To Reinhabit Our Place in the World
Life* is ready to teach you how to reinhabit the place where you live.
As individuals we are alone and vulnerable in a dangerous world.
When we embed ourselves in the pattern of interactions among the living things around us we belong to a community that provides for all of its participants.
Many of the problems we face as individuals and those faced by Life itself are addressed when we begin to reinhabit our place in the world.
*Life, with a capital “L”, as used here, refers to the living system on this planet. The living system is a pattern of interactions among individual living organisms. These interactions create the flow of nutrients that supports each of the individuals. Plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria interacting, each pursuing its individual goals of being fed, safe, and loved, creates what we call ecosystems, economies, and societies. That pattern, as it exists at this moment, is Life as we know it.
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In 2009 I wrote a piece called, “Living in Place”, in which I described this shift in awareness that allows us to reinhabit a place.
“. . . living in place is not unlike the concept of living in the moment. It is being aware of the forces playing out around us, only we follow those forces from moment to moment. Living in the moment seems to imply that we are merely observers and not actors. To live in place requires us to act – or rather interact. We react to place as it reacts to us . . . to fit fully and completely within the forces playing out around and through us.”
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Some people think that nature (Life) (the living things that share this planet with us) is better off without us.
Some people are just so busy trying to survive that they never think about the living things around them.
But think about it. Every living thing is doing the best it can with the information it has to be fed, safe, and loved. And yet no one of us can accomplish those things without all the rest of us.
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I just finished reading “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Dr. Kimmerer was raised in a culture that understands our debt to the living things around us. She then became a botanist with the understanding of a scientific view of nature. We have learned a lot from what is known as reductionist science. Reductionist science looks at each organism, or some part of an organism, in isolation. The technologies on which we rely are mostly based on reductionist science. What is missing from that view is all the relationships with other organisms that allow the object organism to be a being. The difference in approach between reductionist science and the kind of understanding described by Dr. Kimmerer is part of what I want to share here.
All beings are subjects of a pattern of relationships that allows the being of each organism, including each human organism, each of us. We know that science does not have a complete view of the world when our technologies have unintended consequences. The unintended consequences result from a failure to understand the pattern of relationships on which each being relies to be fed, safe, and loved.
When we apply a technology our participation can diminish the pattern as a consequence of our ignorance of what those relationships entail. When we begin to develop our relationships with living things around us, caring for the needs of even the smallest of organisms, the pattern of relationships is enriched and we are enriched in return. Seeing the world in this way allows for a more complete science. It allows us to reinhabit the place where we live.
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Some of us are angry that other people are destroying the environment.
Some of us feel helpless.
Neither anger nor despair will change the pattern in which we find ourselves for the better.
The only way to change the pattern for the better is for individuals to learn to participate in support of the pattern of interaction among the living things in which they find themselves.
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I recently ran across a 6 minute video produced by the Northeast Organic Farming Association. (NOFA).
Put carbon where it belongs… back in the soil
This video features Dr. Christine Jones and Dr. Elaine Ingham. They briefly explain the science of the pattern of interactions in a healthy soil ecosystem. In a healthy system plants convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugars and share those sugars through their roots with fungi and bacteria. That basic interaction supports a myriad of other tiny organisms and ultimately all living things. The whole pattern grows more robust through the participation of more organisms. More diversity leads to a more complex pattern of interactions, which leads to increasing productivity, and, in turn, leads to more stability in the face of environmental change. The enhanced pattern creates a space for even more diversity. A happy side effect of this pattern of interaction is that carbon is pulled from the atmosphere and stored in the soil. A happy side effect of more carbon in the soil is an increase in the ability of the soil to store water. A happy side effect of more water in the soil is that more plants can grow more leaves and convert more sunlight and carbon dioxide into more sugar.
The video talks about the benefits to farmers when they participate in the development of healthy soil ecosystems on their farms. Of course, we applaud that. But those of us who are not farmers can not rely on the farmers to heal our relationships with the living things around us. That responsibility falls on each individual.
At the Living Systems Institute we work in a suburban habitat not on a farm. We know that the traditional way of living in suburbia results in a reduction of carbon in the soils and a diminished habitat for other living things. At the Institute we have experimented with specific steps we can take to increase the carbon in the soils, and thereby increase the productivity of Life, right here where we live. If you live in suburbia and you are tired of being angry or feeling helpless, we can help you learn to interpret what Life is trying to teach you.
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Life needs you (all of us) to participate . . .
We did not learn that in school. Parents who don’t know that don’t teach it to their children. What Life needs is not advertised. How can we know what Life needs?
Yet, we are not alone on this planet. How short would our lives be if we were alone?
How ungrateful are we when we do not acknowledge all we owe to the others that share this planet with us?
We owe the living things that share this planet with us,
we owe Life,
the oxygen we breathe, much of the water that falls as rain, everything we eat, the goods and services that make life comfortable, and everything we know about those things.
If we just take without giving back there is less to go around.
When we learn to give back we will heal nature and produce abundance.