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Mother Nature Saved My Life

por Caro López-Martínez

This story contains topics related to addiction, substance use, and mental health. Please take care of yourself–read at your own pace and step away if needed. If you or someone you know needs support, consider reaching out to a mental health professional or resources such as:

  1. NAMI: a national mental health nonprofit with free educational resources, support groups (online and in person), and crisis resources.
  2. SMART Recovery: an addiction evidence-based charitable organization with support groups (online and in person) and tons of resources, which can all be found on their website, including worksheets.
  3. SAMHSA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

My love story with the outdoors began in the early 1990s. From running wildly through fields of uncut grass, jumping over wood chips from my playground swing, or even racing across concrete sidewalks with my bicycle, I existed freely in the Chicagoland outdoors. At the same time, there was an omnipresent danger that existed within my urban landscapes, frequently leading me to feel intense fear, suffocation, and dread. The social and vehicle congestion, along with the noise, air, and land pollution, are all innate to a metropolis like Chicago. These rough primary traits became external stressors that would eventually contribute to my post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic attacks, and anxiety. Unaware of the future, I marched forward with childhood resilience and a blissful unawareness of later consequence.

In my early 20s, I decided to escape the harms of big city life and take the “geographical cure” to Sacramento, California. Sacramento is proudly known as the “City of Trees,” offering wide green spaces and slow winding roads. The area offered a spiritual peace and external connection that I had long forgotten about through the years of urban oversensitization. I was also able to obtain state medical insurance to finally receive a mental health diagnosis and accompanying treatment options. Unfortunately, I was already within the strong grasp of addiction that had previously formed in Chicago. My addiction was meant to drown only stressors, but instead, it drowned every bit of reality. Fortunately, I was able to find enjoyable employment at a local wild bird feeding store. Through this position, I learned about different ways of connecting with the natural world, including birding and hiking. Engaging in nature-based activities began to take up most of my free time, instilling health in my body, mind, and spirit.

Throughout my mid-to-late 20s, I moved across different states due to financial struggle. At the same time, my addiction and mental illness worsened, eventually leading to a week-long hospitalization. Around age 30, I had finally become fed up with my unsustainable lifestyle and decided to search for more intensive treatment options. Through an addiction sponsor’s recommendation, I enrolled in a joint rehab and intensive outpatient program (IOP) outside of Chicago. Through this program, I learned that my time in natural spaces was a core and essential part of my overall recovery. With this newfound knowledge, I reshifted my primary focus to sobriety and mental health management, building my strength for spending more quality time in the natural outdoors. I began to explore the green spaces just outside the metropolitan area, including prairies, woodlands, wetlands, and populations of buffalo and elk. I also learned to tune into the ubiquitous natural beauty just outside my window, including symphonies of songbirds, rainbow sunrises, and the smell of Earth after a rainstorm.

At age 33, I have come to fully appreciate the relationship I have with the natural world. Through my recent trekking trips to western Canada, Oregon, and Washington state, I finally found my home amongst the smell of pine trees, misty haze, and snowy mountain views. I felt an overwhelming love for both myself and my planet that I had never experienced before. Filled with hope, I’m currently in the process of moving my career to the Pacific Northwest, dedicating my life to conserving our natural environment.

Without our natural resources, neither I nor any living being would be alive today; our planet provides us with all the tools we need to live a healthy and sustainable life. For years, I had lost my mind within the artificiality of my urban environment, forgetting about the more important world that surrounded it. A lifelong journey later, I found healing and purpose through protecting the world that I love more and more each day.

Caro is a lifelong lover of green spaces and an ambitious nonprofit worker trying to make their big break in the environmental industry. Their professional career has grown across the industries of fine art, science, research, and clinical mental health. Outside of work, they enjoy engaging in nature-based activities, creating artwork, exploring new spaces, and spending time with good company.

Once Upon a Semillita

por Luisa Vargas

Books are a fountain of knowledge, they teach empathy, enhance critical thinking skills, and are a great way to engage in diverse perspectives. Libros are entertaining, powerful, and, most importantly, they help semillitas grow.

We’re in the middle of Semillitas Outdoors, our annual celebration of Latine children in the outdoors. This week, we’re organizing virtual conversations and in-person outings and events that center the experience of Latine children and their families. 

We believe providing Latine youth with increased opportunities to connect with the outdoors and access to leadership spaces can help them develop their leadership abilities. Spending time in nature is central to this idea, as is a life-long commitment to learning. We know libros and the outdoors combine to make wonderful teachers who will help semillitas take root and flourish into today’s leaders. 

We’ve gathered a list of books that focus on themes in nature. We encourage you to take a look at our full list of  Outdoors Books for Children and Young Adults which are great stories for adults too!

Books we’ve been reading this week

CHILDREN

  1. Pepe Plantasemillas is about comunidad y cultura, it’s also Latino Outdoors’ story and is written and illustrated by a group of dedicated LO Outing Leaders alongside our founder, José González. Pepe Plantasemillas is a vibrant and colorful bird. Follow Pepe on a journey to plant a magical seed of cultura y comunidad in different places while meeting new faces.
  2. Fatima’s Great Outdoors is a picture book by Ambreen Tariq, outdoors activist and founder of @BrownPeopleCamping. It follows the adventures of Fatima Khazi on a camping trip with her family. Fatima’s school week may not have gone as planned but outdoors, she can achieve anything! 

YOUNG ADULT

  1. The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition – Reyna Grande shares her personal experience of crossing borders and cultures in this middle-grade adaptation of her memoir, The Distance Between Us. 
  2. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World – As an Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer gathers serviceberries and reflects on reciprocity and the gift economy. She shares insights on what we can learn from the wisdom of plants and encourages us to reconsider what we truly value.  

Libros for free!

There are so many creative ways to find books for you and your semillita. Here are a few ideas that are free and support our comunidades:

  1. Public Libraries are great for finding physical and digital books! They offer other great resources for learning and host community events. Some even have state park passes you can borrow for free! If accessing an in-person library is difficult, most libraries offer digital options to check out books as well. 
  2. Free little libraries are community run, and a great way to interact with your neighbors while sharing books. You are encouraged to leave a book when you take one, but it’s not required! 
  3. Exchanging books with your friends, family, or you LO chapter! 
  4. Join your neighborhood Buy Nothing Facebook group.
  5. The internet! There are plenty of free digital books online. You can read LO’s very own Pepe Plantasemillas on our website. There are also resources like Project Gutenberg where you can find books for free. Most public libraries also have digital books you can check out from your computer without having to go to your local branch. 

We hope you and your semillitas find time to immerse yourself in a good story this week. Grab your book and a picnic blanket or find a park bench y vamos outdoors!

Nuestras Tierras: El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro 

por Luisa Vargas

Public lands are crucial for the preservation of history, conservation of land, and public access to nature. They are areas of land and water that U.S. citizens own and are managed by government agencies and, at times, by sovereign nations. They encompass ancestral homelands, migration routes, and other culturally significant places for Indigenous Peoples who have been forcibly removed.

In this blog series, we’ll be exploring public lands in the U.S. that hold cultural and historical significance to Latine people. These places are currently at risk from recent staffing and funding cuts. Now more than ever, it’s important for us to recognize their past, current, and future significance for preserving our land and cultures.

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, or “Royal Road of the Interior,” is a 1,600-mile route running from Mexico City to Santa Fe, New Mexico, that connected Spain’s colonial capital Mexico City to New Mexico. It was added to the U.S. National Trails System in 2000 as El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail and is currently administered by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. 

For centuries, Indigenous communities walked alongside the bison, coyotes, and foxes of the Great Plains into the arid land of the cacti, agaves, and yuccas in the Chihuahuan Desert regions. These foot trails linked their homes and cultures long before European arrival and the establishment of what would be known as El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.

In August of 1598, Don Juan de Oñate of Spain, also known as adelantado, arrived at Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), a short distance from what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico. He successfully established the first colony in New Mexico after navigating several shortcuts along the route from Mexico City, including the infamous Jornada del Muerto, a 90-mile stretch of waterless desert starting in Las Cruces and ending south of Socorro, New Mexico. This successful bypass avoided a more difficult path along the Rio Grande that was impassable for carretas and livestock, allowing the movement of colonists and missionaries in New Mexico.

Image by National Park Service

After Oñate’s expedition, miners used El Camino Real as a trade route to transport silver extracted from Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí, and mercury imported from Europe. Like all trade routes, more than just goods were exchanged. Social, religious, and cultural links formed along the route, and Indigenous and mestizo guides helped travelers navigate the trail. We can see the echoes of these cultural exchanges, oftentimes forced, in surrounding communities today. 

As the route became formalized, parajes were established along the route. These were strategically located in terms of shelter, terrain, and water. People gathered, rested, and exchanged goods or information at parajes, which eventually became pueblos like Querétaro, Durango, and Albuquerque.

With the influx of people also came conflict, disease, and hunger. Pueblos along the route endured religious persecution, heavy taxation, and forced labor through the repartimiento system. These hardships, along with the destruction caused by foreign diseases, drought, and famine, led to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Po’Pay, a religious leader from Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, led the revolt, driving the Spanish out of New Mexico and halting traffic on El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.

Over the next two centuries, the trail saw periods of conflict and peace and permanent cultural shifts. The route continued to be used during the Spanish period (until 1821), the Mexican period (until 1846), and the beginning of American rule. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad ended the traffic on El Camino Real, but railroads and highways like I-25 still run parallel to some original sections of the trail.

You can visit several landmarks along this public land trail. Please check before visiting any public trail sites for visiting hours and regulations. Trail sites may be privately owned, municipally, tribally, federally, or in state ownership.

Public lands provide access to culturally significant sites, including those important to Indigenous and Latine communities. El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, a historic route linking Mexico City to Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a key example of public lands that are rich in multicultural significance. These public lands face threats from funding cuts, highlighting the need for continued advocacy to protect these cultural landmarks. 

You can help us with our mission to protect public lands. We’re collecting stories that celebrate and preserve the diversity of the outdoors. Tell us your park story and share what public lands mean to you on the Yo Cuento blog.

Sources and Additional Reading:


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