Lessons from nature

Yesterday's entry provoked comments that gave me pause for thought. I was asked if I thought that the spiritual connection I feel to the birds and animals really helps me with the challenges of human interaction. I've already responded in the comments below - a resounding YES - but it got me thinking about how my ideas regarding human's place in the universe had changed over time, and what or who had influenced that thinking.

I grew up believing, as so many do, that humans are somehow superior to other living things, and have the right to rule over them - including the right to destroy them in the name of "progress".

I first began to question this reasoning when I watched a video I was previewing for use in one of my classes years ago. At one point, a First Nations woman is talking about respect for all living things, and she tells a story that I have never forgotten. When she was a little child, she was walking toward her grandmother when she saw a bug on the floor. She stomped on it and killed it. Her wise grandmother did not scold her but merely asked the child "Now who will feed her family?" The young child felt terrible and that simple lesson stayed with her all her life.

Anne Cameron, one of my favourite authors, says in another video that we humans talk about “throwing our garbage away”.... but, she asks, where is "away"? No matter what we do with it, it is still here. There is no "away". That statement, like the one in the preceding paragraph, stuck with me.

Lastly, Vandanna Shiva has had a huge influence on my thinking. She is a physicist, environmentalist, philosopher, advocate for radical economic reform, and feminist. She argues that humans have many lessons to learn from nature. Firstly, it is the diversity within nature ("biodiversity") which sustains nature. In other words, each part of nature helps some other part of nature to thrive. (I tell my students to think of this as your standard "birds and bees" lecture - without the bees the flowers would not be pollinated; and without with the flowers, the bees would not have nectar to sustain them and aid their reproduction. Neither could thrive and reproduce without the other).

All parts of nature are interdependent - they both depend on and sustain other parts of nature. What we have to understand, argues Shiva, is that we humans are part of that biodiversity.

Instead, we have developed a hierarchical and patriarchal system of decision making, and an economic system which measures progress by profits. And yet many of our human decisions and economically "productive" acts (such as clearcutting to get the highest profit for the least cost) is not productive at all, but destructive. It's not creating value, it's destroying what is valuable. It is a strange notion of progress. Far better that progress be measured by the ability of nature (including humans) to be creative and procreative, to live in harmony with one another.

When we start putting a dollar price on nature (such as selling clean water to the highest bidder) we are guaranteeing that some people and some parts of nature will be destroyed in the process - and if we destroy the environment we eventually destroy ourselves.

If we respect the environment, and see ourselves as part of all nature rather than being separate from it or having the right to control nature, then we too are part of creation, and if we see ourselves as part of (and equal to) all of nature, that's spirituality. Shiva says spirituality is basically “a way of organizing life so that there is respect for all life”.

So, do I learn about human interaction from my quiet reflections at the rise at the back of the pasture? Do I internalize useful lessons about human interaction when I sit among the piglets at the end of the day or marvel at a woodpecker in the early morning light? You bet I do. I am far from being perfect, but I am a better person than I was before I started observing and listening to nature and caring for the earth and the animals. I learn about give and take, about respect, about assertiveness, about tolerance and diversity. And I learn about freedom.

In the words of Vandana Shiva:

Simply stated, when each plant in your field is growing and depending on others around it, and providing to others the conditions for their growth, then the freedom of each life form depends on insuring the freedom of others. (Shiva, 1997)