"Take a Closer Look" by Tom Brown, Jr.

Excerpt from Tom Brown’s Field Guide: Nature Observation and Tracking (p42-43) by Tom Brown, Jr. and Brandt Morgan

Looking more closely at things is a fascinating exercise that can very graphically show you how much more there is to see in nature. Once, when Rick and I were having trouble tracking in leaves, Stalking Wolf said to go look at the grass. At first we thought this would be very boring.  We couldn’t imagine finding anything exciting or improving our tracking abilities in the middle of a patch of grass. But because we believed in Stalking Wolf, we got down on our bellies and did as he suggested.

First we looked at the ground from a distance of about one foot. As we began to notice movements in the grass, we poked our noses into the topmost blades and peered into a new world. As we opened our minds, that world came alive. It was a world we had never really seen. It contained a forest of miniature plants. It was a jungle inhabited by beetles and ants, a place where wolf spiders prowled like mountain lions and moles scraped and lumbered through subterranean tunnels. It was a treasure chest where we discovered lance like pine needles, mouse teeth curved like mammoth tusks and grains of sand glittering like precious stones.

In my mind I became an explorer about two inches tall. I armed myself with a straight pin and slid down an embankment. At the base of the embankment, I thought of how I would build myself a leaf hut out of bits and pieces of plants the way Stalking Wolf had shown us in the woods. I felt I could live down there for a long time.

Apparently I did. Rick and I lost complete track of time. After what must have been more than an hour, Stalking Wolf finally thrust an old bony finger into my dream world. It looked enormous and out of place. It was pointing to the embankment I had “slid” down to get into Wonderland, and Stalking Wolf was saying, “Old man walk, two days.”

It was a track! My little cliff was actually the heel mark of a human being! For so long I had been trying to look at tracks and all the minute forms of nature from five feet above the ground. It was no wonder I had been having trouble tracking in leaves. Getting down on my belly opened my eyes to the details I had been missing – to the worlds I had been walking over every day.

Ever since that time I have been fascinated by exploring the miniature wilderness where the earth meets the sky. Wherever I go now I find fairylands in flowerpots. Even more, once I have really immersed myself in that small world, everything in the normal world takes on a beauty and intensity it never seemed to have before.

Source: Brushcraft.guru

Tom Brown, Jr. (1950 - ) American naturalist, tracker, survivalist, and author; Tom Brown’s Field Guide: Nature Observation and Tracking; Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants; Field Guide to the Forgotten Wilderness; The Way of the Scout