While you cannot transform yourself into the elements of nature, you can still be part of it by observing and integrating your aesthetic observation with your technical knowledge. Many books on animation either do not specify a particular software tool or cover all kind of software tools in the course of their tutorials. One of the good points of this approach is that you are likely to be able to apply the general techniques to several different software packages of your choice. However, at times you may find this approach too general because it does not allow you to explore the process in depth. This is analogous to learning programming using all pseudo codes and never applying theory to any particular programming language.
Pseudo codes are great for generalizing ideas and teaching common techniques.
However, that is as far as it can go. Without specifying a particular language, you will find that a lot depends on your own understanding and ability to apply the same techniques to a language of your choice. Usually the books that teach programming techniques will focus on a particular programming language. Likewise, it is a better option for you to learn effects animation using a particular application than to generalize the method, and hope that you will be able to apply it later to the software of your choice. And in this case, the language of effects animation is Maya.