Where I live, spring is becoming summer. It is a beautiful time of year filled with birdsong and flowers. The hardwood trees have recently leaved out. For a week or so there are seemingly an infinite number of shades of green on the hillsides. Gradually this array becomes one robust, forest green.
I am also fortunate that I grew up on a working dairy farm. As a child, I remember heading outside as soon as I could after breakfast, unless it was raining or very cold. Outside, I soaked in the natural world, the plants, animals, birds, insects, weather signs, seasons, and the passage of the day from morning to the end of the afternoon.
Recently, I listened with interest to an entomologist explain why people should not kill the spiders they find in their homes. When he was pushed to explain why, not only did he say that very few spiders are poisonous and shun human contact, but mainly, he said, they are living creatures like us and therefore deserve to live out their lives. This made perfect sense to me. I remember that we had a ‘pet’ spider we nicknamed what else but Charlotte, who had a web in a corner of our dining room ceiling. But I wondered how convincing his argument was for most of the radio audience.
The experience of spring into summer reminds me of an issue I ponder and worry about. In our culture, most of us, as we go about our daily lives, are removed from the natural world. It is other, something separate from the human world. So what do I mean by the ‘natural world?’ The closest definition that I could find, from the Macmillan dictionary (www.macmillandictionary.com) is “the biosphere, the parts of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere where plants an animals can exist,” in other words, an inclusive definition of life on earth.
When our environment is under siege from climate change and the depletion of resources, I propose a modest shift in our understanding about and expression of of our connection to the natural world. And it depends on our use of language. At this time, we live in an environment, on the earth, in a landscape, along side nature, etc. Yet we can be home. What if we are not just in the natural world, but we are the natural world? We are not of, or in, or on, but we are… My modest proposal might open our minds to the interconnection of all living things, and, hopefully lead to acts of engagement and stewardship, and not just the use of.