Communing with nature. That’s certainly a concept that all of us must possess, mustn’t we? Especially when we’re living in a concrete jungle this phrase concrete jungle supposedly is attributed to the poet Marilynne Robinson interesting poet and of course the singer Bob Marley a long time ago 1973 so you can see we’ve been dealing with this phenomenon for a very long time but it’s not natural is it? It bothers us And whenever we can get out and experience life in the natural environment we certainly enjoy it, don’t we? The other day I was at a stoplight and I think all of us probably have seen similar things and it pulls us back to nature for sure.
Just full of cars and scooters and noise and it was hot and I looked to my left and there is a very tall electrical pole and this squirrel comes out of nowhere and goes up up up the electrical pole all the way to the top and then once he’s there he surveys the surrounding environment checks out the lines going across. He’s gonna cross the road a very long way. It looks like easily thirty, forty, 50 meters, a very long way. And he’s off running on this line, crossing the road slowly but surely, bit by bit. And he’s kind of testing it because he’s not always sure.
But, gosh, he’s going just flying to the other side. He makes it successfully into the building, and then he’s gone. What an example of endurance, I thought to myself. So you think to yourself, the lowly cockroach. How many people have you seen scream and shout and dance around ridiculously just because they’ve discovered a cockroach.
Now, certainly, cockroaches are not nice creatures, are they? But they are necessary. William of Oakham, he’s a man to remember. William of Oakham is from right around the thirteenth century, fourteenth century, and he has something he’s famous for. It’s called Oakham’s razor.
You’ve probably heard of it. And essentially, to paraphrase, it means what must be, what remains must be real. So in other words, we need cockroaches. They’re a part of our natural world. There’s nothing we can do.
We need them. Maybe we don’t have to like them, and we maybe spray for them and kill the poor creatures, but they are some form of necessity in our natural environment. And they’re not dirty, and they don’t bring poison. These are all myths. They’re no more dirty than, perhaps, many of the other bugs we see running along the ground.
Speaking of bugs, I was walking with my walking partner David the other day out in the mountains and just around Dacken Mountain. And a wonderful evening, the car seemingly did not come along the path along the road, so it was extremely quiet. All you heard was the sound of the birds or, I guess, probably the bats at this point tweeting at night, and you heard the rustling of bamboo and the bugs. The bugs were omnipresent everywhere. Big ones, small ones, worms crossing the road.
Really an interesting walk for sure to be with nature. So you ask yourself, why do we need nature? Well, obviously, if we live continuously in concrete, we will suffer. And I think it’s interesting in a way. At the end of the Roman empire, there were perhaps one or 2,000,000, maybe, people living in Rome, and a hundred years later, there were supposedly around 25,000.
Why? Well, obviously, because we cannot eat concrete. We can’t eat it. We need ground to grow our food. So maybe that’s what pulls us back to nature is a realization that that’s a part of our natural world.
That’s where we’re supposed to be. Hence, when we walk on our grandfather’s farm, we feel good. Even though it’s a little dusty and dirty, it somehow has a sense it’s quite natural. So why do we need the natural world? Well, many people think we need the natural world because it actually helps our system, our body.
Our body is more in tuned with the forest than the farm. And we get there, and you’ve probably noticed this. You actually do sleep better. You relax. You have better sleep.
The anxiety that you possess, for whatever reason, it leaves you because you realize that it’s not gonna matter if you take one or two days off. Right? And those people that are atheists at this point begin to realize that this is not correct because there’s something bigger here. I don’t know what it is. People label it God, Gaia, the universe, but there is something for sure.
Once you step into nature, you realize that you are part of some glorious continuum. And then a sense of inner peace, if your fortunate soul truly comes over you. Right? And I think most of us that are in nature, walking in nature are repulsed and angered by the garbage and the plastic that’s thrown along the side of the road. And we realize that we’re going to have to change.
And we will. I believe this. Through education, most people will not be disrespectful of where they live over time. Because if they are, obviously, we’re all gonna be dead. We’re all gonna drown in a sea of plastic and garbage and filth, and I don’t think any of us want this.
You know, the great garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, apparently, you cannot see it. It’s maybe a meter below the surface of the ocean, but it’s enormous, supposedly. Bigger than Texas. And it’s all comprised of bits and pieces of plastic that break down. And the fish come along, and they eat the plastic, thinking the plastic, of course, is shrimp.
And who eats the shrimp? The fish. And what do we do? We catch the fish, and we process the fish. And, curiously, the incidences of cancer, breast cancer in men and in women, of course, are soaring.
Now is there a correlation? No one will admit it yet, but, obviously, if we’re ingesting oil, which essentially is what plastic is, we eventually are going to have problems. Right? No question. We’re going to have some problems.
So I’d like to leave you with a short bit of the poem, lines composed a few miles above Tyndern Abbey by William Woodsworth. And the poem, beautiful.
“These beauteous forms, through a long absence, have not been to me as is a landscape to a blind man’s eye. But oft, in lonely rooms and mid the din of towns and cities, I have owed to them in hours of weariness, sensations sweet, and passing even into my purer mind with tranquil restoration, feelings too of unremembered pleasure, such perhaps as have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a good man’s life. His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”
So think to yourself that all of us are better people once we commune with nature and we have an intrinsic respect for the bugs, the bees, the ants, and I eat meat. I eat chicken. I think it’s an important part of my diet for sure, but I think all of us must respect the process very much like our Aboriginal people used to do. Right? We must respect the process of life.
And you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is necessary, especially when you want to commune with nature, and critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.