Looking at the Whole

 Continuing on the theme of communication, my phone pops up with news items off and on all day. Lately I've taken to reading some of them, and although a few items are benign (such as forecasts of sun flares), most are reminders of the remarkable dysfunction of humanity here on earth. We see so much news thanks to our digital forms of communication.Through these snapshots of happenings, one can't help but notice that human beings are in trouble. Conflict is everywhere. Cooperation seems a quaint idea from the past. If we step back and look with any perspective, it would seem that our species has lost its way, and one can't help but think we're heading to a bad end.

Was it always this way? No, I don't think so. I've been reading about indigenous cultures of humans. And it was common for many of these cultures to see themselves as part of a larger living community of life. They thought about the earth as a whole. They respected its elements and saw interactions everywhere.  A kinship among all beings was central to their worldview. People were part of the fabric of the world, not better, not worse, just part of the whole. They learned from nature, attended to their relatives in the animal and plant worlds, watched patterns of life around them, and inhabited a place right in with the rest of life. 

It would seem that modern day humans have lost their connection to the whole. We are no longer influenced by the balancing effect of Nature. From an imaginary view of earth from the edge of our solar system, it looks like one species has run rampage in the world. It's like an invasive plant, taking over everything. And yet this species is so technologically powerful that nothing will stop it. At least not yet.

My plan for this second post on communication was to focus on something like trees, and explore the discoveries about tree communication. But for some reason I couldn't help jumping instead to the big picture and exploring the Gaia concept, the earth as a whole being. I read about Lovelock's various theories, including his most recent conviction that humans are destroying the world for future generations. That was not fun reading! Then, hoping for something more uplifting, I watched the documentary The Secret World of Plants. And of course scientists back in the 70's did scientifically prove that there is communication between plants and plants, and between plants and fish, etc. But somehow I found that movie depressing too. It was all focused on hard facts, proof, careful calibration, double-blind experiments, cold and rigid.  There was no soul. I walked around in a sad state for awhile until I realized that no one is telling me that my own view of the world is wrong. These folks in the 70's probably felt they had to rely on hard science to convince anyone that there was more to plants than anyone believed. Our culture's beliefs needed to shift, and hard science was the hammer to break the mold.

So what do I believe? I realize my beliefs about the earth and our place in it are very much like I imagine the indigenous outlook would be. I am a tiny being held in the web that is life-on-earth. And that web is benevolent. It looks after its own large body, ever balancing, nurturing. My role is to be respectful to the whole, to learn from what's around me, to refrain from doing harm when I can, and to honor the life force that brought all of this into being and that works at balancing and protecting it. In essence, my view of our place on earth is more spiritual than hard science. And it is also intuitive. I feel this oneness when I am out in Nature. I felt it as a child. No one taught it to me. It was just there. For me (and perhaps for many of us these days), both the scientific and the spiritual need to be equally recognized and honored. One without the other is not enough. Both together ring true.

There is more to say, but like my last post, I'll put that off until next time. I think I'll write about how life first started here (though I might be overtaken by some over-riding impulse to explore something else, like this time). More later.....