Life As We Know It

It struck me today that we humans are often full of hubris about our place in the world.

is much more complex than we imagine. Our culture likes to play up the idea of Darwin’s idea of “survival of the fittest,” when in reality this simply is not true. Cooperation is life’s superpower, not struggle.

We people are just like our planet-mates. We cannot put an end to nature; we can only pose a threat to ourselves. The notion that we can destroy all life, including bacteria thriving in the water tanks of nuclear power plants or boiling hot vents, is ludicrous. I hear our nonhuman brethren snickering: “Got along without you before before I met you, gonna get along without you now”, they sing about us in harmony. Most of them, the microbes, the whales, the insects, the seed plants, and the birds, are still singing. The tropical forest trees are humming to themselves, waiting for us to finish our arrogant logging so they can get back to their business of growth as usual. And they will continue their cacophonies and harmonies long after we are gone.”
― Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution

It comforts me to realize that nature constantly invents and re-invents forms of life over eons of time. Though we talk about the extinction of the dinosaurs, we can see remnants of their presence in birds. Though we have changed and are changing the world, the world will survive even though humans and many other species will suffer greatly from the changes we have wrought. It may take eons but life will find balance once more on this beautiful blue planet.

We are learning that our own bodies are ecosystems like the trees in a forest. In fact, we consist of more microbial than human cells, by some calculations. We contain multitudes. The more deeply scientists delve into the origins of life the more that we learn that EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED.

Every time we train our most sophisticated tools upon the central questions of our existence — Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? — the answer comes back clearer: Everyone and Everywhere.

— James Brindle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: A Search for a Planetary Intelligence

If we can learn and internalize the truth that we are “Everyone and Everywhere,” perhaps we can transition our cultures to become less patriarchal and hierarchical and more cooperative and inclusive. Perhaps we can learn to respect and honor the intelligence of plants, trees, microbial, insect, and animal life.

We are who we are because of everything else.

Models of progression, advancement, linearity and individuality — models, in short, of hierarchy and dominance — collapse under the weight of actual diversity. Life is soupy, mixed up and tumultuous. Muddying the waters is precisely the point, because it’s from such nutritious streams that life grows. The individual, under the microscope or under the sun, is always a plurality. Models of multiplicity are needed to make sense of this endlessly proliferating, teeming, oozing and entangling life. The tree is not a tree, but perhaps a bush, or a net — or a forest, or a lake.

— James Brindle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: A Search for a Planetary Intelligence

On a mundane note, I am enjoying this rare 50+ degree late November day. It’s probably the last one of these we will see for awhile. This morning I went out to Wolsfeld Woods for a hike but discovered the paths were covered with very slippery tromped down melted and refrozen snowpack and ice. So I made a few photos at the edge of the woods and then headed to West Medicine Lake park to take a walk on less slippery terrain. I saw lots of birders out looking for different breeds of birds in the open waters by the park. And when I drove around to the east side of Medicine Lake there were still a lot of ducks, gulls and Trumpeter Swans near the shoreline.

I hope you are also enjoying this beautiful Saturday my friends.

May you walk in beauty.