Sylvan Solidarity

My friend Patrick has been organizing the Environmental Alliance to pick up trash at the Jewel Moore Nature Reserve. Today, a small group of us picked up plastic bags, old pencils, and junk food wrappers to clean up a place that we respected as a haven for animals and people on campus. Patrick pointed out a sumac tree, which he claimed would produce berries in August that he could not wait to brew into a lemonade tea. The nature reserve has provided me many hours of solitude, a place to read, and to walk with friends. Oh, how I love walking through the path on a moonlit night. I wrote my first published story there, and climbed one of its pines during my first week dating with Wayne Robin. During my freshman year, I blackened the leaves in its paths as I shared angst with a mentor about about new and terrifying ideas that had expanded the wild order in my mind. I am thankful for the Honors College Group that is working to make this small wild land, which is special to so many, a permanent part of the UCA campus. I want to encourage everyone to come to the Bear Hug for Nature next Thursday at x-period for a demonstration of solidarity on our campus. We will create a powerful voice for the special trees, prairie grasses, sumac, and birds that live in this corner of the Natural State. Treehuggers, it’s time to bear hug and never let the Nature Reserve go.