Humans a Part of Nature... But...

On a recent morning, when I stopped outdoors just before daybreak, I thought for a moment that I was in a painting by the 20th-century painter René Magritte.  No, it was not one of his more obviously surrealistic paintings, such as those in which men in bowler hats float across the sky, or a window frame encloses a brick wall.  Instead, it was as if I were in one of his more subtle paintings that merge reality and unreality in the way they portray a house between trees with the sky and clouds above.

At first, the painting appears perfectly realistic, until you realize the clever way Magritte has played with light.  Part of the front of the house is illuminated by an artificial light near the door, in just the way it would appear at night.  But above, the sky is light blue, just as if it were day.  It's neither night nor day but impossibly both!

That illusion is so similar to the light I saw as I stepped outside just before daybreak.  What first caught my eye were the white clouds above the house across the street, along with a couple stars visible above the clouds in the night sky.  As I turned my head upward, I saw that the same very white clouds formed a ring all around me, a nearby treetop blocking only a small part of my view of them.  Straight above me was a large opening in the white clouds, revealing the dark night sky with a few more stars visible.

But how could this be?  If the sky told me it was night, how could the clouds be so white?  The reason was that they were illuminated by all the artificial lights of city, which I could not see directly.  Just like Magritte's painting, what appeared to be totally natural was, in fact, a fusion of the natural and the artificial.

To me, this experience stands as a metaphor of who we human beings are in relationship to the natural world:  Our human lives are part of both natural processes and our humanly-created cultures.  We are in one way a part of Nature, and in another way not.  In trying to describe who we are, drawing upon our contemporary scientific knowledge about biological and cultural evolution, some contemporary writers are increasingly using the word "emergent."  We humans, relying so much upon our cultural artifacts, are an emergent species.

Another metaphor that proves helpful to me in understanding our human emergence is that of a strikingly colored flower on the tip of the stem of a plant.  Just like the colorful flower, we stand out as something different, even though we would die if we were cut off from the plant.

Back in the 2nd century, the Christian theologian Irenaeus also spoke about human emergence, without confining God's spirit to the human realm.  Irenaeus  wrote:  "God sleeps in a stone, dreams in a flower, moves in an animal, and wakes in man."

No individual human could survive without either Nature or human culture.  That is our dilemma. Maybe we can make it our joy.

~~~

In what ways do you think we are more than a part of Nature?  In what ways a part of Nature?

(The detail from the Magritte painting "The Empire of Light,"

 © 1950 Museum of Modern Art, is used here through Fair Use.)

The Harmony of Feathers

Even since I was a boy, I've picked up feathers.  I do not go about intentionally trying to find them, nor do I have any large or scientifically-arranged collection.  But ever since I was a child, I've had the habit of picking up that occasional feather I've come across on the ground.  In a way, it seemed to me such a waste to leave such a polished finished product just lying on the ground, unappreciated.  In another way, possessing a feather felt a bit like having a talisman because it seemed to be like a free and lucky find.

Humans have appreciated the beauty of birds' feathers since before recorded history.  Both native Americans and some Pacific cultures incorporated feathers into their ritual dress.  As I examine even a single one of my relatively simple feathers from a Blue Jay or Mockingbird, I can see why:  The feather's combination of rigidity and softness to the touch.  The feather's simple elegance of design with a striking contrast of colors.

Walt Whitman

Thinking about this matter of found feathers, the phrase that comes to my mind is "designedly dropped."  It's a phrase Walt Whitman uses as he reflects on the wonder of a handful of grass brought to him by a child who asks the child's perennial question, "What is this?"  Whitman, confessing to the reader that he cannot say ultimately what grass is (so wondrous it seems), contents himself with imaginative musings about what this natural object from the Creator might be.  This is where Whitman likens the Nature-object to God's initialed handkerchief "designedly dropped,  /  Bearing the owner's name... that we may see and remark, and say Whose?"

To me, this mystery of feathers (or of a blade of grass) goes right to the heart of our spiritual relation to Nature.  There is a paradox:  I know that God did not intentionally drop that feather on the path along which I was about to walk so that I might find it.  And I know that the symmetrical tidiness of the rows of thin branches projecting from a feather's stem was not created so that I might marvel.  Nor were the colored designs created in order that I might enjoy their beauty.

Nevertheless, our human brains and cultures evolved so that we might engage the world in a way that unites our minds and hearts with the fascinating features of the world.  I think one hymn writer spoke to this when that hymnist wrote of "the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight."

~~~

As a child, did you collect any objects from Nature?  Do you do so now?

(The lines from the hymn are from
  "For the Beauty of the Earth," lyrics by Folliott Sandford Pierpoint, 1864.)

(Portrait of Walt Whitman is in public domain because its copyright has expired.)

Being Sensitive or Not

"Don't be so sensitive!"  It's something that many a parent has told a child in order to deal with injured emotions.  It is for the very same reason that children are taught the verse, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."

What got me to reflecting upon this matter of sensitivity, however, was not any incident involving a child's tenderness.  Instead, I got to thinking about this matter because of a tiny fern-like plant, the Mimosa roemeriana.  It's common name is, in fact, the "sensitive briar," and it is indeed quite sensitive.

When I was growing up, the children in my neighborhood would sometimes keep a lookout for the plant growing snug against the ground, hidden in the grass at the edge of the driveway.  If its pink puffball of a bloom was not present, it could remain camouflaged from our sight in the grass.  But what delighted us was not that pink ball, but the plant's sensitivity to touch.  Even just touching the leaf lightly with a small twig could make the rows of leaflets on each side of the center spine fold in against each other.

We were never able to figure out how long it was before the leaflets would re-open. However, there is one thing I have figured out from my study of this world:  It is not just humans and the sensitive briar that are sensitive.  Every animal, plant, fungi, algae, and bacteria upon this planet is.

Buddhism employs the word "sentient" (from a similar Latin root as "sensitive") to help cultivate a compassion not just for humans but for all animals.  That's a worthy endeavor, especially because too much of Western Christianity has narrowed down its focus to the human sphere.

Nevertheless, even plants, fungi, algae, and bacteria are sensitive in their own way in that they are responsive to stimuli from outside their bodies.  Although the relatively quick responsiveness of insect-eating plants such as the Venus's-flytrap is visible to our naked eye, all plants are changing their metabolism and growth patterns as the sun shifts and the water level changes. And we humans are learning the hard way how even bacteria species adapt to the warfare of our antibiotics.

Indeed, if any species of life had not been sensitive to its environment, it would not have evolved into the species it is today.  It is as if at the inception of each species, Evolution had commanded, "Be sensitive!"

~~~

How do you try to find a middle ground between being overly sensitive and not sensitive enough?

(The green artwork is licensed under a Creative Commons

 Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license by Ade McO-Campbell.)