“Nobody, in other words, can say what will happen in Cathedral Pines. And the reason is not that the forest ecology is a young of imperfect science, but because nature herself doesn’t know what’s going to happen here. Nature has no grand design for this place. An incomprehensibly various and complex set of circumstances – some of human origin, but many not – will determine the future of Cathedral Pines. And whatever that future turns out to be, it would not unfold in precisely the same way twice. Nature may possess certain inherent tendencies, ones that theories such as forest succession can describe, but chance events can divert her course into an almost infinite number of different channels” (Pollan 217).

This is the premise on which Pollan’s garden ethic lies, and I think it is entirely correct. Similarly to Pollan, I have taken issue with the separation between human-touched and virgin nature since that line is so incredibly blurry, as is explained in the above passage. In my first response paper, I defended the natural value of city parks. According to this passage, and the rest of his essay, Pollan would surely agree with my defense. City parks are under constant influence by park managers, visitors, and mother nature, herself. None of these forces can solely determine the future of the park. Just as no one can wholly predict the next days or years of their own lives, due to innumerable variables, such is the same with any space whether it be dubbed “wilderness” or “city park” or anything in between.

“The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched” (Thoreau 236).

This passage speaks incredibly to me because I couldn’t agree with it more. I, too, believe that the most profound values of living are infinitely difficult, if not impossible to verbalize. In my second response paper, I wrote that words and measurements can only get asymptotically close to describing natural reality, though they can never fully detail it. I believe, as Thoreau also does, that the deepest and truest gains from living share this quality. Perhaps it is because those gains are embedded within our relationship with the natural world. This relationship, according to Thoreau and myself, is indescribable.