Losing Vision, Reconnecting to Nature and the Spirit of Giving

Hadley

Losing Vision, Reconnecting to Nature and the Spirit of Giving

Presented by Ricky Enger

Ricky Enger: Losing your vision doesn't have to mean missing out on the chance to enjoy a deep connection with nature. In this episode, Ed Haines speaks with Ron Peterson, who shares his experiences as a tour guide for the Tijuana River Estuary in Southern California. I'm Ricky Enger, and this is Hadley Presents. Welcome to the show, both of you.

Ed Haines: Thank you, Ricky.

Ron Peterson: Thank you very much.

Ricky Enger: It is so good to have you both here. Ed, you are an avid gardener and I couldn't think of a more appropriate person to chat with Ron. And Ron, I know you’ve always had a really deep relationship with nature, going all the way back to childhood as a member of the boy scouts and that relationship continues to evolve after vision loss. You know I think it helps people so much to hear just how incredible nature is and that there really is more than one way to connect with it. I’m looking forward to hearing about your journey, Ron and how you ended up doing what you’re currently doing at the estuary. So yeah, I will turn it over to Ed and Ron.

Ed Haines: Thanks Ricky and Ron, thanks for being with us today. Really, this is a great topic. It's really important and also a whole lot of fun for me just to talk about the natural world. Now you work at the Tijuana River Estuary, which after doing some research online, is a large area with a lot of unique features, particularly with regard to bird and plant life. So how did the concept of your tour called an Eye-Opening Experience Without Sight, you're a docent and you give a tour for folks a couple times a month, I believe. So how did that concept of your tour evolve?

Ron Peterson: Well, I lost my vision about five and a half years ago and I had been working at the estuary for two or three years. That was a very special experience for me, working as a volunteer at the estuary. Volunteering is very important to me overall. But when I lost my vision, I wasn't able to do some of the things I was doing out there, planting native plants, removing invasives and working on the trails. And that was very frustrating, very difficult for me to adjust to, I couldn't do this anymore. So I got together a few years ago with the staff and we started thinking about different ways that I could continue to volunteer, and the idea came up about becoming a docent and talking to visitors about the native plants there in the estuary in a completely different way as a blind person, introducing our visitors to our native plants with emphasizing the other four senses besides sight.

Ed Haines: It's a great idea.

Ron Peterson: It really worked out well. It turns out it's very unusual. I don't know of any other situation where people do this. It's become very popular, and it has given me a great deal of joy, sharing this experience with people. So it's worked out really well.

Ed Haines: Well, that's great. Why don't you tell us a little bit about how you share the experience of nature with others. I think I read somewhere you identify something like 40 different plants. Accumulating that body of knowledge must have been a pretty big job to begin with. And then communicating that body of knowledge to sighted people is another whole skill set. So how does the experience work for folks? What do you do when you take them out on the estuary?

Ron Peterson: Right. Well, it's about a one-and-a-half-hour nature walk on the first Saturday of every month. Anywhere from 2 to 20 visitors show up. They go to the website, and they find out about this opportunity. I give them an introduction to the Tijuana Estuary, the history and the management and all about the Kumeyaay, the Native Americans that were the first people here in the San Diego area. We walk around for an hour or so, and I visit about 15 or 18 different plants, the ones that I think are the most interesting. These plants are beautiful to look at, but also, they all feel different. They have different textures, and the leaves are different, and they have different veins and different shapes and different margins, edges, and also many of them have distinct smells. Some of them even have sounds like the bladder pod. They have these pods that rattle when you shake them.

And the cottonwoods, when the wind is blowing, there's kind of a wonderful sound, that kind of whispering sound that comes from the leaves and the bees in the lemonade berry, the buzzing. So it's really about how they feel. It's not how they smell and how they sound. So when I worked at the estuary before I lost my vision, I learned quite a few plants by sight. But then a few years ago I said, "You know what? I'm going to learn how to identify and enjoy these plants with these other senses." So I worked on that for a while. So that's how we were able to put this together.

Ed Haines: Well, that's fantastic. I actually live near a nature sanctuary, and I'm always amazed that folks speed through it when they're touring it. There's even a drive, they can drive through it, and they never get out of their car, they may roll down a window occasionally. Even the walking trails, people don't take their time to really interact with plant life in ways that it sounds like you're introducing. So I'm just curious, what do people come away from that experience on your nature walk? What are some of the things they come away with and do they learn anything about themselves?

Ron Peterson: Well, one thing I do during the walk is I always take three or four minutes, we stop at one of the most beautiful plants. It's the California sagebrush. I stop for five minutes and talk to the people about blindness and how the experience that I'm sharing with them is important, many of my visitors are blind. I have special tour groups that come in that are blind. So I explain how this experience can help the sighted appreciate nature with all senses, all of the senses, and how the blind community can learn to appreciate nature without sight. So I think that's something that I share with my visitors, and they walk away with a better appreciation of how the blind can still enjoy life by taking advantage of these other senses and how the sighted community can enjoy life more by taking care of all five senses. Does that make sense?

Ed Haines: It does. It's almost like you're saying Mother Nature kind of invented the concept of universal design, right? There's something there for everybody. That's fantastic. I did want to ask you, Ron, just briefly, what sort of advice would you give to folks who maybe have lost some vision and who also really value being immersed in nature. Whether it's getting out hiking, backpacking, or doing whatever it is they do, what advice would you give to folks if they're concerned that future vision loss will inhibit that ability? You've obviously overcome that issue, and you haven't let vision get in your way of experiencing nature. So what advice would you give to folks who are concerned that that might be a problem?

Ron Peterson: Well, for me it's partly about getting back to nature that has helped me, but it's also about the spirit of giving, that volunteer spirit. That's something that I learned from my father when I was very young. He instilled in me the love of nature and also the spirit of giving. And so most of my life, I've tried to be involved in volunteer activities. So what that did for me is when I lost my vision, I kind of reconnected with that concept. I was pretty depressed for about a year or so. For most of a year I was kind of down in the dumps having lost my vision.

But what happened was I reconnected with my love of nature and this value that he instilled in me, volunteering. By putting those ingredients together, it really helped my life to become fuller. I think that's a lesson for other people when they lose their vision, just giving to others can kind of help you get away from your own problems, to think about others. It's about thinking what are your skills? What are your various interests? In my case, it was love of nature and combining that with the spirit of giving. The spirit of giving is kind of the special sauce. I think that helped me to overcome that initial period, and I think it could help others as well.

Ed Haines: Ron, it's a really great concept, that idea of not just being a passive participant in nature but taking an active role. It sounds like being active in nature and giving back to the natural world and to other people has helped you maintain your exposure to nature itself, which is just a wonderful idea. So thank you very much for that.

Ron Peterson: There's a couple of other elements to the equation that helped me, not just the spirit of giving being a special sauce, but the love of nature. I learned to reach out and ask for help, and that's something that I wasn't really as good as I should have been. That's something that's very important to someone who becomes blind, knowing to ask for help. Also, my relationship with the Braille Institute. I learned many of the tools to get along as a blind person, and Hadley was a huge help to me, to help me learn the various tools to get along without sight. But the special sauce in all of this, to me, has been the spirit of giving, of helping others that I learned from my father many years ago.

Ed Haines: Well, that's just great advice and thanks for mentioning Hadley. I'm glad we've been of some help. And when you mentioned the Braille Institute, they have an office in San Diego, so that's wonderful. They could assist you. Speaking of assistance, that's a great segue. I know from having seen your videos, you do have a dog guide. So I just was curious about the role of your dog guide in your tours and how having a dog guide has maybe helped you stay active in the natural environment.

Ron Peterson: Well, I'm glad you asked. That's Gidget. Gidget has been my guide dog now for over two years. She's an amazing animal. I highly recommend the guide dog for folks. We go hiking in the estuary together, Gidget and me. Also, the estuary is about almost a mile from our house, so every time I go to the estuary, she gets me there and back. But during the walk itself, a guide dog goes at one speed, guide dog speed, whatever that speed might be. When I'm leading the group, we're kind of strolling, so I heel her during the hike. I’ve worked there for so many years, so I know my way around pretty well, almost by memory and by feel. And then once in a while I'll take the elbow of someone if I get a little bit confused. So I'm heeling my guide dog while I'm doing the nature walk. But she gets me there and she gets me back home. And also, she and I go for hikes in the estuary together often.

Ed Haines: She's living her best life as a guide dog. I can tell you that. That's wonderful.

Ron Peterson: She loves it there almost as much as I do.

Ed Haines: Yeah, I'm sure she does. I just had two-part question really, and it's about your adjustment to vision loss and then about your need for a natural environment and your ability to participate fully in that environment again after your vision loss. I'm just curious, it's kind of chicken or egg type of question. Did your need to participate in the natural environment drive your need to acquire adjustment skills like cane training or using a dog guide? Or did acquiring those skills then enable you to return back to the natural environment, or did it all happen together?

Ron Peterson: That is a good question. I'd have to say both. I love to be out in nature and walking around, and that's one of the reasons I got a guide dog. So yes, the need for being out in nature led me to develop additional skills, or in this case, obtain a guide dog. But also this dog has helped me do things that I wouldn't normally do. For example, I'm much more comfortable about taking the trolley and the bus and going into downtown San Diego with the guide dog. But I guess it was probably the need for being with nature, that actually was one of the reasons that I got the guide dog.

Ed Haines: That's what I was curious about. Is there anything else you'd like to tell our listeners or tell folks who have lost some vision, who'd like to get back out there and experience the natural world?

Ron Peterson: I would sure recommend that people go out to the nearest park or go for hikes. Find someone to help you with a hike, get a guide dog, learn cane skills. There's so much out there to smell, to touch, to hear, it's not just about sight. That would be my advice to others. It sure helped me.

Ed Haines: Perfect, thank you, Ron.

Ricky Enger: Yes, thank you, Ron. It really sounds like, and maybe you experienced nature this way before, but it isn't just about what you're looking at, it's what you're hearing, it's what you're smelling, what you can touch. It feels like a much deeper relationship with nature. And so if people are struggling with their vision loss journey, it can come out of the blue for some people and it's not an easy adjustment. I loved what you said about how paying attention to what you're finding in nature, going on these hikes and in your case, giving back to people, leaning into that, has helped you to stop thinking about the woe is me, parts of it, which I really think people will appreciate. Ron, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your story. And the next time I'm in Southern California, I certainly hope to come and enjoy your tour.

Ed Haines: Yeah, me too.

Ron Peterson: I would love to have both of you. Well, I'll give you both a special tour of these beautiful native plants of Southern California.

Ricky Enger: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Got something to say? Share your thoughts about this episode of Hadley Presents or make suggestions for future episodes. We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at [email protected]. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T @hadleyhelps.org. Or leave us a message at 847-784-2870. Thanks for listening.