I love various quotes from, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" Klaatu is the alien.

"Now, please; tell me why have you come to our planet."
Klaatu: "*Your* planet."
"Yes; this is our planet."
Klaatu: "No, it is not."

I also like:
Klaatu: "We can't risk the survival of this planet for the sake of one species."

Good movie if you haven't seen it.

It seems to me that people back then were involved in nature in a very different way than we are today – not as something to be visited, protected and admired, but as the foundation of their livelihoods, the frame around their lives and simply the world they lived in.

I read an interesting study years ago – I'll try to find out exactly who wrote it. It was an art historian who had been studying medieval illuminations. While his study concerned a much later era in history, his conclusions were interesting. As is plain to see, nature is depicted in a very symbolic, nearly abstract way in medieval art – the reason, he proposed, was that people in the medieval world had no concept of nature as being something different, something apart from their daily lives, to be closely studied and depicted. In later art, especially from the industrial revolution and onwards, nature became the subject of both philosophical thought and very accurate artistic depictions.

With these things in mind, it's clear to see that Pagans today cannot revere nature in the exact same way as our ancient predecessors – in an equally profound manner, perhaps, but not the same manner.