> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.jamesreeves.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Nature
- URL: https://www.jamesreeves.co/nature/
- Published: 2020-07-07T16:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-15T03:50:09.000Z
- Author: James A. Reeves
- Tags: Notebook

In 1901, John Muir said we are “a tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people” who need to reconnect with nature. And so today we walked along clearwater brooks and passed piles of New Hampshire granite. I tripped over roots and slapped at bugs. Nature as the sublime. Nature as a place I don’t belong. We stopped to admire a massive owl, and those blank eyes in its revolving head left me feeling judged. Monsters were once called *lusus naturae*: “nature’s games.”

C. and I stopped to sit on a rock while the others continued on their ambitious hike. For a moment the insults and anxieties of 2020 felt like they belonged to a different age. We contemplated where waterfalls come from and wondered how saltwater becomes freshwater and vice versa. “Are glaciers salty?” I asked. We debated this for twenty minutes before gravity, fish, and the moon got involved. How do I know so little about how the world works?

#### [The Knife – Forest Families ](http://jamesr323.sg-host.com/radio/Forest%20Families.mp3?ref=jamesreeves.co)

###### Silent Shout | Mute, 2006 | [More](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/4590-silent-shout/?ref=jamesreeves.co)

[http://jamesr323.sg-host.com/radio/Forest%20Families.mp3](http://jamesr323.sg-host.com/radio/Forest%20Families.mp3?ref=jamesreeves.co)