The laws, the nurturing and the wisdom of nature
Man has always tried to conquer, control or manage nature, yet through our endeavours, we may eventually come to understand that nature is a complex system that is far beyond our comprehension and one we will never be able to conquer or control. Our need to do so only separates us from a system we are all naturally part of and one we depend on for life.
We may never understand why the universe doesn’t end, how every snowflake, each with six sides and perfect symmetry can be different or how every human being can have a different fingerprint and DNA; how tiny birds and animals survive in sleet, hail or scorching sun or how delicate flowers and mushrooms have been able to grow through cement.
Natural disasters, including tsunamis, bushfires, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and floods show us the power that nature has. As devastating as these disasters may be, like everything in the natural world they have an essential purpose and we must learn to recognise the signs and stay out of the way. Life always begins again from the destruction that often seems to be complete with species that only survive in the aftermath. These same species also create new life in the areas of nature that we destroy ourselves.
It’s easy to believe that nature’s purpose is punitive and needs to be controlled but every purpose whether we can see it or not is one that is protective and nurturing and provides us with everything we need.
When water or food is not suitable for consumption, the taste or smell will naturally drive us away. When we are injured, the pain we feel will immobilise us so we can heal, when we are ill, our immune system will fight in an attempt to destroy whatever we have allowed to invade us and our feelings connect us to nature’s universal law of truth that stops us from harming ourselves and others.
Nature always attempts to repair the damage we do to ourselves and the natural world we live in. I once sat down near a camping site where a pile of rubbish had been left beside a beautiful river. I noticed that the plastic was half-buried as though it was being sucked back under the ground where, in its raw form, it originally came from. The timber and tin left behind had started to decompose on top of the ground and were becoming part of the soil. A strip of new bark had grown on the trunk of a nearby sapling that someone had started to cut down.
Everything we need to know and understand we can learn from nature and respecting it, is respecting ourselves because we are part of it. When we learn to love, trust and care about the natural world and everything in it, we will then love, trust and care about ourselves and others and enjoy the exceptional life we have been given.