Let’s Mass Microdose Nature
Photo: Jongsun Lee on Unsplash
My longtime friend and business partner Julie called me out recently. This is the kind of friend you want, by the way.
It was after the recent total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, but let’s rewind a bit.
As the eclipse hype hit fever pitch, being a photographer, I kept getting asked excitedly, “Are you going to photograph the eclipse?” “Nope, not my jam,” was the quip that rolled off my tongue without even thinking.
Julie and our team asked the same question and my reply was the same. Hard pass. I’m not sure why I respond this way. Part of it is the photographer in me. Most of the shots of such events all look the same. Case in point is the stock image I used for this post, which is from the 2017 eclipse. Since I’ve taken my fair share photos that look the same as others, there must be something deeper.
I suspect it’s my general sense of skepticism for when things become too popular and overhyped. I realize now my response probably came off like one of my favorite scenes in High Fidelity.
The record store clerk, Dick, rolls his eyes at the customer who asks if the music playing is Green Day, because he knows it’s actually Stiff Little Fingers, which heavily influenced Green Day. It’s sort of a Dick move, however accurate.
Despite my Dickish response, I figured I’d play along. I grabbed an old Kashi cereal box, taped tinfoil on it, poked a hole and did the thing you do with such contraptions.
While it was fun to make the box, what I saw through it was kinda meh. It’s basically an outline of the moon about the circumference of a pencil eraser with a cookie bite out of it. It didn’t get me all that excited. I put the box down and stood outside observing, which is when my vibe shifted.
The lighting change looked like the world just slapped on a pair of polarized sunglasses. It felt as if I was outside doing a cleaning like a character in the book Wool (now a TV series Silo, both fun post-apocalyptic sci-fi romps, btw). My skin cooled as the temperature dropped. It was a warm, spring day. Then it was a crisp fall afternoon, in an instant. I imagined the cells that run the circadian clocks in our bodies trying to make sense of this odd memo being sent from the environment. “Activate sleep mode, wait, it’s morning again, dial back the melatonin. Now. Now!” The whole experience was pretty rad.
A week or so after this rare, universal event, Julie said something like this to me. Dude I can’t believe you were shitting on the eclipse. You’re the guy who’s all about connecting people with nature!
“Damn Julie, you’re so right,” I said. I shared my experience with her and that I had a similar reflection after the eclipse. And that’s when it dawned on me.
The eclipse was a mass microdose of nature. It was a handful of minutes where we could all pay close attention to nature together. Amazing I thought! What an opportunity! I should be celebrating this! Well, here we are.
It also made me wonder why we don’t do this more often. So many awe-inspiring, wondrous moments are taking place in nature everywhere at all times. Why do we wait years to mass microdose together when it’s right under our noses everyday?
As biologist Tim Shields (in Episode #3 of Nature Junkie Radio for those playing along) put it with heaps of stoke in his voice, “Have you ever seen a lizard do its lizard thing?”
And that brings us to Earth Day, pop culture’s mass microdose of nature. Much like the eclipse, it’s a one off when what we need is more everyday Earth Day (even that line is becoming cliche now!). Actually, scratch that, we need both.
Take the mass microdose and also let’s not forget to tune into our relationship with nature daily.
On this Earth day, this is my invitation to you. Have it all! Take the mass microdose of nature and seek out the microdoses of nature in the everyday. Take a moment to notice them and be present with them.
Happy Earth Day. Now go microdose nature any way you damn well please!
Enjoy the ride,
Jeff
The Rabbit Hole
If you haven’t seen High Fidelity, don’t tell anybody you haven’t f*cking seen it! Just watch it. It’s going to be okay.
