Knowing Your Name

This is a photo of the blossoming of South African tree, Dais cotinifolia, the Pompon tree, in the southern Summer of 2010...

I have been reading Richard Loev's great book, The Last Child in the Woods. He recorded a quote of a child who went on a Nature walk and learnt the names of trees and plants and birds that had always been around him, but he didn't know. The boy said that after learning the names he felt like he had made new friends, for Life...

This ancedote made me smile. For surely, every gardener, bird-watcher, Earth-activist and naturalist has experienced this very same thing. When we know the name of another living thing - something changes for the better, forever...

Our experience of the community of Life expands and enhances with every new friend that we make. Our capacity for knowing names/making friends is infinite -an abundance that could surely banish the loneliness of the world, for Life...