Without knowing nature we cannot know who we are or what we are to do. Nature shapes us as much as we shape nature, in that mutual engagement is the fulfillment of both.
As each year of technological change comes and goes, it seems that nature loses its influence over the shaping of human life. It still manifests its power for beauty and for devastation, but the human response seems to be an increasingly defensive and offensive struggle.

p. 65, Thomas Moore, Meditations