Camp Staff - Peter

Peter Backlund

Nature / Conservation

When at Awahnee as a camper, Peter who was in charge of the Nature Center he had much enthusiastic.  Instructing other scouts on the nature and what is in it if they kept their eyes open to what was around them. . . For me, he taught me one of the most important lessons I ever learned.  While you can look you have to see, and while you hear, you have to listen.  Most people look with their eyes and hear with their ears; but watching him I began to understand what he was saying was to see and listen with your mind and soul.  At Inspiration Point if you looked down at a slight angle there was a rock formation and if you took time to see, there was a face of an Indian. 

The free hours I had that I spent at the point, I learned to look to see, and listen to hear what was in nature and all it had to offer.

Someone sent me a picture from an unknown photographer and what I saw, inspired a poem wrote in: Secret Book of Gnome Writings by DMPiantoni 

As She Cries

(inspired by a picture – unknown photographer)

tilt your head to the left

What is the nature of emotions which Mother Nature has shown; To man and his logic still unknown.

Rain as man calls it should hold more

than simple clues.  On a fast track to

nowhere, science supposedly leaves

nothing to conclude

The mist from her eyes and gentle sprinkles

barely touching the ground washes away

pollutants, dusting the gardens of the world.

The mild constant rains with spring run-offs

so grand watering those gardens and awakening

the plants.  Bring forth in your mountains the

glorious snows, hence giving a vast playground

for us to go

In her torrential downpours she displays sadness

and fury.  Sadden for mans’ transgression against

his brother whether in oppression or war, covering

the land in blood.

And when her powerful fury is released she reclaims

the land that man has stripped from her.  Since all

that he does is look but really does not actually see

the beauty that is beneath, whether on land, sea or

                       in the skies.                    
(in the picture; i see an Indian layed out in his glory for berial, then tilting to the left i see a mother and child praying)