C&NN Natural Leader, Maya Quintana, Shares Her Thoughts on the Benefits of Time Spent in Nature

By Maya Melissa Quintana

Maya Melissa Quintana is a Native American from the pueblos of Cochiti and Zia, and a recent graduate of Rio Rancho High School in New Mexico. In her high school career, she was on the National Honor Society, a Lieutenant in ROTC, and a member of both the Native AISES. Maya is proud to have received three school letters in Academics, Varsity Softball, and ROTC Varsity Sharp Shooter. She is currently a student at the University of New Mexico, where she is pursuing a degree in Nursing and plans on becoming a Physician Assistant. Maya is also a participant in the Santa Fe Mountain Center’s Emergence program. This essay is from a talk by Maya about her experiences in the Sierra Club’s Building Bridges to the Outdoors youth program. She spoke September 2008 at the Grassroots Gathering: Tipping Points to Cultural Change conference in Nebraska.

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I was given a rare opportunity two summers ago. A chance to join a program called Building Bridges to the Outdoors.

The program took me and other teenagers to the Santa Fe Mountain Center. The program’s goal was to get us outdoors and make us interact with nature. At first, I was thinking: why is this important, and why now, after 17 years of ignoring the outside world? Unsure of these answers, I continued to attend the program. We did many things on our visits; we learned how to rock-climb and we sat though lectures. We were taught why things are the way they are and how nature is in our body -- how nature’s patterns can be found in our body patterns. We went camping for the weekend and I learned so much. I learned how to build a fire without a lighter or matches, just using these two hands of mine. We also learned how to track footprints and make a shelter for ourselves, in case we should ever need to. I learned what plants I could eat and which I could not. And I even learned of a tree that you can brush your teeth with. I learned to slow down and take in everything around me.

But the most important bit of information I took away from the program is that interacting with nature is very important and is essential to the human being, because trees are living beings. Rocks are living beings. The water. The spirit moves through the water. We are breathing the same breath as the rocks, the trees, and water; nature as a whole shares the same air as us. And knowing this gives me a totally different feeling. This is it. There is no other reality. We are here. This is the world. It doesn't get better than this. And if we don't honor it in the sense that this is as beautiful as it is ever going to be, if we think that it is a place to be shunned or ignored, then we can’t take care of it. If we think we have better things to look forward to, then we can't walk respectfully where we are at this moment and take care of nature, or touch nature with honor and breathe each breath. This is what the water ... wind ... and ... breath is about, every second. I can breathe it in and become a part of this world, and know I am a part of this world, that I live in it every second because I believe it every second. The interaction with nature builds a relationship between the two of you. Once you start to love the outdoors the better care you will give it.

I really do believe that outdoor programs are beneficial to anyone and everyone. I hope to see more of these programs in the future. So people can be influenced the way I have, and have their eyes opened to a world that has always existed but has been forgotten.... until now.

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