The Sacredness Of The Natural World
I remember as a child being fascinated by the natural world. The first frost that coated the grass and windows after a warm summer, the yellowing of the corn and the grass. The shortening of the days and the lengthening of the nights. The excitement of the inevitable first snowfall and when it finally came, oh, the magic it brought. Then the melting of the snow in spring after a long winter, and the way the creeks would flow there was a certain beauty and perfection to it that words can’t quite capture. The first warm summer days that brought fireflies. The sound of crickets and grasshoppers a kind of music to the ears. Finding special rocks and admiring them, walking through a forest and coming across a deer. I could go on and on. It seems to me that children, if they’re not stifled by technology are awake and aware to the enchantment of the natural world. I’m not sure where or why we lose this. There could be many reasons. One, I believe, is the common view that the Earth is damned and that all that matters is going to heaven when we die. I know this is more of a Western, especially Christian, idea—unlike many Eastern traditions. Certain philosophies also see the material world as beneath us, believing that all that is sacred lies only in the mind or spirit. In Christian terms, this duality makes us see the world as fallen, a place we merely pass through on our way to a purer realm. I held to this fundamentalist Christian view for several years and eventually, it led me into misery. Lately, I’ve been trying to find the magic in creation again. After all, if there is a God who created it all, then He, She, or It must be good and so creation itself must be good. Don’t the Christian scriptures even say that? Maybe the material universe is an expression of the divine a sort of dance, or a way, like the Tao. Nature flows: rivers, the growing of plants, the singing of birds, the weather, the clouds. They don’t complain about what’s happening or ask, “Why am I what I am?” at least, it doesn’t seem so to me. It feels like we humans go against the flow of nature. We build endless roads, destroying ecosystems or as a child might see it, destroying the magical world of nature. We see the Earth as a resource to be exploited. All we care about is consuming working all day to make more, to buy more and the cycle goes on. I think we need to fundamentally change our orientation toward life: to see the Earth as sacred, to find its flow, and to join in its harmony. Yes, there is suffering in the natural world that isn’t caused by us. Animals are eaten, they freeze, they die. But without death, I don’t think there would be life. Death itself is part of the music of the cosmos. Without impermanence, we would never truly cherish what we have.