- [Narrator] "The Living Land" was made possible by the support of Calvin and Marilyn Lehew.

Beth and Preston Ingram.

The Mark and Melinda George family.

Lise and Mac Davis.

The Center for Sustainable Stewardship.

The Heritage Foundation of Williamson County.

Richard and Judith Bracken.

Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

Mark and Theresa Tillinger.

Johnny and Shelly Birdsong.

The Naomi Judd Mental Health Clinic.

Rick and Elaine Warwick.

Del, Carolyn, and Tad Bryant.

Rogers Anderson.

Ashley Judd.

Allen and Shawne Sills.

Steve and Mary Lee Bartlett.

John and Melinda Noel.

Pam Lewis.

David and Renee Bates.

John and Talbot Grimm.

Lisa Harless.

Patti Polk.

Brian and Lisa Crary.

Thank you.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] Natural beauty speaks to the soul, engaging our senses and drawing us into communion with the world.

- It's like looking up at the sky and you see there's a huge universe out there, and that teaches you something about yourself.

It helps you be humble.

- Everybody connects with nature in different ways, and that's one of the most amazing things about it.

- [Narrator] Nature's artistry activates a burning in our hearts to find meaning in the ordinary.

Nature has the power to replenish and heal us if we let it.

- There is a huge dependability in nature.

You know, you can count on the time of year for those leaves to start falling, and you can count on those leaves to then come back in the spring, and I think that dependability is really healing.

- You don't even realize consciously that our whole body and our health, the way we feel, our psychological wellbeing, we're sensing it and being grounded by the outdoors.

- [Narrator] Mindful of the importance of protecting and conserving the resources of our planet for future generations, this seasonal journey through Tennessee, America's most biologically diverse inland state, invites us to reconnect and fall in love with nature.

(bird chirping) (wind howling) (water trickling) (water trickling continues) (water trickling continues) (water trickling continues) - [Narrator] "Now the little rivers go, muffled safely under snow.

And the winding meadow streams murmur in their wintry dreams.

Wild tickling music wells faintly from their icy bells, telling how their hearts are bold, though the very sun be cold.

Ah, but wait until the rain comes a sighing once again.

Sweeping softly from the sound over ridge and meadow ground.

Then the little streams will hear April calling far and near.

Slip their snowy bands and run, sparkling in the welcome sun."

(water trickling) (water trickling continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow.

And have been cold a long time to behold the juniper shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun.

(gentle music continues) And not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place.

For the listener, who listens in the snow, and nothing himself beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) "Look, it is falling a little faster than falling.

Hurrying straight down on urgent business for snowbirds, snowballs, glaciers.

It is covering up the afternoon.

It is bringing the evening down on top of us, and soon, the night.

It is falling fast as rain.

It is bringing shadows wide as eagle's wings and dark as crows over our heads.

It is falling, falling fast."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) "When winter comes along the river line and Earth has put away her green attire with all the pomp of her autumnal pride.

The world is made a sanctuary old, where gothic trees uphold the arch of gray and gaunt stone fences on the ridges crest stand like carved screens before a crimson shrine, showing the sunset glory through the chinks.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) There, like a nun with frosty breath, the soul, uplift in adoration, sees the world transfigured to a temple of her Lord.

While down the soft blue-shadowed aisles of snow, night, like a sacristan with silent step, passes to light the tapers of the stars."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (water trickling) (water trickling continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - At a fundamental level, there's a lot of personal enjoyment of nature.

Again, there are a lot of different ways that people utilize the natural assets that we have, depending on what people like, the adventurers and the wildlife watchers.

And sometimes those people overlap, and sometimes they don't.

I think that for each person, their individual connection is gonna be very personal.

And I also think that during COVID, a lot of people got outside because there wasn't much else to do and it was safe.

So in a sense, we have a maybe more reinvigorated population that is more enjoying nature than perhaps before because of that weird time in our lives.

Now we have to take that energy and that excitement and direct it into the most impactful ways where we can all preserve and conserve our lands in smart, effective, long-term ways.

(gentle music) So I think now it's about taking this energy that we all have and making sure that it's being put to the best possible use.

(birds chirping) It's not just about preserving habitat to help endangered species and threatened species, but it's also giving us ourselves opportunities to play, right?

And play may mean something different for everybody else.

It might be whitewater rafting on the Ocoee or traveling down the Harpeth River, paddling.

It may be hiking in nature and just taking it all in and breathing it and realizing how small we all are in this whole world that we live in.

(birds chirping) (birds chirping continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "A little lane, the brook runs close beside and spangles in the sunshine while the fish glide swiftly by.

And hedges leafing with the green spring tide.

from out their greenery, the old birds fly and chirp and whistle in the morning sun.

(birds chirping) The pilewort glitters 'neath the pale blue sky.

The little robin has its nest begun.

The grass green linnets round the bushes fly.

(gentle music continues) How mild the spring comes in.

The daisy buds lift up their golden blossoms to the sky.

How lovely are the pingles in the woods.

Here a beetle runs, and there a fly rests on the arum leaf in bottle green.

And all the spring in this sweet lane is seen."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (birds chirping) (gentle music continues) (water trickling) (water trickling continues) - [Narrator] "Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of even the miserable and the crotchety.

Best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe, to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light.

Good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness."

(gentle music) (animals braying) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) "When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still water, and I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.

For a time, I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (water trickling) (gentle music) (birds chirping) "There is no time like spring, when life's alive in everything.

Before new nestlings sing, before cleft swallows speed their journey back along the trackless track, God guides their wing.

He spreads their table that they nothing lack, Before the daisy grows a common flower, before the sun has power to scorch the world up in his noontide hour.

There is no time like spring, like spring that passes by.

There is no life like spring life born to die, piercing the sod, clothing the uncouth clod.

Hatched in the nest, fledged on the windy bough, strong on the wing.

There is no time like spring that passes by, now newly born, and now hastening to die."

(birds chirping) (birds chirping continues) (birds chirping continues) - Nature is not just in those lines on a map.

Nature is everywhere.

And we need wherever we live to have those connections with the outdoors at all times.

So it's not just, "I need to go to a park to get nature, and the only place we protect nature is in a park."

Mm-mm.

Nature is all around us and it's part of where we live and our cities and wherever we are, our farms.

And when we start to think, oh, it's something to push away, then we're separating ourself, and then we've lost the battle and we've lost part of ourselves, and we're not recognizing that humans are part of the whole system.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) We are part of this natural world.

Nature.

Nature is everything.

We all live in it.

It's who we are.

We're part of it.

And just learning to figure out how you are part of it really will make a difference.

We only live inside because we wanna be protected from bears and things, right?

I mean, you know, we're not inside all the time.

That's not what we were designed to do.

You know, that's not in our natural genetic makeup.

So, outdoors is where we came from, it's what we are, and we go into indoors for shelter, but it's not meant to lock us away.

When I'm outside and I go walk with my dog, I immediately calm down, and it helps me pull out of what I've been thinking about.

It just makes my mind slow down.

And I'm looking at other things.

I'm not necessarily looking.

I'm not thinking.

I'm just there, I'm being, I'm present.

And I think that's what most people get out of it.

They don't always realize it, but it's helping us not obsessively think, and it's amazing how powerful smells are.

And when you're outside, you get the subtle smells of the trees and the plants.

You know, the lighting, and that all, believe it or not, sets your biological clock in your brain, too.

And so it helps you go to sleep, it helps you know what time of day it is.

Especially if you're someone who has to have a job where you're inside and you're looking at a screen for nine hours.

Now you've completely discombobulated yourself, so when you get outside, it's a great reset.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (water trickling) (water trickling continues) (water trickling continues) (bees buzzing) (birds chirping) (birds chirping continues) - [Narrator] "The summer sun shone round me, the folded valley lay in a stream of sun and odor that sultry summer day.

the tall trees stood in the sunlight as still as still could be, but the deep grass sighed and rustled and bowed and beckoned me.

The deep grass moved and whispered and bowed and brushed my face.

It whispered in the sunshine, 'The winter comes apace.'"

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "The sun is rich and gladly pays in golden hours, silver days.

And long green weeks that never end.

School's out.

The time is ours to spend.

There's Little League, hopscotch, the creek, and after supper, hide and seek.

The live-long night is like a dream, and freckles come like flies to cream."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for 100 miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile, the world goes on.

Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

(insects buzzing) (birds chirping) - [Narrator] "If you talk to the animals, they will talk with you.

And you will know each other.

If you do not talk to them, you will not know them.

And what do you know, you will fear, and what one fears, one destroys.

We are all flowers in the great spirit's garden.

We share a common root, and the root is Mother Earth.

The garden is beautiful because it has different colors, and those colors represent tradition and cultural backgrounds.

Keep it holy, keep it sacred.

That's my language."

(speaking in foreign language) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "In the gray summer garden I shall find you, with daybreak and the morning hills behind you.

There will be rain-wet roses, stir of wings, and down the wood, a thrush that wakes and sings.

Not from the past you'll come, but from that deep, where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep, and I shall know the sense of life reborn, from dreams into the mystery of morn where gloom and brightness meet, and standing there till that calm song is done, at last we'll share.

The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are, joy in the world, and peace, and dawn's one star."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "When summer time has come and all the world is in the magic thrall Of perfumed airs that lull each sense to fits of drowsy indolence.

When skies are deepest blue above and flowers aflush, then most I love to start, while early dews are damp, and wend my way in woodland tramp Where forests rustle, tree on tree, and sing their silent songs to me.

Where pathways meet and pathways part, to walk with nature heart by heart, till wearied out at last I lie Where some sweet stream steals singing by a mossy bank, where violets vie in color with the summer sky.

(gentle music) (cows mooing) The birds' song and the water's drone, The humming bee's low monotone.

The murmur of the passing breeze, and all the sounds akin to these that make a man in summer time feel only fit for rest and rhyme.

(uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) And rings aloud the welkin blue with all the songs I ever knew.

O, time of rapture, time of song!

How swiftly glide thy days along.

Adown the current of the years, above the rocks of grief and tears!

'Tis wealth enough of joy for me in summer time to simply be."

(insects chirping) - When we're in nature, whether we're here at Old Town or walking in the woods, it is inspiring.

It causes you to sort of dig deep and then look around and observe, and then all of a sudden, you become more creative.

And it's inspirational in that regard, and it inspires new thoughts, big thoughts, but at the same time, you recognize your place in nature.

Looking around with the majesty that you see and the grandeur that you see and the magic that you see, just by observation, gives you a sense of time and a sense of place and a sense of who you are in a very humbling way.

(gentle music) - We get a little above who we think we might be when we separate ourselves from nature.

And then when we immerse ourselves in it, it's a great equalizer.

You can take the smartest people in the room and you can take the least smartest people in the room, and you put them into nature and you all experience some natural phenomenon.

And when I say phenomenon, I don't mean something huge like a volcano or earthquake or a lightning strike, I mean something as simple as if you watch a squirrel bury a nut in the summer and then come back in January or February and know exactly where that nut is.

I think everyone is a little mystified by that part of nature, and that humbles us a lot.

(gentle music continues) - When you go in nature, your heart rate actually does come down.

Your blood pressure actually diminishes, it comes down.

Within minutes of going into nature, you have this physiologic response of dopamine release in the brain, and somatostatins that are released in a way that, again, relaxes, brings you to a level of serenity, of peace, of engagement, a heightening of the senses, almost an awakening of the senses, where you pay more attention to the world around you.

- A lot of people say that nature is a church for them, and for me, it's even something a little bit different.

It's a sense of communion.

I think the definition of communion is sharing knowledge and sharing spirituality, and that happens for me in nature.

I have a one-on-one sense of communion.

(gentle music continues) (leaves rustling) (leaves rustling continues) (water trickling) (water trickling continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "Nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower, but only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief.

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "Held in a late season at a shifting of worlds, in the golden balance of autumn, out of love and reason we made our peace.

Stood still in October in the failing light and sought each in the other, ease, and release from silence, from the slow damnation of speech that is weak and falls from silence.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) In the October sun by the green river we spoke.

Late in October, the leaves of the purple maples had fallen.

But whatever we said in the bright leaves was lost, quick as the leaf-fall, brittle and blood red."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you.

But when the leaves hang trembling, the wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I.

But when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by."

(wind blowing) (wind blowing continues) (gentle music) (geese honking) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (insects chirping) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "Fall, leaves, fall.

Die, flowers, away.

Lengthen night and shorten day.

Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow blossom where the rose should grow.

I shall sing when the night's decay ushers in a drearier day."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "Glory be to God for dappled things, for skies of couple-color as a brindle cow.

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim.

Fresh firecoal chestnut falls, finches' wings.

landscape plotted and pieced, fold, fallow, and plow.

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange.

Whatever is fickle, freckled.

Who knows how?

With swift, slow, sweet, sour, adazzle, dim, he fathers forth whose beauty is past change.

Praise him."

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music) - Immerse yourself in nature, whether it's 30 seconds or 30 hours or 30 years, listen to what nature's saying, because there's a lot going on without words and conversation that can be picked up to center a path in the right direction.

(gentle music continues) - I like going to the river and like walking around in the woods.

In the river, I like trying to look for rocks and minnows and fish, and fishing.

I've always liked nature, I like it better than being inside, so I'm sad when it's raining.

It's really cool to see stuff, like, change colors.

Like a few days ago, a tree was, like, still green, and now it turned red.

(gentle music continues) - If you go into nature, you will be taken to a place of comfort, of optimism, of serenity, of thoughtfulness, of harmony, of majesty, of humility.

Even if it's like three minutes, four minutes, you will capture this healing aspect of nature that is built into this mutual dependence and what it does physiologically to you, emotionally does to you, spiritually does to you.

(gentle music continues) - People care about the places that they love, that they have a memory for.

So get out there.

You wanna go fishing, you wanna go hiking, you just wanna go play ball somewhere, those places matter, and then you will fight for them.

- There are so many reasons to preserve nature.

One of the best reasons is for public access, public recreation, our wellness, our health, our opportunities to explore.

But then there's also the extraordinary biodiversity that we have here in Tennessee, and probably not many people know that we are the most biodiverse inland state in the country.

We have such incredible diversity, largely due to our unique geology here.

But between the Cumberland Plateau, the Smokies, the Mississippi River, the wetlands of West Tennessee, there's so much here that needs to be protected and preserved.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Narrator] "Whenever in the course of the daily hunt, the red hunter comes upon a scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime.

The black thunder club with rainbows, glowing arch above the mountains.

A white waterfall in the heart of a green gorge.

A vast prairie tinged with the blood red of a sunset.

He pauses for an instant in the attitude of worship, for he sees no need for setting apart one day in the seven days as a holy day, since to him, all the days are gods.

(gentle music continues) "Grandfather, look at our brokenness.

We know that in all creation, only the human family has strayed from the sacred way.

We know that we are the ones who are divided.

We are also the ones who must come back together to walk in the sacred way.

Grandfather, sacred one, teach us to love, to have compassion, honor, that we may live and heal this earth and heal each other.

(gentle music continues) (water trickling) (water trickling continues) (birds chirping) (birds chirping continues) (birds chirping continues) (birds chirping continues) (birds chirping continues) - [Narrator] "The Living Land" was made possible by the support of Calvin and Marilyn Lehew.

Beth and Preston Ingram.

The Mark and Melinda George family.

Lise and Mac Davis.

The Center for Sustainable Stewardship.

The Heritage Foundation of Williamson County.

Richard and Judith Bracken.

Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.

Mark and Theresa Tillinger.

Johnny and Shelly Birdsong.

The Naomi Judd Mental Health Clinic.

Rick and Elaine Warwick.

Del, Carolyn, and Tad Bryant.

Rogers Anderson.

Ashley Judd.

Allen and Shawne Sills.

Steve and Mary Lee Bartlett.

John and Melinda Noel.

Pam Lewis.

David and Renee Bates.

John and Talbot Grimm.

Lisa Harless.

Patti Polk.

Brian and Lisa Crary.

Thank you.

(gentle music) (upbeat music)