In modern life, people often move through nature very quickly. They hike fast to reach their destination, or they look at scenery through a car window for just a few seconds. When people move this fast, they miss many important things that are happening around them. Both Robin Wall Kimmerer in her presentation about the Sky Woman story and Barry Lopez in his essay "The Invitation" write about this problem. They both argue that when people do not pay careful attention to nature, they cannot understand their relationship with the natural world. By looking at how these two writers connect observation to gratitude and responsibility, I will show that learning to observe nature is not just about collecting information. It is about understanding our place in what Kimmerer calls "the democracy of species" and accepting our responsibilities within that community.

Lopez begins "The Invitation" by describing how indigenous people taught him to observe nature in a different way. He explains that when he saw a grizzly bear, he would "focus almost exclusively on the bear." But his indigenous companions were different. They "would focus on the part of the world of which, at that moment, the bear was only a fragment." This shows us something important about observation. Real observation means we should not just look at one thing and ignore everything else. Lopez's companions did not just look at the bear. They also noticed "trace odors in the air" and "the sound of brittle brush rattling." They understood that the bear was connected to many other things—things that happened before they arrived and things that would happen after they left.

Lopez learned that good observation requires humility. He says people must resist the desire to immediately "collapse mystery into language." Instead, observation requires "remaining in a state of suspended mental analysis while observing all that was happening—resisting the urge to define or summarize." What Lopez means is that we should not rush to explain what we see. We should watch carefully and let the meaning reveal itself slowly. When we practice this kind of humble attention, we begin to see deeper patterns. We also begin to understand that we are not outside observers studying nature. We are participants inside a living system.

Kimmerer connects careful observation to gratitude through the Sky Woman creation story. In this story, Sky Woman fell from the sky world. When she fell, the geese caught her in the air. The turtle offered his back for her to stand on. The muskrat dove deep into the water to bring up mud, even though this effort killed him. Sky Woman did not take these gifts for granted. Instead, "she began to sing, she sang a song of gratitude and then she began to dance in a circle around the back of the turtle." While she danced and gave thanks, "the land grew and grew." Kimmerer explains that the earth was "made not by one alone but from the alchemy of two essential elements: gratitude and reciprocity."

This story teaches us that observation should lead to gratitude. Kimmerer says that "we are showered every day with gifts of the earth: just this morning as we awoke we had air to breathe, food to eat, water to drink, the company of sycamores and sparrows and clouds." However, most people do not notice these gifts. This is because our economy "relentlessly asks what more can we take from the earth." When people observe carefully—when they really see the trees and birds and feel the air—they naturally feel grateful. Gratitude is important because it "pulls us into relationship with other entities, reminding us that our very existence relies on the gifts of others."

Lopez also connects observation to gratitude. He writes that indigenous people "pay more attention to patterns in what they encounter than to isolated objects." They notice small details like "a piece of speckled eggshell under a tree" or "leaves missing from the stems of a species of brush." These small observations might not seem important at first. But when people let these details "slowly resolve into a pattern," the observations "might become revelatory. They might illuminate the land further." Both Kimmerer and Lopez show us that when we slow down and observe carefully, we begin to see how much we receive from nature every day. This awareness creates gratitude.

After observation and gratitude comes responsibility. Kimmerer introduces an important idea called "the democracy of species." She explains that "gratitude calls us to acknowledge the personhood of all beings from maple trees to snapping turtles" and "reminds us that we are just one member of the democracy of species." In a democracy, no one member has complete power over all the others. Every member has both rights and responsibilities. Kimmerer describes how snapping turtles came to her field station to lay their eggs. These turtles were "climate refugees" who "walked into a community of a hundred scientists." The turtles were not just animals that scientists could study. They were members of the community who needed help.

Lopez reaches a similar idea through the concept of belonging. He writes that "the effort to know a place deeply is, ultimately, an expression of the human desire to belong, to fit somewhere." When people observe carefully over time, they develop a deep knowledge of a place. Then something special happens. They "begin to sense that they themselves are becoming known, so that when they are absent from that place they know that place misses them." This creates a reciprocal relationship—"to know and be known"—which gives people "a sense that one is necessary in the world." But if we are necessary to a place, then we also have responsibilities to that place. We cannot say we belong somewhere and then destroy it.