“Nature is not out there, we are part of it”. I find myself guilty, as Shiva says, to think that I am not part of nature.
Growing up in a city, we had hard definitions of what is nature and what is not. It seems like there is certain metro station that divides the city into rural nature and bustling city. This division also applies to our knowledge of the land. My friends that lived in the city very rarely had contact with nature. Their weekends would mostly be around the city, attending tutorial lessons and different extra-curricular activities. I was already the one who interacted the most. Our family often goes hiking, but we had no deep connection or understanding of the land. It was as if we are not part of nature at all.
I really thought that Shiva’s advice, to think in circles and cycles, is very important and thought-provoking. With so much scientific research in the environment, we should have learnt that everything in this world operates like a cycle. The water cycle in nature, or the monetary system in economics, everything is interconnected. What we choose to do, or input into the system will definitely be returned back to us. As humans, we often think too highly of ourselves, why do we, out of all things have the right to make a change to everything? As Nabhan points out, problems of diabetes in the O’odham people would not have happened if people did not forcefully alter the land. Although God made us arms and legs so that we can move and control things, we still have to depend on land. If we don’t respect or treat it well, this world of cycles will show that we have to pay a price in the end.
I think what ties to this is the story of Pawnee corn that Winona talked about. First, her husky voice truly captivated me because it was like she was going to tell us an old legend, something with a meaning and moral behind it. The corn seemed to have a life of its own. It remembered the land it came from, and it stopped growing until it was back in Nebraska. If we believe in cycles and still depend on the land, we should stop thinking about ways to alter it to give way to economic issues that we believe is priority. Learning to respect and adjusting in habit to natural conditions is key.
The image of the circle is a powerful antidote to two geometrical forms that are more prominent in our current social discourse: the pyramid and the line. The pyramid is an essential hierarchical image. Guess who’s at the top? People! (And, in racist or xenopobic versions, just certain kinds of people.) This view of reality makes it more likely to downgrade the importance of species or foods that don’t feel important to us. It leads, in other words, to self-defeating arrogance. The line is the expression of economists’s and politicians’ addiction to endless growth. But of course every organism and community has its natural limits. Circles are inclusive and stable, expressive of the way in which resources cycle through the system and individuals’ health expresses a larger reality.
I was thinking about how you did not experience the connection to nature while growing in a city. I think it is related to definitions as you mentioned, but I think it’s more about the worldview that derives those definitions. Though cities are mostly concrete and buildings, as opposed to visible soil and trees, they still operate a part of nature; we breath air, the sun rises and it still rains in cities, as some example.
It might be the fault of our education system that only portrays “nature” as the pastoral green space, but nature includes everything from the core of the planted to the stars above. We learn about geology and astronomy for example as sciences, but they are much more than that and are not standalone fields. This relates to the conversation about compartmentalizing knowledge. Hopefully in a different educational platform we could incorporate the holistic view of nature and our place in it, and in doing so encouraging to reconnect with “nature” on all fields and appreciate them.