and thought I'd find quotes appropriate for breaking bread together, for collaborative study, and for celebrating one another's achievements. What I found was a lot of individual's writings about their experiences with elements of nature - observations of a firefly, insights on the behavior of a porcupine, or seasonal changes of a maple tree. Although these are important topics that help us better understand the natural world, and though I know there are other works that do indeed bring human relationships into the discussion, it made me think more deeply about establishing and nurturing our human relationships as we figure out what it means to be a naturalist.

Generally, a naturalist can be defined as an expert in, or a student of, natural history. Myself, I fit into the student category with aspirations of becoming more well versed in a particular topic or two while being conversant in others. This seems to characterize most of my fellow naturalists who have graduated from the Maine Master Naturalist Program. Another quality of my peers is to strengthen and engage in shared, collective learning through book clubs, impromptu study groups, and trail walks during the year. Hurrah for MMNP whose goal is to "create an ever-widening ripple, a network of citizen-naturalist volunteers who share their knowledge, insights and enthusiasm about Maine's varied natural communities to a broad array of individuals." It's the network that captures my interest right now.

Being a naturalist means many things to many people but at it's core I think it's a blending of natural science and social science. In my corner of the world, we naturalists are part of a dynamic network of individuals that go out of network for a time to make personal observations and take time to reflect - and then return to the fold to share what we've seen, heard, and experienced - and then move along within the fold to learn and experience more through each other's eyes. That's the piece I missed in the small sub-set of books I reviewed - the human interactions. If I used these half-dozen books to model my naturalist behavior, I'd be living a solitary life indeed.

Now, I know that naturalists, including the authors of this short list of books, have relationships in which they share their observations. Edwin Way Teale's naturalist travels included his wife and the many friends and colleagues that they visited from coast to coast. I like reading about the building and nurturing of the relationships that go along with identifying, documenting, and modeling the technical aspects of being a naturalist. To experience our human connections with the natural world, but to also connect with other like-minded souls within those experiences.