This article was first published in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue of Palomino County.
It has been said that you can’t pour from an empty pitcher, but I seem to make a regular habit of it. In the line of work I have chosen, I consistently find myself devoting time I can’t spare and energy I don’t have to relationships that rarely offer much in the way of reciprocation. Not that anyone is to blame for that, mind you. I’m not bitter or resentful. It’s simply the nature of my life’s calling. So when I have the opportunity to top off my emotional tank, I try to take full advantage, and for me, that typically means a date with Mother Nature.
As such, I don’t simply enjoy the outdoors. I don’t just like to hunt. I absolutely depend on the time that I spend in the woods and on the water to refill a soul that’s so regularly drained. When my needle points to empty, I look to nature to provide me with the recharge necessary to continue my work. And nature so faithfully provides.
When the daily grind wears me down and the burden on my back threatens to break me, a morning spent in nature is like a cool hand on my fevered brow. Sitting beside a spring stream, listening to it gurgle and percolate over waterworn stones settles and soothes me. Walking beneath a canopy of October oaks, scouting for acorns, comforts and calms me. On more than one occasion, I have limped into the outdoors, beaten and bruised, only to have nature gently nurture me back to health. The rising sun feels like a warm embrace. The north wind, a soft blowing on the skinned knee of my soul, and the coo of a mourning dove, a lullaby in my ears.
But that’s not all the nature does for me. There are times when I get it in my thick skull that my way is the only way and when I do, nature provides perspective. There’s nothing like hearing an old doe blow or a nervous turkey putt to disabuse a man of the notion that he is in control of his world. The most important lessons I have learned in life have been learned at nature’s knee. There, I have been taught the value of virtues like patience and perseverance. And when all else has failed, I have learned to accept those things that cannot be changed. Nature provides that perspective, and then gently but insistently reorders my priorities, reminding me of what’s most important in life.
Nature’s gifts don’t end there, either. When I need a swift kick in the pants, I can always count on nature to provide it. And when I don’t respond quickly enough to her admonishments, she has no problem raising her voice to get my attention. More than once, I have driven to the deer woods and gotten settled into my tree stand, only to be sent right back out, in my mind at least, on one of nature’s guilt trips. I check the wind and catch her disapproving glance. I scan the horizon and feel her tug on my ear. And then, from out of the stillness and silence of early morning, I hear nature call me by my full name. That’s when I lean back and listen, resigning myself to the lecture that I know good and well I deserve.
Nature knows intuitively what we, her children, need, be that a comforting whisper, a lesson learned, or even, at times, a stern rebuke, and she offers it to us with the grace and the faithfulness that we’ve come to expect from her. Nature knows. And nature gives.
No wonder we call her Mother.
Wright Outdoors 