Becky Till - Final Reflection/Feedback

1. Did you find anything about the Accessing Nature Challenge challenging? If so, what were your biggest barriers?  I did. Time time time. So fickle! I chose to do this challenge during the busiest time in my semester and it proved to be pretty tough. The moment started to become just another thing to add to the list of things to do. Having to write about it everyday also made me think about what I should write while I was trying to just have my moment. Too much thinking.
2. How do you think your exposure to nature growing up influences the way you conceive of nature now (if at all)? As an individual who was brought up in nature, quite literally born on an isolated mountain top in the Okanagan -- the nature in the city never seems like enough. As a kid I spent almost everyday doing something outside. If it wasn’t building snow caves and wheat field forts it was making bike trials and climbing to the highest possible branch. As a youth, I was dragged up many a mountain with my wilderness counselor father. My family did something in nature every Saturday, rain or shine. For many of the men in my life it seems like nature is place to concur weakness, push limits, get to the top. Because I no longer related to this perception the older I got, I rejected the outdoors lifestyle for a while as a backlash to the rigor I'd come to associate with it. I didn't know if for myself. Now, I think I do. It is a place to push limits in and challenge oneself, but it is also a place to slow down, to take notice, to respect, to be thankful.    
3. How do you think your concept of nature has shifted during this challenge (if at all)? Well I go back and forth between being thankful for the nature this city does have and wishing I could be somewhere else entirely. I have stretched my notion of nature even further -- I wonder if I am connecting to nature when I look into the eyes of a human I love, when I cook, when I get cold and wet, when I connect with myself. I realise how unnatural humans seem to me, when really, we are as natural as anything else. 
4. Do you predict you will "access nature" more frequently or with a new approach due to participating in this challenge? If so, how? Yes, how could I not approach it differently? Everything impacts everything. The need is more present with me now. I have already accessed nature each day since the challenge has been over. The sun made it easier. And the lack of pressure to do it made it more fun.
5. What are you taking away from your experience? An awareness of the need to take little moments often. This turned out to be less about connecting with some ants and bees in my garden and more about just breaking my efficiency oriented routine. Also, a new slant on priorities, it should not feel like I'm cheating on my school-driven life to take 15 minutes to listen to birds. 
6. What would you change about the challenge to improve it for future participants? Maybe make it 7 days only. Maybe ask people if they learned anything about their city parks and green spaces.