A Bold Introduction

The first of many writings. Nature is our true home.

Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev from Pexels

If you are here with me, thank you. I'll add to that, congratulations. If I may be so bold, you've joined me on the ground floor of a journey that just may change the world. This may sound prideful, egocentric, or bull-headed; but it is also what I believe. I believe all of us entered the world with a particular gift and wisdom to offer to the world. This, I believe, is mine.

This is to be the beginning of a vast body of writings, speakings, and creative works that I will continue to produce for the whole rest of my life. If you're here now, I thank you again. I hope that my inspiration continues to flow in a way that serves you. For those of you looking back upon this first post from a time in the distant future—I hope this can be an indication to you of the power that can begin flowing when you're brave enough to make a start. This is my start. This is my beginning. I have no indication of my future success save for a vision, a longing, and faith. These are powerful things, but invisible. They would be easy to overlook. I've overlooked them for a long time. Yet the Earth has continued her call, tugging at the strings in my heart. Now, I heed her call. Now, I begin living my faith.

There are many ways to express the union between a human being and the unseen forces which invigorate us, inspire us, and propel us into life. One way is to think of it as a partnership, as I do. Rather than bury the lead I'll just tell you straight out now. I am in partnership with the wildness of the world, she has asked me to prepare you to reenter her wildness. In steadfast devotion, this is my response.

Over the weeks, months, years you will likely see me return to a certain premise again and again. In a certain way, my entire mission is to reveal its truth to you. The premise is this: We are wild beings. We Belong with Nature. Intimacy with the more-than-human world is our natural human birthright. Nature is our true home. I don't necessarily mean the wilderness of nature in terms of national parks, untouched landscapes, or the like (although these I do certainly include); but also the wildness of the birds at your bird feeder, the dandelion growing through the cracks in the pavement, or the mysterious beauty of your dreams. Nature does not make such specifications between the wild and the tame—that is a human distinction. As a human, I will continue to use that distinction, but don't make the mistake to think nature does. The raccoon in the city or deep within the forest knows equally well that it is home.

That Nature doesn't distinguish between the wild and the tame is no end of frustration to the landscapers, architects, and engineers who constantly come up against this in their attempts to control the world. It would be convenient to the landscaper if those blasted vines would just mind their own business and stay in their place instead of incessantly climbing the wrought iron bars they continually maintain. The vines, though: they hardly care! Even when cut back, sprayed with herbicide, dug up by their very roots; they remained unchastened. When they return to life, they are undeterred by all this violence—still reaching their tendrils out to hold hands with the wrought iron bars they desire.

As frustrating as this may be to those of us who wish to maintain that separation, Nature's unrelenting loyalty to us may just be our only salvation. For all the harm we have caused her, we have never been forsaken by the trees, the rivers, the soil, the rain. While some may hold an alarmist response to the droughts and hurricanes that have become commonplace, the wise observer will notice how little Nature actually withholds. She gives us everything (literally everything) we need for life, even in spite of the harm that we've caused. She is supremely forgiving: she loves us even still. She continues to reach out her tender green tendrils, hoping to wrap them around us and return us to her embrace.

Our job is to surrender. We've recently thought that it is only our intelligence that can stave of the ecological destruction that we've wrought—as if somehow we are smart enough to manage ocean currents, storm clouds, and intricate ecological networks. These rich and complex phenomena are so extraordinarily sophisticated that even our most advanced science is now just barely scratching the surface of it. Meanwhile, our Earth Mother has been carrying these things on for millennia.

It's a bit taboo in our culture to use the word “intelligence” to refer to anyone but ourselves. We define intelligence by the types of things we do and thus banish all other forms into the dark region of determinism—as if we alone are conscious within a random billiard ball universe. Though if we were to expand our definition of intelligence to embrace forms that have nothing to do with mathematics, rationality, or the written word; what might we see?

Squirrels are amazing. They bury hundreds of acorns every year, hiding them in far-flung places. They recover them, sometimes many months later, without so much as a notepad to guide them! Sockeye salmon return each year, swimming hundreds of miles upstream to the breeding ground that they may never have seen since their birth. Desert beetles climb out of burrows in the early morning so dew can collect on their carapace and offer them enough water for the day in a parched and empty landscape. A blue jay may imitate the voice of a hawk to frighten the robins away from the bird feeder it covets. Billions of other strokes of genius have happened on Earth in just the time it took you to read this paragraph—the vast majority of which has nothing to do with humans. Are we really going to just ignore these because a fish can't do calculus?

I hope the absurdity of that is not lost on you, because if Nature is intelligent, there are profound implications. We are not alone in the quest to heal the Earth and the spirit of humankind! It's a tremendous quest to restore soil quality, diminish acid rain, strengthen human communities, and do all the other things that need doing in order to restore planetary balance. If we truly are on our own in that, then perhaps people are right to feel hopeless.

However, if there is another intelligence at play—even one more sophisticated and vast than our own, then there might just be hope after all.

I take Nature's intelligence as a given. Of course she is intelligent! If that is an issue for you, or my insistence on using personal pronouns for Nature, the Earth, and the like; then I encourage you to go elsewhere. There are plenty of good-natured materialists out there who will cater to your bizarre tastes. I prefer to live in a world that is vibrant and alive, filled with countless sentient beings with lessons to teach and magic to display. Not only is this far more interesting, but it makes possible an entirely different way of being—a new way to approach the world not typically taught by our culture.

If Nature is intelligent and vastly more powerful than us, then we can turn to her for support. It's not up to us our feeble brains to devise solutions to our massive problems. If we simply look to her for guidance and surrender to her embrace, we might just find our actions amplified immensely and the world beginning to transform. This makes sense if you think about it. Does a squirrel bury acorns diligently because it knows the importance of planting trees? Probably not. Still, by its intimate relationship with the other beings who share his land, the squirrel goes on humbly providing its ecological gifts.

What if we were to do the same? What if we didn't concern ourselves with gigantic, abstract problems, but focused on coming into a harmonious relationship with our environment, allowing nature to do the rest. This seems a much more ecological way to live. Isn’t it the ecology we're hoping to heal here?

Any intention to heal ecology that doesn't recognize our place within it is an ecology destined to fail. We are not unwelcome strangers on a foreign planet. We are expressions of Universal intelligence made of soil and bone—our very bodies are of the Earth. We belong here.

It takes a rare form of humility, and an equal amount of faith, to accept our place in Nature these days. We've spent so long trying to control and dissect everything that we've forgotten how to simply belong. But the Earth remembers, and she's trying to remind us each day. Every flower that grows from the pavement or vine that climbs a brick wall is her reminder. She says, “You are still a part of us. We are here to take you back.”

We thought we ripped ourselves away from Nature when we first brought our hoes to the land, but she has not forsaken us. She embraces us even still. If we were to surrender to her embrace, what then? Might we find our true home?

I'll leave that as rhetorical, but I imagine you know what I believe. Beneath your normal waking consciousness, I bet you believe it too.

We have forsaken ourselves for too long, my brothers and sisters.

It is time that we return home.