A walk in the woods

When you are walking through the woods and then all of a sudden you see a soda bottle or a beer can. This disrupts the idea that the woods or nature are somehow a place untouched by man, which can be a very violent idea when you realize the separation that provides. Humans thinking that we are separate from nature allows us to see ourselves as above it, a governing force that can choose to protect or destroy but that is false. People are just as much a part of nature as ever bug and fern no matter how hard we try to distance ourselves. When we see a piece of trash in a seemingly natural space it forces us to confront this idea. This idea of separation isn’t only a human idea it is a colonial one. Native and indigenous people all over the Earth have known that we are all as much a part of nature as everything else. Nature is not above us and we are not above nature. This idea of utopian forests that are untouched by people allows us to ignore the fact that people and nature are equals who have been interacting for thousands of years.