This week, writer Lisa Mediano shares two of her nature-inspired poems.
 Do you feel overwhelmed by fast pace of city life? Do you seldom get the chance to abscond to the beach or the woods? This week, tune out, turn off, and unplug with Nicola Moss as she walks us through twelve steps to enjoy nature without leaving the city.
 There are many kinds of trees in the forest, and many kinds of forests in the world. This week, Neil Baldwin draws a parallel between various personality types of both people and trees, and encourages us to spend time among them for rejuvenation.
 How can nature compete with video games and social media for the attention of young people? This week, Sandy Koi shares her experiences teaching biology to children in Florida schools, and shows us the strategies she developed for helping kids engage with nature in a meaningful way.
 How do we reconcile the fact that in the United States, most of the wilderness we enjoy for recreation once belonged to communities of Indigenous people? This week, author Felix Blackwell considers the duality of natural landscapes as both a site of pleasure and of pain. He describes his attachment for a particular forest, and reveals what he discovered about its past.
 People often imagine themselves as separate from nature, rather than as an integral part of the large systems in motion that conduct our world. This week, Katie Hilbert shares her view of the human connection to nature: as a relationship that extends into geological systems and far into a spiritual place, accessible to those who move beyond the five senses and pay attention to deeper feelings.
 "Ars longa, vita brevis" is a Latin (and before that, Greek) adage about the fleeting nature of our humanity. It means "Life is short, but art endures." This saying is well-illustrated by the life and works of Ansel Adams, who died in 1984, but inspired a love for nature in generations of people throughout and after his death. This week, Caitlin Keddie recounts the tale of Adams' life, and speculates on how society would have interpreted his quirks in the modern age.
 Relationships are powerful and influential forces in our lives. We grow to love people, pets, and places, and mourn them when they are taken from us. This week, Leslie Gernon describes her relationship with a tree she found along her journeys through the woods, and shares the lessons she learned after it was cut down.
 The splendor of nature is sometimes obscured to us as we grow up. Stress piles on, the weight of the world increases, and the simple joy of the outdoors seem like a distant memory. This week, Oskar and Nicole Elmgart contrast our adult experience in nature - one colored by politics, family, and memory - to that of children. They reveal how the blank canvas of a child's mind allows little ones to enjoy the forest totally unfiltered and unrestrained.
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AuthorsBlog pieces are written by ANFT writers, guest contributors, and introduced by the Blog Editor. Questions can be sent to  Categories
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