Having just spoken on a Children In Nature panel at the Bioneers Conference, with Cheryl Charles, President of the Children and Nature Network, and Gary Paul Nabhan, author of the Geography of Childhood, I came home to my son wanting to sleep on the floor next to our dog. It was such sweet, sweet timing as someone in the audience had asked about what role animals can play in connecting people to nature. As I watched Corbin gently petting Koa’s head and shshsh’ing her to sleep, I had to smile at the beauty of it. This from a little man who just a few minutes earlier had been throwing paper airplanes around the room, yelling “I’m gonna bomb you!” Yet in his tenderness and caretaking of Koa, I, as a mother, was assured that he will not grow up to be the next uni-bomber but rather, is just a normal seven-year old boy testing, exploring, feeling his power and still, very connected to nature and all the beings that are part of the Circle of Life. “Words are just play for young kids,” offer Ba and Josette Luvmour, founders of Natural Learning Rhythms and the EnCompass Institute, and I feel so grateful that I see in my son the confidence to explore and feel his power, but at the same time, know humility and the strength of gentle nurturing that he is learning by spending time in nature. With nature. One with nature.