nature

The Forest for the Trees

“For every palace that I see rising in the capital, I seem to see a whole rural district laid to waste.” -Rousseau, The Social Contract

While there is a beautiful world “out there” there are people in it that are not so good. It is these people that we meet that seem ready with easy answers. They seem to be blind to the beauty in the world, only seeing it as a resource, a thing to use.

They come in many forms: rich and poor, educated and ignorant, friend and enemy. They intentionally or unintentionally argue that they have the answers to your worries, to your concerns, and will sell you answers that are opposed to Truth.

Free yourself from this riff-raff and the traps that they set forth. Turn away and remember that the world is not “out there” but everywhere, and is a beautiful place. Look beyond the lights and the cement and the merchants. Look out beyond the horizon and to the trees in the distance.

The Silence of Stones

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Stones do not wrinkle up and wither away, blossoming into a new flower on the stalk;

Never ending- end.

We stand empty-eyed and stunned.

We cannot see the stones in our life; they seem to disappear over a flat horizon, but reappear.

There are no trees or bushes that have taken root beside the long length of life.

The land is flat, and only old wise rocks lay where life has left them.

They lay there without question, silent.

Silent and wise they rest while we stand open-mouthed and frightened.

They do not move

As we pass them and wonder at their quiet wisdom.

Looking at the many stones

Sitting and sinking into the ground;

We don’t understand a goddamned thing.

For the Love of Fear

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We talk of loving nature, its harshness and its beauty. But, at the same time we find ourselves fearful of nature. We fear its harshness and it unforgiving ways. But it is important to remember that fear is not in the heart of love. We cannot love something that we fear, and we often fear what we do not understand. And so, we are left with the conclusion that we do not understand nature because we do not understand ourselves. The issue is not nature.

Fear seems to be the great motivator of many people in our societies. I want to farm, to move to a farm, to begin a journey of learning about the thing that I love; of having it teach me, but I am afraid: not of nature, but of failing nature; of failing. Perhaps I talk of farming, its unforgiving nature and simplicity. But at the same time I understand that like nature, farming is as harsh as it is beautiful: it will not help me not to fail. Perhaps it is only a fool that goes to war without fear (as the ancient saying goes in Art of War). That is probably correct, but more often than not the fearful never go to war at all.

Fear is like money, and like money it has a tendency to override all else. This is a shame because we miss so much because we fear failure, or others, or nature. Fear is not all bad though. Fear protects us, and if we are smart it leads us to “think things through” before acting. However, if fear is keeping us safely comfortable, warmly numb, we should be afraid

Perhaps we ought to befriend fear, to make it our partner in crime, our travel companion. After all, it is not going anywhere soon. But like any partner or companion we soon tire of each other and look for blame, we shuck responsibility or even our dreams. Because at the core of us all is the capacity to understand it is not fair to fear; for although it is not in the heart of love fear is a part of being human.

A Time of Peace

 

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There is something calming about noticing a flower that you have never noticed before; there is something that is exciting about waking up in the morning and seeing that the plants have been busy the night before. There is something that is humbling when we realize that life goes on without our taking the time to notice, that we are a mere blip in the endless sea of time that laps over the beachhead.

 

That life goes on without us forces us to realize that we live on borrowed time; no one owns their time, and peace of mind comes from realizing that we are on borrowed time. I notice this when I stop to realize that my new bees only live for six or so weeks. I realize this every time I think of the twenty-five years of marriage that I have enjoyed. These relationships and the things that we deem as so important come as waves on a beach, dissipating into the sand. Time is limitless but our time is limited.

 

Our time is limited, but what we do with our time is not. How we spend our time is up to us, but that we spend our time is not. Perhaps this is why peace of mind is so often found in nature, on a piece of land: time is free there because nature is time incarnate: timeless.

 

This is perhaps the reason that real peace of mind can only be found in noticing a flower that you have never noticed before, or hearing the buzzing of a few bees in the honeysuckle. This time is never wasted because it is time not being spent. I am learning not to waste my time because I am learning that my time is borrowed. I am learning to spend my time wisely because again, my time is only borrowed. That flower that I notice today will be gone tomorrow, another taking its place. That piece of land that is so beautiful costs nothing to notice, but not noticing it costs so much.

 

The wrinkles that show up on my face remind me of the things that are so important, and that they are important only because my lack of time makes them so. I have found that it takes time to enjoy peace of mind, and that such time is well spent. I have found that like everything else, truth is embedded in time itself: it is a process, and such is life as well as death.

 

There is no cheating time, we only get so much. We will only have time to barter with in our dying breath as Mr. Death comes to take the last coins of seconds that we have left. This is why it is so important to spend your time wisely. Notice the flower in the garden, the bees in the hive, the garden and everything else which is timeless. It is only these things that are free, and perhaps because of that bring peace of mind. Peace of mind comes with no buyer’s remorse. Perhaps this is because in the end it is the only thing that gives us a time of peace.