SageTree

I don't think humans and nature are seperate. I can see where there has became a rift perhaps, but we all still eat from the earth and are effected by weather. It's an ignornace to think we are in control of nature, and I really don't know how people loose sight of that....We certainly have our effect on it, but it often seems to come back and create more stress....

So not to pug my own threads here, but I wrote about this a while ago on here and will repost the link as I feel it really answers your questions you asked, but certainly I don't mean that to say they are THE answer, just mine.

This passage really got me thinking, thanks for reading

Thursday October 16 2008

“Man is engrossed in shaping the world, rather than being shaped by it.” – Loren Eisley


My first thought is, it is obvious we are shaping the earth, even if infinitely impermanent, but certainly in the present. My second thought is why aren’t we being shaped still? Even if a lot of our “progress” is getting ourselves out of our messes, it’s a mess no less entwined with mother nature, which has been found, after study , to reverse some of our changes we’ve caused. Perhaps floods, hurricanes, wildfires, being, on one hand “natural”, have occurred more so because of the changes we have caused, and the only natural part being the disrupted forces. On the other hand, maybe those disruptions are Mother Nature trying to wipe out the scourge and reset the balance. And that our “progress” is only fighting the inevitable, and in course hurling the forces into turmoil, thus letting us live out our karma, until it’s appearably altered state destroys us, or perhaps allows us to evolve into a more balance species, one harmonious with the Great Mother,” homo-non-parasitious”.

Understanding how and why in itself isn’t inherently evil and without warrant. However, understanding doesn’t always serve our base human needs to forage for food and obtain safe shelter. Dare I say, this manipulation through understanding, might itself be our natural order. Although understanding for greed and gross manipulation is what has brought us to the place of distortion and imbalance. Knowing why medicine works or coal burns isn’t necessary. If the coal was used sparingly as it rose to the earth’s surface would we need to understand what it does to our atmosphere? Nor would we need to study the adverse side effects of the chemical version of an isolated alkali from a plant had we just used the natural plant in the first place. Why study them? Had we stayed on our simple course we would need to “invent” and patent medicines with side effects such as lymphoma, seizures or nausea. Shamans can pick plants for benefit without the aid of modern scientific tools, how? On top of that these medicines won’t cause other disease and conditions that require MORE medicines with more side effects.

It seems to me that all of the other creatures on this earth bow to the changing forces, perfectly, without pride. I doubt that they “know”, I rather feel that they are merely SOULY engrossed in the process of living and not even considering the way the wheel turns and if they could somehow make the wheel turn better or only to serve the purposes of selfish greed. Their violence is for food or mating. And their hording is to carry their genes forward, needs in accordance with the laws. Their wanderings aren’t for pride or to control others. Pride certainly isn’t the feeling that I get from the pine or the cone. Animals do seem to experience the emotion of loss. Perhaps this loss is only gathered around the fact that something has changed and that there will need to be a new method for the survival of the heard or pack. Maybe it’s just the void of lost energy that they can no longer sense. Ultimately, nothing can be done to turn back the wheel of death, and they accept this as part and parcel of living.

Muktab, it is written. If we could somehow see the way atoms would gravitate into place over the eons, we too would understand that Muktab is true, and things come in their own time as Solomon says. A particle of snow is bound to wind up on a certain area of an avalanche coming down the snowy peaks. The mystery unfathomable is why the snow flake transpired and fell from high, to that exact spot. Does the actual snow flake understand my metaphor and does it even care to ponder it. The speck is here, now, what difference does it make what its place in line it is written to be swept away? Its individual beauty may never be seen, yet it still lawfully falls from the sky.

Saying this, I too must be open to the possibility that the world is, insane as it sounds, on track with its destiny. This time, however, we are seemingly our own comet of destruction. Does the bull frog ponder how hard life is in the shrinking wet lands? Apperably, it continues to feed and shelter itself with what is left, until it adapts, miraculously or is annihilated. Accepting that it’s out of its control, submitting to the rebirth in a niche’ with ample space for all the reborn frogs.

This doesn’t mean it’s not ‘my duty to be responsible for the slowing down or attempting to change the proverbial course of the comet, which may well be humans. Nor does this prospect make me want to stop aiding my fellow beings wants to eat regularly and sleep safely in this changing eco-system of society. The holy society of the wilds holds many lessons for the humble bowing to the forces. When and why the wheel is turned, we’ll not know until we still ourselves in the present and use our intellectual adaptations to walk in the path of those wheels of the universal vehicle, and not to build and drive a better vehicle. In the end our earthly fuel will run empty. We must fill our lives with spiritual cells for power instead. For present human life it seems less about evoltiution physically and more of using all our senses to guide our choices in engaging the universe. A re-awaking evolving our more primal self and blending it with intellect for meeting our true needs to be fed, sheltered, clothed, to have useful activity, self worth, love, to be heard, maybe even understood, to embrace all lives as our own to be part of something in simple words. Of which are all things perceivable and mysteries hidden and unfolding.

“Genius in the porpoise? Has the porpoise ever written a book or spoken a speech....NO! His genius is not declared in his doing nothing to prove it. It is declared in his pyramidical silence.” – Herman Melville.

Thanks if you took the time to read that......

And thanks for letting me share.
Sage

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