Magic and Wonder on the Mountain: An Inspiring Conference at Cheaha State Park

An Adventure in Learning and Reflecting

Some 120 environmental educators (annual meeting of the Environmental Educators Association of Alabama — EE AA) met February 28 through March 2nd at Cheaha State Park. The group invited me to present the opening keynote address Thursday evening (2/28). I stayed for the entire conference, enjoying it immensely. I present some of my reactions and reflections in this Great Blue Heron post. In subsequent posts over the next several weeks I’ll pursue other themes:

1. Seeing and Translating Nature’s Infinite Storm of Beauty: My Keynote Atop the Mountain
2. Scars Upon the Land: Thoughts Stirred by a View from Cheaha’s Rock Garden Overlook
3. Non-Flowering Plants Atop the Mountain: Observations While Attending the EE AA Conference

Developing these Great Blue Heron reflections is a labor of love. I get to visit natural attractions across the state (and beyond), from Gulf State Park mid-January (staying ocean-side) to Alabama’s highest point in the southern Appalachians (staying in a rustic Civilian Conservation Corps cabin just a few hundred yards from the summit):

Vegetation and scenery pay dividends whether Gulf coastal forest or mountain top:

And what an absolute privilege to rub shoulders with scores of environmental educators, fellow champions for informed and responsible Earth stewardship. For the first time over the course of my four-and-a-half-decade career, I have just recently drafted my own mission, vision, and motto:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

• People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
• They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Motto: Encourage and seek a better tomorrow through Nature-inspired living.

Imagine my surprise and delight to find the EE AA mission: Enhance the abilities of formal and informal educators to connect people to the natural world in order to foster responsible stewardship.

I knew then that we would connect, and we did! We mission, share passion, purpose, and spirit. Whether college student or septuagenarian, the Earth stewardship thread connected us all.

Rather than provide a detailed description of the conference (for that, please visit the EE AA website), I will offer a few photographs and reflections. I’ll begin with the conference theme: Magic and Wonder Atop the Mountain. Visit my five previous GBH posts (from a two-day Cheaha visit mid-October 2018) to see my own observations on the magic and wonder of Cheaha State Park and the adjoining Talladega National Forest.

Touching Mind, Body, Heart, Soul, and Spirit

I arrived early enough Thursday afternoon (2/28) to check into cabin number five, stash my exhibit gear and books at the Bald Rock Lodge (conference headquarters), and walk the Bald Rock Trail, an ADA accessible boardwalk to the overlook. I suppose that because I grew up an outdoor enthusiast in the central Appalachians, I feel that the road leading up to Cheaha State Park is taking me home. As I walked the boardwalk, my heart pounded, but not from exertion. Instead, I experienced exhilaration with being back atop the mountain. I connected with all five portals: heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit. Each its own receptivity center. Each sending pleasant and lifting signals to my core. Feeling light, I floated along the trail. I admit (without reservation) to never having taken recreational drugs, preferring instead this natural elixir called Nature. Apropos, I’ve titled my third book (I’m selecting a publisher) Natural Elixir: Lifting Your Life through Nature’s Inspiration.

The forests atop Cheaha are not towering cathedral groves. Instead the harsh climate, thin soils, and shallow bedrock support mostly Virginia pine (ravaged 3-4 years ago by a severe ice storm) and chestnut oak, many weather-tortured and contorted (photos from the boardwalk).

Yet I see magic and beauty even in these savaged trees, bearing testament to Nature’s extremes on a peak (2,407′) that mountain snobs would deem a foothill, if not just a molehill! But I urge visitors to look more appreciatively, marvel at the co-stars of this hill-top drama. Life finds purchase and offers adornment on every rock and tree-bark surface. While a rolling stone gathers no moss, a stationary boulder atop Cheaha graciously harbors any and all lichen colonies. That morning’s rain brought deep color intensity and vibrancy to the abundant lichen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And moss likewise adorns every otherwise vacant surface at ground level, whether at the base of a tree or sharing a rock with its lichen companion. View the lower right photo as an alpine lichen lake surrounded by mountain slopes of moss forest. John Muir once wrote, “The power of the imagination makes us infinite.” I may not have felt infinite atop the mountain, yet I did feel the infinite beauty, magic, wonder, and awe of Nature. I sensed Nature’s infinite storm of beauty, also a term Muir employed 130 years ago.

Heart still pounding with delight, I reached the Bald Rock overlook. The infinite storm of beauty still surged, the Talladega National Forest stretching to the north and northeast, lower left and right, respectively.

The ebbing day saluted us with the last glimpse of blue sky we would see during the conference. A salute fit for kings! The dense-wedged stratus (lower left) reminded me of an Imperial Starship cruising from the south. Perhaps preparing to disembark a few alien environmental educators?

The interstellar educators did not register for the annual meeting, yet I did spot some forest oddities, suggesting that alien lifeforms may have been observing.

 

The Stage is Set: May the Learning Begin

I presented all of that to set the stage for the conference. Fact is, the conference theme did the same: Magic and Wonder Atop the Mountain. Not a person attending did not share the sentiments I expressed above in the Blog Post introduction. These are special people, blessed (they and I concur that theirs is a calling) and privileged to practice their craft and harness their passion in service to making tomorrow brighter through wisdom, knowledge, and hard work.

Again, rather than revisit the printed program, rehash the array of speakers, or review the topics, here is a collection of photos that reflect the intense emotion, deep passion, and unbridled enthusiasm characterizing conference participants. I like that both Renee Raney, Cheaha State Park Superintendent (lower left in the CCC-built lodge), and Mandy Pearson (lower right at the CCC-constructed reservoir), Cheaha Naturalist and EE AA President, are gesturing toward the heavens! Just part of the wonder and magic. Perhaps Mandy is acknowledging “Power to the Fog”! March 1st and 2nd, continuous fog enveloped the Park.

 

 

 

 

 

Ramona, 14-month-old daughter of two attendees, served as unofficial conference mascot. She helped entertain the audience during my Thursday evening address, forcing me to ad lib a time or two as she performed antics near the lectern. Ramona added levity and served as a not-so-subtle reminder that our focus is the future. That we are inspiring and enabling adoption of an Earth ethic to provide for seven generations hence… and beyond.

We found abundant evidence that animal life thrives atop the mountain. Our field trip groups found a salamander and snail, both organisms thrilled with February’s relenting rain and fog.

As the Conference theme expressed explicitly, we found wonder and awe atop the mountain wherever we looked, whether the view from The Rock Garden to Cheaha Lake and the Talladega National Forest beyond, or simply the exquisite moss fish (below right).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I reminded fellow environmental educators time and again that every object, dead or alive, atop the mountain has a story to tell. Our task as educators is to accept such as fact… to believe that a story awaits discovery. I view the lichen-painted boulder below and see an epic tail. The cast includes the rock and a Virginia pine. The rock cared little about, and likely never noticed, the tremendous ice storm that glistened the mountain a few winters back. The Virginia pine strained and groaned with the weight burden until physics prevailed, crossing a threshold that crashed the old soldier to the ground, and brought the twisted and crushed upper canopy to rest upon the rock, which paid little if any heed to the thundering impact. The rock and the mountain may know that the tree is but a fleeting occupant of the rock’s surface. Time and billions of microbes will soon-enough reduce the wood to humus and then soil organic matter, which will in turn furnish nourishment and substrate to yet another tree. The cycle will continue until the rock finds itself sediment deposited in the Mobile River delta, and perhaps some day rising to top another mountain millions of years hence. Time means nothing to an atom, a rock, or a mountain.

I witnessed great joy, inspiration, wonder, and magic atop Cheaha. I applaud the sense of enthusiasm, knowledge, and responsibility among the attendees. I congratulate their recognition and acceptance of the burden they bear for assuring a better tomorrow through wisdom, knowledge, and hard work. I am grateful that planners chose to invite me to give the welcoming keynote. I feel that I am an accepted member of the family. Our causes overlap. Our paths enjoy full harmony. In fact, yesterday I submitted my completed EE AA membership application form.

That’s me standing by my Great Blue Heron banner (left) and EE AA Chair Mandy graced me with a photo hug (right)!

As I wished them upon concluding my remarks: May Nature Inspire your life and vocation!

 

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through my own filters. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

• People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
• Great Blue Heron clients will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!