Nourishing Earth, Nourishing Thoughts

In June of 1877, a British family -- elderly grandfather, his wife, their grown son, baby grandson, and a nursemaid -- had all traveled on an outing to the ancient site of Stonehenge.  It was the sort of outing a Victorian family of the latter 1800's would do to enjoy being outdoors in the warmer Spring weather.

However, while this family was at the ancient site of Stonehenge, consisting of a ring of immense standing stones constructed maybe four thousand years ago, the elderly grandfather got permission from the guard to do something probably no tourist before had requested -- to dig into the ground around some of the stones.  As odd as that request was, the guard could hardly refuse it.  For, after all, that bearded grandfather was none other than Charles Darwin.

What Darwin was looking for in the ground was, of all things... earthworms!  Charles Darwin's interest in earthworms had begun forty years earlier, and it would continue to the very end of his life, becoming the subject of his very last book.

It was in fact Charles Darwin who made the first detailed discoveries about how earthworms are one of the major aerators and one of the primary fertilizers of soil.  Darwin wrote of earthworms:  "It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures."

When the story of Darwin's discovery about evolution is told, the animals most often mentioned are those giant tortoises and unearthly-looking iguanas of the Galapagos Islands.  And so I enjoy reading about how he devoted such interest and care to the small, unappreciated worms right beneath our feet.  I have a mental image of the bearded old man on his knees, gently browsing through the leaves in order to uncover the living creatures before they escaped into their burrows.  Also, browsing through the leaves in order to find insight.

This rarely-told story of Darwin and the worms symbolizes in a way what I would like to accomplish with my writing on this on-line periodical.  I would like to take time to browse through aspects of Nature.  I would like to pause to look at Nature thoughtfully as a way of gaining a humble perspective on the world we live in and what we humans are.

I would like to get at the nexus of Nature and spirituality, drawing also on the best thought of our religious traditions.  And so, I would also like to turn over other kinds of leaves -- the pages of books.  I want to leaf through my favorite books so that I might re-read those quotations that most nurture my spirit.  Nature and books, earth and human thoughts.  Weaving the two together in a variety of ways.

~~~

What experiences of Nature, or what words about Nature in a book, most touch your mind and heart?

Running Brooks and Books

Books in running brooks?  If that metaphor were taken too literally, it would not make sense, because the two don't mix well.  After all, books don't do well in water, whether from a running brook or from the tap.  Any book-lover who has been caught in the rain while carrying a book, or has spilled coffee upon a volume in their collection, knows that paper once wet is never the same again.

Nevertheless, water and books were brought together figuratively by Shakespeare when he wrote that our life...

 "finds tongues in trees,
books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones."

Those words are probably the most quoted lines from the play As You Like It, and I think that is because they express so poetically one of the enduring urges of humankind:  Namely, to learn about the world and ourselves by turning our attention to Nature.

That urge was once more often emphasized in Christianity, before modern western Christianity became narrowed down in its focus to primarily the human sphere.  Nor was reading the "Book of Nature," as it was called, usually considered a diminishment of the value of scripture, because Nature and the Bible were considered complementary sources of inspiration.  As one example, the highly influential 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote that "Revelation comes in two volumes, the Bible and Nature."

Today, we in the U.S. have more books than we could ever read, and a good number of them are devotional or theological books.  For me, however, it is not just religious books but also fiction or science that sparks a thought that leads to my spiritual reflections.

No matter what the written source, there is a reviving spiritual chemistry I can barely explain in this pulling together of what humans have expressed in books with my observations and knowledge of Nature.  (Similar, I think, to the way that Shakespeare's writings reveal the inspiration he found in both the books he read and Nature.)

Not that the "messages" I find from this chemistry are always immediately obvious by looking at Nature or the words on a printed page.  Instead, it is in musing upon the two together that my memories and emotions and inner voices arise.  My catching sight of something that intrigues me comes as I rummage through Nature's foliage (as Darwin did) and through the leaves of books.

There is one other advantage to remembering the "Book of Nature," especially because we live more and more in an inter-faith world.  Nature is inherently ecumenical.  As the contemporary Christian writer Matthew Fox put it:

No forest, no moon, no ocean, no field,
can be labeled "Buddhist" or "Jewish" or "Muslim" or "Christian."

~~~

Is there a place in Nature you like to return to?  Is there a favorite book you return to?

(The quotation by Matthew Fox is from

One River, Many Wells, © 2000.)