Main Open Spaces     Gavin Park     Wildlife Preserve     and Park	A lesson in the woods Ricardo Sierra explains how to see the Forest not the trees.
	On Saturday, April 6th, Ricardo Sierra from the Earth Mentoring Institute came to Camp Saratoga to teach a lesson on how to interact with Nature better. Severely oversimplified the lesson was “Use your peripheral vision” and “Shorten your steps.”     Peripheral vision basically means spreading your awareness to the sides of your sight. Modern society tends to emphasize focusing our sight. Onto a TV screen, a Computer Monitor, A Newspaper, etc. In Traditional Native American cultures, the emphasis is not focusing on any one thing, but rather trying to take in everything at once.     The key to seeing what’s in the woods is not trying to look for it. Animals are very well camouflaged, they tend to blend into their surroundings unless you know exactly where they are. However Peripheral vision is more sensitive to motion than regular vision. Ricardo Sierra related the tale of how after about two weeks of trying to learn to use Peripheral vision, he was able to spot a rabbit because he saw the motion of it blinking it’s eye.
	Beyond looking properly, moving properly is vitally important as well. A big barrier to maintaining peripheral vision, is the tendency to look down. And the counter to this, which anyone who spends a few weeks in to woods naturally develops, is to shorten your stride. A shorter stride means that you put your foot on the ground before you shift your weight to it, which allows you to feel the ground before trying to stand on it. It means that you shift your weight more slowly, which makes your movements much quieter. And it reduces the strain you normally put on your calf muscle.     The one other thing to consider, is state of mind. Be patient, and take your time when you move. If you have a specific destination in mind, you’ll focus on getting there, and filter out a lot of what your seeing around you.     And remember that everything in nature happens for a reason, and has it’s meaning. If you just keep all your senses alert and think of the meaning of everything you see, you’ll find that Nature will teach you what you need to know.