“How many of us, and how often, think of the fact that we live our time on a planet, within that planet’s time? What good is it to be alive on Earth and never come to know at least the place where one lives? We don’t even try to know it with our senses, much less with our minds and spirits. How many human feet in the industrialized world know anything more than floors, pavement, lawn, or manicured sandy beach in a lifetime? We live on Earth without walking on it. What do we touch with our hands? So many human eyes and ears see only the human-constructed landscape, hear only human sounds. Wild hills and swamps are looked at casually, if at all, viewed as little more than a backdrop for human dramas. So many voices, so many languages beyond human tongues, are never listened to. We are in fact overwhelmingly out of our senses. Our eyes are open for such a brief time, our appearance on Earth betwwen two unfathomable sleeps. Are we to sleepwalk through it?” David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook.

“Wetlandscape” explorer Carroll, whose books are a must, spots a hatchling wood turtle on a hot August day. It is barely an inch long, and has only just emerged from its egg underground, where it was laid more than 70 days previously. He knows the hatchling is marching now towards water, something it has never tasted or seen before, and he is curious to see if it will drink the water he gives it. The little turtle sticks its head in the water and drinks for 21 long minutes.