This past Thursday was the first meeting of our Earth Lodge class! And in true Earth Lodge fashion, we ventured outside to the Gambles Mill Trail. The trail is located in-between the golf course and the intramural fields at the University of Richmond and connects the campus to the intersection of Huguenot and River Road. Charged with the task of writing our first blog entries we all hurried up the path, eyes peeled for something interesting to write about. However, this did not last long for me, as I soon found myself focusing on one tree, bush, stream, etc., and searching my brain for something interesting to say about it, while missing out on the rest of the trail. So instead I decided to put my pen down and just walk. At the opening of the trail I noticed a tall tree, cleanly severed at about 40 feet up. I began thinking to myself, \u201cWhat happened to the rest of the tree? Why was it cut so cleanly? And why so high up? Oh well, don\u2019t want to miss out on the rest of the trail, I guess I\u2019ll just continue on.\u201d Next, I noticed the golf course to my left. Although brown, it was perfectly manicured and blocked off from intruders by barbed wire. I could not help thinking about how much more time and effort must go into maintaining the course than does for the corridor that I was walking along, which was littered with candy bar wrappers and plastic bottles. Next, I came across some dead leaves on the side of the path spray painted bright blue. I thought perhaps this was to mark the trail, but could not see why this was necessary as the path was paved and pretty hard to miss. Finally, the last thing that caught my eye was a series of tire tracks through the mud on the side of the trail. That\u2019s when it hit me. Unfortunately, all of the things I had been noticing were not natural, but rather due to the uninvited influence of man. Then I began thinking specifically about the tire tracks. Just as the tracks of any animal would, they told me that something had been there and left its mark. However, I realized that unlike other animals, our tracks aren\u2019t necessarily left by our feet. Rather, we have a different kind of footprint – one of tire tracks, severed trees, manicured hills, and barbed wire. This got me thinking about how we leave our mark. Do we leave places the same way we find them, or in a much worse condition? I know these are quite philosophical musings for just our first walk down the trail, but I couldn\u2019t help but let my mind wander. Maybe I should escape from the structure of college life and get outside just to wander and think more often. Maybe we all should.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The human footprint<\/p><\/div>\n
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This past Thursday was the first meeting of our Earth Lodge class! And in true Earth Lodge fashion, we ventured outside to the Gambles Mill Trail. The trail is located in-between the golf course and the intramural fields at the … Continue reading