This blog post is an exploration of our relationship with life. It explores our existence as part of the ecosystem and the evolution into our modern, primarily western cultural experience of life (although it has permeated much of the world). It is an exploration of where we have come from, who we are now and what our relationship with nature is. It creates more questions than answers and invites the reader to explore their relationship to being both human and nature.
Life’s Emergence as an Ecosystem
The ecosystem we share in today has long been an evolution of relationship between organisms. In it’s unfolding, life emerged from simple organic molecules combining and replicating to become cells and eventually creating many many lifeforms including that of the human species. Like a baby being born out of her mother, so all of life came from the center and expanded outward. From this perspective, all living things are connected through shared ancestry. Additionally, we rely on all of life to sustain us. We are all tied together as a living, breathing organism separated into parts but nevertheless parts of a whole.
As humans became established, there continued to be a relationship and connection with all of life. Awareness and understanding of the seasons, the animals, the flora and fauna and more were essential for survival including the ability to hunt, to know when certain foods were available, if a lion was in your vicinity, to shelter against weather, etc. However, these rhythms also informed humans understandings and beliefs about life, shaping the development of culture, rituals, language and more.
Human Relationship with Life Through Symbols and Myth
Throughout history, humans have integrated properties and cycles of nature into our cultures symbolizing the connection between humans and their natural environment. We observe the presence of these recurring patterns in nature such as the changing of seasons, life cycles of animals and the lunar phases, in the form of activities, beliefs, measurement of time, rituals, art and more. One place it frequently is depicted is in art using imagery of the sun, moon, plants, and animals to convey symbolic meaning. And these cycles continue to play a role in creating aspects of human culture that are still practiced today. For example, many cultures have celebrations and rituals that are aligned with natural cycles such as harvest festivals in autumn, spring equinox, and winter solstice celebrations.
Examples in Human Culture
- Seasonal Cycles: The four seasons, often associated with birth, growth, harvest, and rest in many cultures, influencing agricultural practices, festivals, and storytelling.
- Lunar Cycles: The phases of the moon are observed, with many cultures tying them to cycles of fertility, emotions, and spiritual practices.
- Life Cycles: The natural cycle of birth, growth, decline, and death is reflected in many cultural narratives and rituals, often symbolizing personal transformation and the passage of time.
Examples Across Cultures
- Indigenous Cultures: Many indigenous communities have deep knowledge of their local ecosystems and integrate natural cycles into their practices, including hunting and gathering based on seasonal changes.
- Ancient Civilizations: The Egyptians used the Nile River flooding cycle to plan agriculture, while the Mayans developed a complex calendar based on astronomical cycles.
- Modern Society: While modern life often disconnects people from direct interaction with nature, there is still a growing interest in reconnecting with natural rhythms through practices like gardening, nature conservation, hiking, and more.
Examples in Myths and Stories
Another place that these cycles show up are in myths, legends and story telling. These often incorporate characters who embody aspects of the seasons, or that symbolize the elements or temperaments of nature. For example, one key theme in nature are cycles of birth, life, death, rebirth; creation and destruction. These themes show up across cultures belief systems about life.
- Hinduism’s Tridevi/Mahadevi goddess who takes on the forms of Creation (Mahasaraswati), Preservation (Mahalaxmi), and Destruction (Mahakali) and play the role of the force that carries out these elements of life
- Christianity’s story of Jesus’s death, burial, resurrection as a symbol of transformation
- Egyptian mythology of Isis and Osiris representing the intertwined nature of life and death
All of these depict the continued inextricable way in which humans are part of the whole, part of an ecosystem that influences our lives.
What was the Purpose of Integrating these Elements of Nature into our Cultural Practices?
Firstly, I don’t think it was done with purpose but rather with instinct and as part of our journey of being in relationship with what is. As thunder crashes, and rain falls, and forces beyond our control influence and impact our lives, we have used stories and ceremonies as a way to be in relationship with all of this and as a way to teach our children how to relate to life. Secondly, it has kept alive a lens of life that we are part of all of this. What is going on in the world around us directly affects and influences us whether it be our ability to grow food to feed ourselves, or to tune into and be in flow with our journey of life including our personal growth and our mortality. So much of life is not in our control for we are simply another feature within it. Throughout history, humans have integrated these natural phases into cultural practices and rituals to maintain relationship with nature and the ecosystem. To remember that we too are nature, we too are in a cycle of growth, abundance, release, death, rest and renewal.
What Has Changed Our Relationship with the Ecosystem?
As culture and humanity have further “civilized” and “modernized”, we find ourselves more removed from nature, building highways and buildings, moving into cities and relying on technology that supersede many of natures rhythms. In many ways, we have alienated ourselves from our awareness that we are another part of the ecosystem. With time, there has become a separation between how we relate to ourselves vs how we relate to the world around or outside of us. With a shift in perspective has come an illusion about our separateness and difference and thus an understanding of reality based on this. Nature has become this thing out there, beyond us that we look at or visit; It is out there and we are in here. We have developed cultural mechanisms to comprehend it, tame it and dominate it. We have gone from being animalistic beings, fully inhabiting our bodies and fully present to the sensations we experience, and have migrated upward into our cranium to live from the viewing platform of the brain and mind. We have developed thoughts, language, and perceptions that categorize and conceptualize the experiences we are having. From this vantage point, we can be separate and make ourselves distinct from all that is around us.
In addition, these changes have impacted our relationship and understanding of ourselves. We have begun to forget our own natural cycles and rhythms, discarding the myths of old that guided us to more fully understand the phases of growth and transformation inherent to our journey. While some people continue to connect to nature through hiking or gardening, many have turned their back on our ecosystem and our connection within it.
Many scholars have categorized this as being a part of our natural evolution. We have developed this skillful brain feature and that is quite a successful feat. It gives us tools and abilities to do things that no other life form has done, for example, building rockets that take us out into space as well as the ability to fight death and disease to prolong life. Through readings of scientific, philosophical and anthropological texts that discuss this as a necessary part of the evolution of consciousness, I have discovered further discussion of this evolution as not complete and that this too is simply another stage of evolution, the evolution of consciousness (read Ken Wilbur and Philip Shephard for some deep dives into this topic).
My goal with this exploration is not to demonize the process or the phase that we are in. My intent and interest is to open a conversation about the nature of our relationship to reality based on our physiological and cultural evolution. Further, my intent is to reflect on how it impacts our experience of life including how we relate to ourselves, each other, the earth and how we relate to the universe that we were born out of. Finally, I believe it is important to re-connect with and re-experience our union with all of life even as we benefit from the perspective of distinction and separation. A key to understanding our human nature and the current culture and reality that we live in is exploring ourselves as nature and the impact of having left that behind.
- What are the impacts of losing our deep awareness of ourselves as nature (for us as humans and for the rest of the ecosystem)?
- What are the possible benefits of reconnecting with our place in the whole?
- What can we learn from our ancestors ways of being in rhythm with the cycles of life?
- In what ways do you feel and experience yourself as a living being within the ecosystem? How does this shape you? How does this awaken you to your relationship with yourself and all of your brothers and sisters on this planet?
Remembering Who We Are
When I remember that I too am nature, I am life in human form, I remember and discover deep truths about myself and the rhythms and cycles of my being. I am so much more than the concepts of what it means to be a person, doing the things people do, operating within the social norms and contexts of reality that we operate within. We are life, we are part of a whole, we are nature in all its ebbs and flows.
- When I am reminded that all of this began as a molecule and then a cell, and that life began and kept forming until it got to me and my fellow humans in this current moment of life, I am impacted.
- When I hear that we are made up of 60% water, that the trees produce the oxygen that I need to breath, that my immune system is interacting with the world around me, I am reminded of what I am.
- When I contemplate that the distinction between where my skin ends and where the air around me begins is an ocular illusion, and that in fact our cells and bacteria are all merging together around us, not fixed or contained but sort of floating, I am re-awakened.
- Have you ever seen a baby be born? The magic of life’s pre-programmed way of operating beyond our control and input, beyond the faculties of the conscious mind, are astounding. I am humbled.
There is an inextricable temperament of nature that pulses within us. And we have developed consciousness that allows us to experience and observe this. Can we bring the two together? Can we be animal and human simultaneously? Can we regain the sense and aliveness of being a creature on planet earth? Can we maintain our mental cognitive side while re-awakening to these other parts or do we have to leave them behind as we continue to evolve?
