If we, either as individuals or as a society, would chose to live more in harmony with nature, we would know that all natural systems have a way of re-balancing. All we have to do is model our systems and way of thinking on natural systems, and these systems that we create will balance themselves naturally. This idea can be used in all facets of life, even down to our monetary systems.
Today, developers often place a building on the land with no interest in blending into the landscape or using materials that come from the area. When we do not make an effort to learn what works and what doesn’t, we make a grave error. Eventually, nature takes away the building. If you build an adobe building or rammed earth building in a rainforest, eventually, nature takes that building down.
We resist the natural process with all our might. In this, we are resisting life. When we create cars that pollute and live our lives at the mall, we are so out of contact with life that we cannot connect at all with a sense of natural process. We find it tragic when a tsunami takes a town, or an earthquake levels a building, but the tragedy actually occurred much earlier, when we decided that we could find an exit clause in Nature’s process.
The wider vision is that, although a volcano may erupt or a wildfire get out of control, and destroy acres of land, that land comes back more fertile than ever in a year or two. This is life, and if we worked with it and saw the bigger picture, we would find ourselves in a happier, healthier place.
It takes creativity to create something, but takes nothing to destroy it. Our thinking is a colossal hubris; an incredible combination of overweening pride, idiocy, and irresponsibility. We build tall buildings that do not bend, we build towns too close to the sea. We erode the land with our farming techniques, and send fertile soil out river heads to pollute the sea. We think that we can put sewage and garbage somewhere else and it will somehow disappear.
We don’t need most of the chemicals and artificial products made today. These products are poisonous. They are poisoning us and the planet, yet we are told we cannot stop because people will lose their jobs. Why not simply switch to producing substances that are more aligned with natural processes? It is a lie that we can only produce hazardous products and a bigger lie that the economy will collapse if we stop. This is just greed and laziness at the corporate executive and governmental level.
George Oswawa said that Western man is exclusive. Western philosophy resists life, because Western man feels he is superior to life. Everything else may die, but he feels superior and immortal. But the concept of immortality is a ruse to keep you from really living.
In the end, only the life you are living is important. Not what you buy in the mall, drive on the road or have in the bank account. Who but the film buffs and historians care about the stars of former eras? How many statues in city squares interest you? Only the pigeons find these useful.
Revel in your mortality, embrace life, and start living. Take a walk in nature today, and be humble; she has much to teach you.
Copyright 2009 Aliyah Marr
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