The Book of Nature

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    We've talked about digging the inner and outer ground
    and touched on this in different ways:
    about patterns, about ways of seeing...listening.

    The theme for today is "Reading the Book of Nature"

    Or if you prefer,
    this book could have other titles:
    Listening to the Music of Nature
    Drawing the Faces of Nature
    What title would you give it?
    Have you seen your name among the co-authors?

    Every creature has its niche
    its nest, home, den, field, life-world
    its rhythms, its challenges, its food,  its community, its "work"
    living in the House of Nature in a special way
    one that was given it
    which it discovers and invents.

    This is my house
    and a guest house in which I am a guest

    Each creature has a place in the House of nature
    and a seat at the Table
    each has a voice in the Conversation
    and has brought a Story
    in exchange for other Stories

    Knowledge is a word for when we notice what is,
    and discover that it has been there all along
    unnoticed or unappreciated.

    There's a lot to discover,
    to remember,
    to enjoy
    about nature, myself, our relationship,
    and about being a good conversationalist.
    What are some of my favorite stories?

    Where do I sense
    the rhythm and melody of the music?
    Do I have some favorite songs?
    What lessons have I learned?

    What special ways do YOU have
    to read, listen, or dance to
    the book, symphony, or rhythm of nature?

    Reflections

    Some questions for reflection, and assorted responses (preferring openings, not summaries or conclusions):

    • What stories am I hearing, or involved with, lately?
    • How exactly does one (do I) go about this "reading" or "conversation"?
    • What have I learned?


    I've been hearing a common story a lot these days - a core cultural narrative. It seems to be the first attempt at reconnecting humans and "nature" after the older tradition that says these are separate.

    This is the story that says, nature has given us - through evolution - the means to survive. And.. well it sort of ends, like that's supposed to be enough. It's a "low" story, something nearly everyone can agree on - survival is important. This is a story of connection, of unification, but not a very complete or exciting one.

    But nature also gives much more: the ability to take comfort, to see beauty, to thrive,
    to rely on belonging. This is a really interesting story too. And no less "realistic". These eyes, this mind, that wonders, sees and respond to beauty, are also nature-given, evolved eyes.

    This "high" story is not about a different world. It's a different story about the same set of events, a different way of looking at them, one that sees the "deep ground" behind and the "larger space" around what happens. It says that quality - an aesthetic sense - is a fundamental property of existence.

    . . .

    Patterns are everywhere.
    Nature is full of patterns, the forms of how things work or move.
    Trees branch. Rivers and their valleys branch. Water branches. Even wind branches, if you could see it. Our veins and arteries branch.

    And our bodies branch, from trunk to arm/leg to hand to fingers to hairs and nerves.

    There's a basic, less visible pattern:
    Almost everything has a "body", which is the way it is in the world.
    Feet, legs, a trunk, belly, a head, face, mouth, hands, fingers and toes.
    Animals are built this way, but then, so are houses, cups, chairs, mountains and rivers; the wind.
    Because they need to stand in the world, face a certain direction, and interact.

    This insight seems obvious, ordinary; maybe too abstract to be meaningful. But is it?
    I find it ;eads to empathic insight into the "others" with which I share and make the world.
    We're a lot alike. We inhabit the world similarly. Observing them - they (the things) can learn for me - teach me things - occasion recognition or respect.

    . . .

    And how about the "how" of that conversation?

    There's something that seems surprising to me, but also reliable, if I'm patient enough to put myself in relationship to an Other, whether that be human (or sentient) or not.

    When I listen, give full attention and presence to what is going on around and in front of me, look towards and into its full, unique, and actual nature, I'm turning my attention to "it" as if it had things to tell me, or show me, things I don't already know and can't get abstractly or from any other source. There are two "ends" to the relationship, two parties to the conversation. My attention is "for it", and "It" reveals something new of itself. And at the same time, "it" also gives back something that is "for me". Perhaps it gives a special kind of medicine, something I needed at that time, something I didn't even realize I needed.

    This happens when we meet, somehow, in an "in between" space, that is neither "me" not "it", but some mix of the two, and something more. This seems to be the nature of a dialogue or conversation.

    Notes

    Here are some favorite poems (among many) that treat this theme of conversations with and learning from nature:

    Apology by Ralph Waldo Emerson
    Think me not unkind and rude,
    That I walk alone in grove and glen;
    I go to the god of the wood
    To fetch his word to men.

    Tax not my sloth that I
    Fold my arms beside the brook;
    Each cloud that floated in the sky
    Writes a letter in my book.

    Chide me not, laborious band,
    For the idle flowers I brought;
    Every aster in my hand
    Goes home loaded with a thought.

    There was never mystery,
    But 'tis figured in the flowers,
    Was never secret history,
    But birds tell it in the bowers.

    One harvest from thy field
    Homeward brought the oxen strong;
    A second crop thine acres yield,
    Which I gather in a song.
    The Seven of Pentacles by Marge Piercy
    Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
    You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
    More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
    Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
    Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
    Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
    Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

    Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
    Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
    Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
    a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
    interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

    Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
    reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
    This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
    for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
    the planting,
    after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
    Love (III) by George Herbert
    Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
    Guilty of dust and sin.
    But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
    From my first entrance in,
    Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
    If I lack'd any thing.

    "A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
    Love said, "You shall be he."
    "I, the unkind, ungrateful? ah my dear,
    I cannot look on thee."
    Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
    "Who made the eyes but I?"
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