Divine Properties

What is man's connection to the world? It would appear that of all of man's capacities his ability to witness or observe is his most treasured attribute. If one were to study what makes people happy I would expect to see a wide variety of answers. This in part would be due to the diverse nature of how man observes the world. He bases his values upon what he interprets as beauty. Beauty possesses a wide range of characteristics mainly because men as individuals have many different angles from which to gaze. Virtue, often times, is man's attempt to contain or catch beauty. The pursuit of virtue, as stated by Thoreau, brings into focus innocence, sincerity, and truth. Within his limited scope man can easily become delusional by confusing what is visually beautiful as opposed to spiritually beautiful. It is not the mountain or the mountain lion that contains true (spiritual) beauty. It is the connection that allows the mountain to feed the lion and the lion to feed the mountain. Such mechanics in all of man's studies have shown but a glimpse into its operation. Yet still after all of the charting and labeling man cannot explain the reason behind why it all works. To what purpose is our ability to 'see' all of this?

Thoreau and His Great Experiment

After reading through the first few chapters of Henry David Thoreau's Walden, I admire his approach in running an experiment on himself to pursue the origin of virtue. Is it possible that with everything that has been incorporated in our lives and the superfluous complexities that have accompanied our progression through time enable us to understand and see virtue? His case seems to stand on the grounds of getting back to the basics.

When I look out at today's cultural setting it would seem that we are moving backwards by moving forwards. It would seem that we are exacerbating an end by a manufactured means. Rather than individuals pursuing independent spiritual freedoms and sharing in that experience with others we are merely synthesizing a spiritual polymer to create a manufactured soul! The dividing lines between the upper echelons of society and those falling behind are creating an illusory mode of social acceptance. If you purchase a product and display its name for the world to see then somehow that is supposed to give the purchaser a sense of societal acceptance. Yet spiritually they have sacrificed a personal part of their being in order to separate a piece of their identity onto a product that does not breath or live. Strip a person naked of all material possessions and what does one have left?

What is Fate?

What is fate?

Is it a coincidence of occurrences that we humans attempt to add some sort of significance to or is there some kind of blueprint that connects life to the universe and fate is simply the universe filling gaps where necessary for life to continue, perhaps through some method of odds or probability (after all, was Edison not the only person inventing the lightbulb?). I think of John Muir's life and I imagine what shape our world would have had he not have gone blind. Would someone else have come to fill that evolutionary niche and preservation as we know it would exist or would we have turned this great nation into an exacerbated Easter Island? Would Theodore Roosevelt still have enacted the Antiquities Act of 1906 were it not for the advice and dialogue with John Muir? Would Gifford Pinchot have exercised his concept of conservation to "conservatively" timber old growth forests from the northern mountaintops of California? Would we have national parks today?

The Thinkers and the Workers

Looking out onto the blanket of trees that cover my neighborhood I see a diversity of botany. From what I can tell I see the Quaking (Snowbowl) Aspens, Acacia Greggiis, Acer Negundo (Maple), and a few Mesquites that have migrated to the residential area of my viewpoint. On the edges of town there are coniferous pines that line the mountain sides. I wonder if these old-time natives mind not being in the middle of all the blaring horns, machinery, and mayhem? Funny how one species gets pushed aside for another. Who really benefits and who really suffers?


This town of Flagstaff is new to me on many levels. People seem to live a simpler lifestyle than what I'm used to back in Southern California. People seem to genuinely be happy living at a slower rate than one would see in any metropolitan area. My neighbors are not work-a-holics who spend most of their time trying to get ahead, they simply maintain. This observance made me think of how our society is run. In a very general sense there are three kinds of workers and three kinds of thinkers. I'll note the former first. The workers of the world seem to spend their time either working for something in the future, functioning as maintenance in the present, or decaying their surroundings by being hung up on something in their past. The 'futurists' are very focused on working hard to make it to the end of the day or the end of the week or the end of the month or the end of the year. They are constantly fixated on future events and do not really take each moment in life as it arises as a means to see what is in front of them. It's always just around the corner. These workers often miss real opportunity for growth because real growth is not simply focusing on the future but taking all aspects of time as we know it (past, present, and future) and building off of that. Those that maintain usually are very grounded people in that they know very well what is going on in the present moment because part of maintaining or playing the role of maintenance entails making sure that a system works and is functioning properly. These people also tend to fall short on insight because they have no ambition for change or movement outside of the proverbial 'box' that they work hard to preserve. The third type of worker the "decayer" often diminishes their work and surroundings because they are focused on a memory or the remnants of past success or failure.

There are also the thinkers which somewhat resemble the workers but vary in operation. Those that are the "growers" are always thinking of the next step. In an almost compulsory way, these individuals make moves based on their vision of the future. Much like the workers it's always about what could be and never resting on what is. The "in-the-now" thinkers dissolve all constructs of what was and what might be. They truly live life in the moment without thought of regret or consequence. And finally there are those who have a somewhat delayed effect in that they seem to look at life after it passes them. These types of people often drive while looking through their rearview mirror.

As I look out over the blanket of trees that cover my neighborhood I think of how one "species" of humans gets pushed aside for another. Who really benefits and who really suffers?

The Howl of the Wolf

If there is such a thing as Gaia or Earth itself being an organism with all of its biota being the different organs that make up the whole, are some of us humans nothing more than a cancerous cyst? Some people see working for the earth as a responsibility to the land and themselves. How often does a hard day's work seem rewarding of itself? I have never met such grounded individuals as those who find meaning in their relationship with the earth and one another. Their energy sort of describes their story as one can get a sense that of the balance these people find in life.

When I think of a serene mountainside or an untreaded riverbank I imagine what Jesus and Buddha must have been thinking when they would retreat to nature to discover their relationship to the cosmos. What clarity and simplicity that can be found in the wilderness! To become the Witness as opposed to telling the world what it is. To observe history, the present, and the unknown all in one place, all in one moment. The wilderness is a place that makes use of all known and unknown senses to all living creatures.

In nature there is no room to frustrate any of the mechanics that aid in its continuation. The delicate balances of the natural world depend on all the elements and the processes that have created and maintained much of what exists on this planet to remain untampered by Human's concept of time. The natural world itself does not know time. Much of the animal kingdom do not know what time is. Only Human's interpretation seems to be at fault for the many miscalculations of our world. To think that we can put characters that we call numbers to represent an eternity of prior and continued existence is beyond any realm that a human being can experience. Isn't that what we attribute to be the duty of God? When did humans decide to take matters into their own hands? Was this the fault of Eve? Do we blame some ancient relative for inventing Human's first tool? Where did we go wrong and how do we begin the process of damage control? Can we control the damage we've made for the biological sphere by which we inhabit?

September

As I sit here looking out over the canopy that covers most of the town of Flagstaff I am reminded of the stories told of Leopold's realization on his farmland in Wisconsin. I'm not sure if anyone notices the little intricacies of what has adapted, over time, to the arrival and expansion of humans on this plot of "land". Oddly enough I do not hear many birds. Nothing but the occasional chopping of wood or hammering of some project that someone has undertaken. In the distance a train rumbles through as its echoes reverberate throughout the forest. Where have all the birds gone? I'm not an expert on the migration or local ecology of birds but I would have guessed that with such an abundance of real estate I would be listening to a symphony of calls and cackles rather than the high-pitch grumblings of the nearby yapper-dog. Perhaps Leopold and I have both experienced the quiet setting of September.

I find it interesting that we debate and toil over land management issues while all other species just continue to use the land the way they always have. We, humans, have used our greatest ability, thought, to complicate and redefine a very simple stage for us to perform on. How often do people think of the crow that flies overhead or the movement of the leaves indicating a push of air? Such an amazing act to witness yet we're more concerned with what time our favorite tv show comes on or making it to an important meeting. What can be more important than witnessing the glorious motion of life and time and space?

When I look out and see the slow motion of the swaying trees and all the interrelated motions of creatures that share the land, I feel that I'm connected to them by the simple statement "I am". We all share this. We may not share the same home or inhabit the same body but we all form an "I Amness" in our experience. My experience, in this sense, is no different than the ponderosa pine or the black lab or my neighbor. There is a subjective nature that we all share yet there are objective divisions that disable many of us to see our interrelated bonds. My body, my thoughts, and all that I see are nothing more than objects, quantifiable organizations of matter cooperatively working side-by-side to continue this thing called life. But what is it about this "life" that connects me to the past? What is it about this life that connects me to you or any other organism? There is a part of me that observes everything including myself. This "I Amness" of realization connects me back to every living thing that has ever witnessed, even if only for a short moment, its own existence. Am I to think that a dog has never realized its own self? How would a dog 'know' to get excited when its owner comes home? Is there not some memory indicating to that animal that it has experienced a moment of I Amness that it desires to experience again?

My New Found Hero

I think I have found a new hero. Aldo Leopold has written a beautiful piece of literature entitled "A Sand County Almanac". The more that I continue my reading the more I can understand the significance of our evolution as a species and some answers to questions that have puzzled me for quite some time. Toward the end of the book is where Leopold unveils the hidden meaning behind how man perceives the world. In his Land Ethic argument there is an interconnectedness that more often than not is overlooked and has become the problem of a lot of our environmental problems today. Keeping in mind that his book was published in 1949, there are concepts inside that are timeless.

He begins his book by chronicling each month of the year and what he learns about "nature". For this entry, I will offer my thoughts on the basic concepts of each month as I go through them.

January:

Here he talks about winter slowly breaking toward spring and what he discovers around the land in Wisconsin. There are tracks in the snow that show a skunk has emerged from hibernation and has begun his journey through another period of awakening. As the snow begins to slowly melt there are hidden tunnels beneath the top layer engineered by mice that has become noticeable from anyone (or anything) that sits above. What Leopold begins to explain is his observation of life'd revival toward a new season and a new year.

What I begin to notice while reading through the month of January is how the domino effect of life continues. The interesting point that I gather while I continue to read is that there doesn't seem to be an originating piece that has tip off this chain of events. More and more do I see a relation of one event or thing to another.

February:

In this chapter is where Leopold has really begun to open my mind. He talks about collecting wood for his furnace and the process of cutting a tree. Most people wouldn't think much below the surface when chopping down a tree or cutting one up into pieces small enough to fit inside of a wood furnace. He begins to explain how each motion of a saw goes back in time through a tree's rings. One can learn a lot from this process in a field called dendrology. Depending on the size of the ring one can see whether a drought or forest fire existed...in that year! As he continues through each year he relates it to events that were going outside of that tree such as when he says "We cut 1906, when the first state forester took office, and fires burned 17,000 acres in these sand counties; we cut 1905 when a great flight of goshawks came out of the North and ate up the local grouse (they no doubt perched in this tree to eat some of mine)."

The way he describes the relevance of each ring contained within a tree made me realize that there is wisdom not to be overlooked in the "land" of our world. Life did not start nor will it stop by our human ideas. Man's disconnect with the natural world is his assumed understanding of it. We DO want to think of things in a quantitative manner but unfortunately we have marginalized the qualitative aspects of our thinking. In my humble opinion, Plato was a genius at explaining the qualitative significance of the world in which we inhabit. Two concepts that have stuck with me are Plato's Allegory of the Cave and his interpretation of the Visible World vs. the Intelligible World.

March I will skip.

April:

In this month he explains how farms built upon riverbanks can be marooned by floods due to the melting of snow further upstream. He continues on to talk about how geese and birds react to the changing in the weather (and in particular with the floods) and begin their "claim" on the surrounding areas that other mammals and such do not have access to due their "floating" ability. It is not long into this text that he begins explaining the "battle" of brush fires that played an integral role in the prairies in the Wisconsin/Illinois area. Not until the arrival of a new animal, the settlers, was this process interrupted. The bur oak began taking over much of the prairie land because of man's intervention of the fires. He also goes on to talk about the dance of the woodcock in this time and brilliantly says "It is fortunate, perhaps, that no matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all of the salient facts about any one of them."

As I understand it, I begin to see that Leopold is admitting to himself that there are activities in the woods that don't necessarily need our understanding of it for it to exist. It's almost as if he is trying to rollback the argument of man's thinking especially when he says things like "Engineers did not discover insulation; they copied it from these old soldiers [bur oak trees] of the prairie war [the fires that raged throughout the prairie grasses]." Man would love to take credit for his understandings as if he created it. Thinking about this I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin. He did not "discover" electricity. I'm sure many before him had seen lightening in the sky yet because he puts his stamp of discovery on it he is now credited with this revolutionary element of our world. How often has man tried to take credit for something that preceded his understanding of it?

To be continued...