10 c) The Way We Look at the World

The natural world is infinitely more than an inanimate background, more than a mute, inactive witness to our lives. It is a vast, complex weave of interacting communities and societies, filled with living, sentient citizens; a multidimensional world pulsating with energy, freely flowing with life, our Self included. If we fail to see that, it is not because these communities don’t exist. Their invisibility is due only to our natural, human tendency to acknowledge our most obvious and familiar partnerships, long before we give a thought to the lives of Beings we can barely see, or to which we feel no direct connection.

We do not have a relationship with Nature; we are within Nature. We are Nature or at least a part of It. When *Australopithecus afarensis first walked, it was on a planet without human invention. Where humankind thrived, the air was clear, the water pure, the earth fertile and filled with a flowing balance of interrelated inhabitants. And it remained a perfect environment for **Homo habilis, ***Homo erectus, and eventually for us, Homo sapiens. In one form or another, humankind has survived nearly four million years. Technology and its pollutant by-products, on the other hand, have only been around for about one hundred years, 1/40,000th of our total time spent on Earth as a changing species.

Even a few generations ago, water in the North American Great Lakes was still sweet, pure, and potable; but technological progress has changed all that. In a relatively short time, the air around cities has become foul. Even in the countryside, air quality is deteriorating. Pristine land is put into mortal danger by being made the unresisting recipient of nuclear waste and human refuse—not only natural waste which returns easily to nature, but all our used and unwanted possessions, (our leftover paint, solvents, nail polish, plastic doohickeys and polypropylene thingamajigs.) Healthy vibrant living land is clear-cut, burned, and otherwise razed in the name of civilization and survival.

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*Our ancient ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, walked parts of the Earth 4 to 3 million years ago.

**Homo habilis lived between 2.3-1.6 million years ago

***Homo erectus lived about 1.8 to 0.3 million years ago