"Why was not everything as it had been in my childhood?
As it was when we used to go down together to the sacred
spring in the valley--the one with the ever fresh greenery
about its clear waters, and the grains of sand so gently
stirred by the invisible finger of god?"
--Pär Lagerkvist, The Sibyl
(Recipient of the 1951 Nobel Prize for Literature)
"Do we need nature?" Perhaps the real question should be, "How is it possible that we even ask this question?" A woman dying in a hospital room in Seattle watches the sunset play on the mountains in the distance and begins to feel better. Doctors measure the changes in her and are amazed, until one of them notices her looking at the view. A small child in Sweden builds a troll house in wood and birch bark, using blueberries to draw a face on a princess, whose hair is made of strands of tiny yellow flowers. She is completely present in the moment, playing where the rocks rising out of the sea meet the forest. On the other side of the globe, twelve, no twenty, boys swim and jump and splash in the waves off the coast of Lombok. Their smiles are childhood, still intact.
In the Oriente region of Eastern Ecuador, a native tribe, which has lived in harmony with nature for centuries, is being displaced by oil companies. Their forests are being destroyed, and are irreplaceable. An entire way of life disappears, and little is done to stop it. People who know about natural medicines, plants found only in the Amazon which can help save human lives, are being displaced, forgetting their own traditions. Some of the world's oldest human beings, some of the healthiest, live in villages in the Andes. They never come down from the mountain, because down below is disease and pollution. They know enough to avoid it. We need to learn from them. We need to stop destroying the small amount of true nature we have left on the planet.
Human beings have learned to control nature, yet nature always surprises us. The more we imagine we know about how and why the seashell spirals, following the same musical pattern and fractions of Fibbonaci numbers, the less we realize we can ever really know about the "invisible finger of god". Nature lends itself to patterns, even in chaos.
Nature, bigger than we are, puts us in our place. Perhaps this is the most important argument for why we need nature, that it keeps us humble. We have forgotten to lose ourselves in wonder of our natural surroundings. Many of us now live so far removed from nature that it seems an unaffordable luxury. A child in central London asks his teacher if the milk bottles left on a front doorstep are a cow's nest. We do not know ourselves because we have lost, are losing, nature. Soon it seems, nature will lose us as well.
Man spends millions of dollars and hours of time trying to discover if water, and thus life, exists on Mars. Yet our own water, our "sacred springs", described by Lagerkvist, are disappearing, either through pollution, or into the private hands of those who prefer a profit to the responsibility which comes with the care-taking of a natural resource no human can live without.
Perhaps the question we should be asking is not, "Do we need nature?", but rather, "Do we need God?". Has humanity come to a point where our soul has lost its way in the midst of concrete and eternal noise? Can we hear the sound of the sea? Watch a baby as she turns her face to the wind, feeling it for the first time. Walk barefoot on the sand, each step a connection between inner and outer worlds. The calming effects of nature on our stressful lives has been measured and quantified. We are proving to ourselves that we not only need nature, but that, without it, we are somehow less human.
Even the cruelty found in the destruction caused by a hurricane, or the brutal reality of a stronger creature killing a weaker one, mirrors our human lives. Man is not so very different, acting in ways which are purely selfish, thinking of our own survival, at times, destroying all that surrounds us. Nature gives as it takes away. The forest fire allows for rebirth, the animals seek their own balance. Perhaps we are experiencing the calm before the storm. Nature will not be kind to us if we continue to take, forgetting to give back in equal amounts.
Have we reached the point of no return? Have we forever altered the balance in nature to such a degree that it can no longer reach an equilibrium? The thousands of years it takes for a swamp in Texas to produce crude oil is an evolutionary process we are now trying to speed up. A sea bridge from Denmark to Sweden forever alters the breeding waters of the fish who return there year after year, generation after generation. We force nature to serve our needs, but what about humans serving the needs of nature? It is a give and take, but for some time now, we have been taking and not giving much in return. This is a world out of balance.
It is not a question of less people on the planet, but rather how we go about living on Earth. The same people whose activities harm nature, are those who, in the end, protect themselves, using nature as a buffer from the world. Who owns the millions of acres in Montana, Patagonia, South Africa? A ranch, finca, hacienda, estancia, is a must for any millionaire or billionaire. Is he or she protecting nature by owning it, or are they simply protecting themselves? It seems that immediate profits from selling more cars, more air-conditioners, more refrigerators, are more important than teaching ourselves how to live with nature, to respect it, to avoid polluting it.
We need visionaries, those who can see and teach us about the importance of nature in the future of humanity. We need concerned scientists to use technology, our human brains, to protect nature. But nature must be the priority, not profits. If we keep abusing nature, there will be no profits. We need education to teach people that nature is our well-being, it is our survival. We sell a way of life across the globe, without taking into account the effects it will have on the planet. Perhaps we need to live more simply, slowing down instead of speeding up. We need to learn to breathe deeply, and be concerned that the air we are breathing is clean.
Large, multinationals have a huge responsibility in not only educating and developing new technologies to protect nature, but also in being at the forefront of a movement which makes nature a priority. How much do these companies give back to nature? How much do they give back to the countries where they find their oil, minerals, resources? What kind of education do they provide and how do they work together with governments and local people to protect nature?
We are, at once, of this human, man-made world, and natural beings. We have the power to shape the future of our planet, our common destiny. All of us must stop for a moment and reflect on what we are leaving behind for future generations. Increased asthma due to pollution, the extinction of animals as the waters become so unclean that no life can exist there, cracked earth from which no nourishment can be drawn...this is our reality. There is no way to shut our eyes to this. We must act now. We need nature more than ever before. And nature desperately needs us.
Stop for a moment. Every day, take time, five, ten minutes, and find a way to make nature part of your life. Walk down to the river flowing through your city and really take notice of the pollution. Notice the quality of the air around you. Walk barefoot on grass, or sand. Breathe deeply, float in a lake, bring your child into a forest to quietly discover animals, insects, or simply the changing of the seasons. Plant seeds, even in a window box, and watch them grow. Try to find a quiet place, where the wind rushing through the leaves is the only sound. Join an organization which helps bring children from the inner cities out into nature. Watch how water calms them, how happy they are at the seaside, or learning about a forest. Bring photos of mountains and the ocean to a friend who is sick, or take them out into a green park, to notice flowers, or even the leaves as they change colour. Watch as nature works its magic. Find time to leave the television, the automobile, the city behind, and wander through meadows, climb a sand dune, pick blueberries in the mountains. And be thankful that it is still possible. This luxury nature provides us, this great gift may no longer be there if we keep moving ahead at such an unnatural pace.
Nature should be a part of our everyday lives, not simply to be enjoyed during vacation. Even if it means simply sitting down on a bench by a river, or in a small park for a few moments each day, notice the effect nature has on your life. Swimming in the sea, or in a lake, watching the colors on the reeds near the shore as the sun sets, slows us down; calms us, invites us not to rush into the next thing. Nature puts it all in perspective. A broken heart can be healed, if only for a moment, before a mountain plunging into a deep blue fjord. The cycle of birth, life and death is natural. We must learn not so much to fear it, to avoid it, but to see all of it as part of being human. This respect for each part of nature, as it gives and takes, helps us to respect ourselves. We are one with nature and cannot exist for long separate from it. We must walk side by side with the natural world, knowing that it is another Ourselves.
Follow Vivian Norris de Montaigu on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vivigive
Of course there is a gap between that which we have made and that which we have not, but ultimately even a skyscraper, a book, a toaster are natural in their elements and in the very evolutionary adaptations which let our species make them. Agriculture is technology, too.
What the constant naming of a separate "nature" can do is to cause us to forget the fact that nature is we ourselves. Our species is part of a system within a system within numberless systems, and though we've evolved handy ways to unfold our lives - some of them with harmful consequences - we're nature nonetheless. Our science and poems and art and loves are nature too.
This is NOT to justify the misuse of technologies in environmentally damaging ways, or to act as an excuse for further abuse down the road. Nor is it to say that when we talk of Nature it isn't valid. But we have to remember it's only a name.
Regarding controlling nature, every tool at our disposal is provided by her. The best we can do is try to understand her rules, and play with the tools she provides.
As far as nature needing our protection, that is the height of arrogance. Nature can wipe out our species in the blink of an eye. Who do we think we are? The idea that the fate of our species is also the fate of the planet is clearly anthropocentric, and may be rooted in a combination of ignorance and arrogance.
In our absence, nature has millions of years to cleanse herself of our legacy, regenerate, create millions of new species, and perhaps evolve an improved human model. One could also speculate that the demise of our current species would be a boon to every other living thing.
When I get too full of myself, I walk out into the ocean and stand in front of a large breaking wave. It is a very humbling experience that brings home the impact of humans in the grander scheme of things - insignificant, except in our own minds.
A discussion and references on how nature designed humans to stay healthy can be found in "The Wellness Project."
Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com
Child, PLEASE!
You mischaracterized what I wrote, and then chastised me for your misunderstanding.
You characterized my comment as permission to go on destroying the earth. What I stated is that we are not destroying the earth, we are destroying our species (and others). It is our arrogance that presupposes our actions will destroy the planet. If we get our act together, we might survive. If not, too bad for us, but clearly not for the planet.
I do, however (and not to get on too semantic of a digression here), take issue with your characterization of nature as "her". Humans, it would seem, love personification, and I'm no exception to this rule. But years of referring to "Mother Nature" and a general femininity of the biological world around us is really a vestige of patriarchy; it's served both as an excuse to misuse nature (i.e. make it passive as a female "ought" to be) and to minimize the humanity of females. But, of course, I know this wasn't your intent. thank you for your post.
I completely agree that we tend to use anthropomorphic labels for those concepts that are beyond our comprehension. My intent of using "her" was designed as a poke in the face of patriarchy, which I detest. Actually, I am writing a novel on how the conscious feminine will save our species, if we let it. Marion Woodman, probably the most outspoken proponent of the conscious feminine, is supporting my work in this area.
I did not realize that my comment implies or fosters a sense of complacency or disregard for ecosystems, which is antithetical to my research, lectures, and books on the subject. My point, which I made poorly, is that our arrogance and ignorance that we are above, separate from, or control nature is what has gotten us into this mess, and is a classical outgrowth of patriarchy. My solution is a huge dose of humility and empathy.
Although my background is in rocket science (I see your dad was an astrophysicist), and I am a technogeek, I do not believe that technology is going to solve our environmental ills. My approach is to learn how nature evolved us to live, and then follow her clues very closely.
I see that you are a novelist, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
err, no. A) atheists don't have a 'god'....not sure if you know this, but its definitional. B) and no, atheists don't see humankind as the be-all end-all. At least, this atheist definitely doesn't, and most atheists I communicate don't. We are usually far more humble about human exceptionalism, compared to the theists I often hear declaring the earth was made by god to be a play thing for humans.
IMO, humans are slightly evolved apes, and if that sounds insulting, then you got the right idea. We have short spans of attention, rarely take into account long term goals, or even admit long term effects exist. Whether it be global warming, evolution, population sustainability......most atheists are on board on these issues, because they grasp the long term implications. Theists? Not so much.
Granted, I painting with a broad brush, it is far from universal, but then, you were painting with an extremely broad brush, so I figure you won't mind....?
And not to mention, atheists are some 4% of the population. Theists are 90+%, no matter what atheists think or do, it will have little effect on the world compared to the extreme theist majority. So I'm not even sure why you think it is worth discussing.....even if you arguments made a lick of sense (they don't, btw)
I wil also address my assertion that atheists believe science and humankind are the be all end all on earth. The metaphysical is ridiculed as "woo". Those who are spiritual in nature are ridiculed as "brainwashed" or what have you. My point is, is that, atheists, by and large are extremely closed minded individuals (science is the only truth) and anyone who holds any alternative ideology are labeled as ignorant or worse. This is not the way forward in my eyes. This will not be the way forward. The way forward will be a merging of ideas. Science and spirituality ( in all of it's forms) are completely compatible whether the larger group of scientists are with it or not..
.
Hello?
Anyone there?
**crickets chirping**
Don't know about you, but I don't hold ignorance up as a virtue. What we do with the knowledge we gain is one thing, and it can be abused. But that is an ethical question.
But then, maybe you and others would like to suggest humans are incapable of making ethical choices with such powerful knowledge. There might be a crumb of truth to that. Seems to me, what you are really saying, if that is the case, is we should have smart, ethical people calling the shots on these things, and I would agree with that. Throwing away the knowledge just because the leaders aren't as ethical as we'd prefer, however, seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Why, naturally...
I think it's a form of psychopathy. Blinded by science and technology, humankind will eat itself after it eats the earth.
The greatest tragedy of our astonishing success at attaining such high levels of comfort, convenience, and security in a post-industrial world is the loss of deep WONDER that only direct and prolonged contact with nature can evoke. Without this wonder, vital, reverent living is reduced to mere surviving.
We have a MAJOR course correction to make in what we value!
- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949