5 Favorite Places for Nature Play

When I was growing up, entertaining myself meant having my hands in some dirt, picking vegetables from our garden, looking out for bugs, exploring the woods behind our house, making up tall tales all the while. It meant climbing trees and picking flowers and sliding down hills and getting making mud pies. It meant making friends with a raccoon, a duck, a turtle, and countless frogs. It meant catching lightning bugs and searching for lady bugs. There was no cable television or Netflix, no Internet of Information or World Wide Web to get caught up in.

I think about all the lessons I learned from nature. I learned all the simple things — that some plants make you itch, that ticks can hide behind your ears, that ants really can get into your pants if you're not careful. I learned about my senses - to not just see, but to touch and to smell and to taste, though I also learned that tasting everything wasn't always the best thing. I learned that tree limbs are stronger than you think, that I can't catch a bird, that flowers only bloom for a short while, and that vegetables are best right off of the plant. But I also learned the bigger things. I learned about independence and self-reliance, about guidance and exploration and discovery. I learned how to forge my own path and how to find my way back home. I learned about diversity, about how whether something is a weed or a tree or a bird or a bug or a dog or a girl, we're all here, together, and that's what's important. I learned to fall down and to get back up, to calculate risks and to take chances. I learned to challenge my mind but know my limits.

There are so many reasons nature play is important, both for children and for adults. Not only does nature play help us develop an awareness for and appreciation of the environment, but it improves our mental, physical and spiritual health by giving us opportunities to learn, meditate, exercise and de-stress. For children, nature play helps improve their balance, eyesight, their sense of space. It supports creativity, resourcefulness, problem solving and self-confidence and improves concentration, curiosity and academic performance.

Fortunately, the Austin area provides plenty of spaces for nature play — both for children and adults. Here are a couple of our favorite spaces that both children and adults can enjoy.

1. Zilker Park and Botanical Gardens. Zilker Park is Austin's most popular park, and for good reason. The park offers one of Austin's best — and most used — playscapes, boasting all the usual suspects as well as musical instruments and a train. Families can rent kayaks and canoes nearby. Across the street at the Zilker Botantical Gardens, kids can travel the world by exploring a bamboo forest, a Japanese koi pond, a desert cactus garden and a prehistoric dinosaur garden.

2. Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Not only does the Wildflower Center boast beautiful gardens and native plant educational opportunities, but it has a ton of opportunities for nature play as well. There's a family garden where kids can learn about match and geometry by walking through a Fibonacci spiral or playing a game of hopscotch. They can also climb on giant tree stumps and birds nests, catch butterflies, make their way through a shrub maze and learn to build teepees with natural objects. 

3. McKinney Roughs Nature Park. Located about 30 minutes east of Austin, McKinney Roughs Nature Park offers beautiful demonstration gardens, miles and miles of hiking trails, zip lining, and challenge courses for youth groups. It also boasts the McKinney Roughs Natural Science Center, which offers lessons in everything from fishing and fish adaptations to medicinal plants and tree identification. 

4. Butler Park. Conveniently located across the street from Auditorium Shores and next to the Palmer Events Center, Butler Park offers outstanding views of downtown Austin and one of the best and most colorful play fountains in all of Central Texas, perfect for those hot summer days and nights. 

5. Mueller Lake Park.  An urban village boasting homes, apartments, retail centers and 140 acres of parks and green spaces (with more than 15,000 trees), the Mueller Lake area boasts a 6.5-mile lake with wildlife, public art, multiple interactive playscapes, community gardens, hiking and biking paths, picnic areas, swimming pools and more. 

Need more suggestions? The Children in Nature Collaborative of Austin, online at naturerocksaustin.org, is a great resource to turn to for resources, events and recommendations. 

The Bird Watchers and Watching Snails

I was riding my bike along the boardwalk of Austin's hike and bike the other day and came across this scene, the turtles all lined up on top of each other, looking at the heron, the heron looking like it was leading a team meeting or giving a performance of some kind. It's sometimes amazing to watch species interact, especially species from such different perspectives as birds and turtles. But here they are, just hanging out together. What story would you tell about what they are doing? Are they all just relaxing together? Are they telling stories through a common language we can't understand, body language or telepathy? Do turtles know what a bird's song means, the way English speakers learn Spanish? Or are the turtles protecting something, some food or some young or some territory? I took an animal studies course in college but wish I could have studied it more. I guess that's kind of what nature photography is, though. I've sat and taken photographs of a snail eating a leaf for an hour, not realizing until I played the images back just how animated and adorable it was. Now I'd suggest watching a snail eat to anyone.

Sculpture Falls: Thoughts on Life and Existence

"May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.” 

― Rainer Maria Rilke

Sculpture Falls sits along the Austin greenbelt between the Hill of Life Trail and Mopac. It's often pretty crowded, especially when there's water along the creek in the warmer months, but there are times you can catch it at a peaceful moment to rest or soak your feet and think about life and what it means to be alive.

What does it mean to be alive? To be here, witnessing. What does it mean to be dead? To be gone. To be not here. These are things we don't understand but believe we do. Heaven and hell, Paradise and Purgatory, nothingness and oblivion. There are only myths and legends here. 

But the river is as here as I am and the rock is more here than I can ever be. We're taught that the rock and the river aren't alive, but does that mean they are dead? No. So there's something else. And that means something.

The difference between living and existing. Perhaps we got the shorter end of the stick. Perhaps existing as the rock does and the as river does is a better form of living. The rock lives life on a larger scale, aging and changing forms and evolving over millions of years. It might not be spritely, lively or brisk, but it is strong, determined and community-oriented. A rock never leaves its home unless forced to, and it usually goes where it goes with all its friends and neighbors and settles in again. The river is a collective ecosystem sustaining life, the same as we are, the same as all living things are, only at a higher level. 

Perhaps the rock and the river aren't any less alive than we are, they are just alive differently than we are. They are nature. And we should respect nature — respect it as something sacred, as something greater than we are. To respect it is to not only stop actively hurting it but to actually take care of it, to worship it: To try to understand it, to listen to what it's telling us. We need to learn from its example, not disregard it as just a rock or just a river. 

Alive:

1. Having life, in opposition to dead; living; being in a state in which the organs perform their functions; as, an animal or a plant which is alive.

2. In a state of action; in force or operation; unextinguished; unexpired; existent; as, to keep the fire alive; to keep the affections alive.

3. Exhibiting the activity and motion of many living beings; swarming; thronged. 

4. Sprightly; lively; brisk.

5. Having susceptibility; easily impressed; having lively feelings, as opposed to apathy; sensitive. Tremblingly alive to natures laws. (Falconer)

6. Of all living (by way of emphasis). Northumberland was the proudest man alive. (Clarendon)"