More than once, the saying, “It’s like the pot calling the kettle black,” has come across my mind while in class. David Abram wrote of a disconnect from nature, of a devaluing of the basic sensuous experience through such things as manufactured goods and classifying nature. I thought it to be very odd, that one who believed manufactured goods to destroy the wonder of nature to write and produce a book. Society is made of nature, surrounded by it, and runs on it. We may not openly acknowledge the presence of nature, but we embrace nature in a new way.
David Abram calls for people to become connected to nature. I would argue that we already are. I may not have gone to Nepal and meditated upon the wonder of a spider in the midst of a monsoon, but that doesn’t mean that I’m disconnected. I walk to school, admiring the clouds and the plants that I see. Even in the middle of a lecture class, I take time to think about the elements of nature that have made my notes and homework possible. This kind of sensuous experience is the sensuous experience of our day. It is more concerned with acknowledgement, then communion.
People who can connect with nature amidst the “disconnect,” represent the new age of sensuous experience. Just as religious freedom today is very different from what it was during the founding of our nation, sensuous experience today is different from our hunter gatherer ancestors. Hunters and gatherers, lived in direct contact with the earth, and that effected how they interacted with the earth. They connected through ceremonies that involved their direct contact with earthly elements. While we live in our well furbished houses, with heating and cooling, we show reverence to the earth in a different way. We use certain kinds of building materials and employ certain building methods. Household plants, greenhouses, personal gardens, and even lawns are the new age of sensuous experience. They show that even though man no longer lives directly in nature as he once did, he still desires to be surrounded by it.
Some would argue that there is no new age, only disconnect. I respectfully disagree. If we are to maintain the things we have, the society that provides life saving medical procedures, pictures to preserve memories, and the ability to provide relief to people in need half a globe away, we must also maintain the society that made these things possible. Society did not reject nature, nor did it forget it. Rather, this new society saw the need to have buildings, manufactured goods, and order; then looked for ways to preserve nature’s presence in it. This gave rise to parks, landscaping, and other public and personal displays of nature. This is a manifestation of the new age. One that cannot be close to nature the way its ancestors were, but strives to keep the presence of nature.
I do not have to go to the remote wildernesses of the world to see nature. The stone, the wood, it all comes from nature, the manufactured goods, still draw from the richness of the earth. In this way I am connected with nature. Our ancestors reverenced the earth with their ceremonies, we shouldcon reverence it in how we use it.

Respecting your Elders

Respecting does not always infer agreement. Respect is defined in many ways. I took the liberty to search the internet for the best definition I could find and decided to use the one I found on dictionary.com which states, “esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability,”in showing that I do not agree with everything our elder brothers the Kogi believed, presented in the film “From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers’ Warning”, but I respect several of their ideas and would like to discuss a few.
One of the qualities that I found most admirable of the Kogi people was their respect for women of their society. Several times in the film the mumu or mama stated that women are to be respected and appreciated. The mumu goes on to say that a man should never abuse physically or mentally a woman, and should treat them with the same respect as they do Luna. As I pondered on this message it is the same message our beloved prophet president Hinckley gave to members of the church on several occasions in general priesthood meetings. I believe that one of the reasons that the Kogi have been so successful through time is their respect for the wife’s, daughters, sisters, etc.
Another quality that I admired was there connectedness with their environment. Everything they did had a purpose, nothing was done to pass time or waste the day. One thing that was mentioned in class during our discussion of the film was the idea that they adopted some things from the outside world but would not use shoes because it would separate them from their environment or nature. I believe that it is the little things people do that make them true to who they are and what they believe.
In conclusion the last thing that I would like to mention is my 100% agreement with the idea of balance in the world. I do not think it is a coincidence that there is more disease and natural disaster today then might have been before in the history of the world. We as human have lost the balance between using and replacing. I get this idea from the stability of the Kogi people. They have a very balanced life with nature and have been around doing the same thing for over four hundred years. In the book the Spell of the Sensuous, the idea of the balance between man and nature is also discussed. It is interesting to me that in older civilizations that are present today each civilization has someone or an idea of creating balance or maintaining balance with nature. It is something that in our 21 century mentality we have lost sight of and need to regain.

Who has the Real Inferiority Complex?

When I was first introduced to the Kogi of the Sierra Nevada de San Martin through the film “From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers’ Warning”, I reacted the same way I did when my littlest brother informed me that I was doing my physiology homework incorrectly. “Thanks for the tip, Einstein” I replied smugly and I continued doing my homework the same way, because I knew that I was doing it correctly.

For a pre-Columbian society to break a 500 year silence to the modern world and announce that they know (apparently based only on the local weather variations in their small community?) that the other 6 billion of us are tempting the fates by living the way we do seems a bit presumptuous. Who are they to tell me that even though I try to live a “green” lifestyle (hey, I recycle) that my way of life is murdering Aluna, the Kogi word for a spiritual world they believe is innately connected to the world we live in.

After the film however, I began to reflect on the paradigm in which the Kogi exist. For this small group of South Americans, the world is a very different place than it is for most of us. The world is not a lump of dirt circling the sun at thousands of miles per hour. They do not exist to provide a decent living for their families and try to save enough to retire by the time they are 65. For the Kogi, life is learning to become a member of the community in which they live. The community consists not only of people, but of animals, insects, plants, rocks, and spirits. These people still consider themselves a part of their worlds community, unlike modern civilization.

In addressing my original question to the Kogi, who are they to tell me how I ought to live and treat the world, the above line of thinking leads to one obvious conclusion: the Kogi, not us, are the real authority when it comes to coexisting with everything on the planet. As the film points out, the Kogi have continuously occupied the same land for hundreds of years. A modern structure would crumble away long before the Kogi city begins to erode. “Don’t fight nature” a Kogi mama might urge, “Learn to live with it. Follow its natural cycles and resonate with them.”

At first blush, the very name that the Kogi give to the rest of civilization, Little Brothers, is diminutive and condescending. After a moments meditation however, we realize that the contrast the Kogi see between our two communities is quantitative, not qualitative. They do not see us as a lesser species or as having decreased intelligence. There is no special attribute that we lack that divides us from the Kogi. We just have some growing up to do before we understand the world as our wise and concerned elder brothers. I say, let’s hear their message.

Why write about nature

The science of ecology aims at understanding the deep complexity of life at several embedded scales: temporal and spatial at least, but also from micro to macro and from material to conscious. Biological complexity is manifest in relationships among the organisms themselves, in interactions with their biotic neighbors, and with the physical environment. The study of nature also involves the ‘human sciences’ like art, language, ethics as well as decisions about how and what to value about this complex world. Knowledge about this complexity cannot be contained within the mind of a single investigator. The sum of our understanding and expression of nature is a collection of many minds, each taking a small, manageable piece of the universe and investigating or clarifying or making it piece and part of human expression. This information is often transmitted, cataloged, and made available through writing (although, to be clear it is not the only way). While each person can only focus on a small part of the universe, the sum of that effort can be found archived in the journals, books, and dissertations of those who have made these contributions in understanding and appreciating nature. Writing then gives permanence and substance to our ideas. It clarifies our arguments, and exposes both our mistakes and the correction of those mistakes. Writing is how we contribute to the great conversation taking place at many scales, with many people, and at many levels about nature and why it matters. It takes place between scientists doing ecological research; among people interested in understanding nature; among community leaders, politicians, and local governments, among those adding beauty and expression to the world through poetry or prose. You have undoubtedly read the conversation taking place in letters to the editor, in school assignments, and in other outlets of the popular press.

Is it any wonder than that in learning about the environment, learning to write and express ourselves about Nature is given such emphasis? Writing is how the information about what others have gathered comes to us and it is how you will join the great conversation should you desire to participate in the dialogue

But writing about the environment goes beyond such grand themes and issues. Even if you are not interested in Nature per se, the understanding gained in learning to put thoughts and expressions on a page is a skill the importance of which cannot be overstated. You will be judged on your writing throughout your life. Regardless of what path you take, learning to express yourself clearly, forming cogent and well thought out arguments, and communicating your ideas, are invaluable skills. Ideas kept inside your mind will eventually die with you. Ideas, once written, have the potential to live forever. And change the world.