Ecological Seeing: Walking in a Sacred Manner
by Charles Sullivan
Late this morning I heard two northern orioles singing along the edge of the back field where I live. The great-crested flycatcher flits amid the green canopy in search of insects and calls out from an unseen perch many feet above the ground.
I did not see the bird but I know its call. The wood thrush and the scarlet tanager are singing in the forest, and the soil is cooled by shade for the first time this year. As a result, shade loving plants are in flower, and a host of associated events are set in motion. And so one season passes into another as the year continually unfurls, like the leaves of a young fern.
Carrying my camera and tripod, I made my way to the Cypripedium
(Yellow Lady’s Slippers) growing along the stream. It would have been
better to venture out earlier, when the light was more favorable. Now
it is harsh, although largely filtered by the leaves. Nevertheless, I
made 29 photographs; none of them particularly good.
Perhaps tomorrow
morning I can venture out earlier and take advantage of the light, if
it is sunny. I keep lamenting that I should have left my writing
sooner and ventured into the field. Good light waits for no man or
woman. I should have learned that lesson by now; acted upon the
knowledge I had.
A kind of Hippocratic Oath exists
among nature photographers: First, do no harm. Although I try to be
careful and respectful when making photographs, I am always uneasy
about the impact of being on a hillside with my equipment, especially
following wet weather. Making photographs of this kind, especially
macro shots, causes soil movement and that can lead to erosion: setting
an undesirable chain of events in motion. One must be very thoughtful
and attentive to what one does in the field. If the act of preserving
an image of a beautiful flower causes its demise, it is not worth
doing.
One of the most attractive things about
natural history and nature photography is not only having the privilege
of photographing beautiful objects and landscapes, but it provides one
the opportunity to be alone in sacred places with them. It allows one
to feel connected with them, and a sense of belonging stems from that
association. Not only are we one human family; we are one biological
family sharing space and time with all beings. Some Indian tribes
endemic to North America—Turtle Island—used to refer to this as walking
in a sacred manner. That is what I try to do, but I am not always
successful, despite the best of intentions.
Belonging
to a family entails responsibility, just as belonging to a community
involves accountability to it. Knowledge about interdependence and
connectivity requires that one share that knowledge and act responsibly
upon it. It would be considered irresponsible and immoral to exploit
one’s own family for private gain. Everything that we do circles back
to us, and that is what is understood by the phrase, “we reap as we
sow”. That poorly paraphrased biblical gem is also an ecological
truth: all things are connected and interdependent. What goes around
comes around, without exception.
Everything we do
reverberates through the entire system because it is closed and
interconnected; it is a world of finite dimensions. Even the cosmos,
vast and unfathomable as it is, is also finite—as far as anyone knows.
Another way of phrasing it is cause and effect. Global warming and
over population are examples of this phenomenon. All impacts are
cumulative. While individual impacts may seem small and insignificant;
combined, they are great and global. Thus, it needs to be understood
that impact does not remain local. Everything moves through the
ecological system. Local effects do not remain localized for long;
they reverberate throughout the entire ecology, and with widespread
consequences. That is why we must be thoughtful and ethical in all
that we do.
All beings have impact, and thus all of
them leave an ecological footprint. Some of those impacts are in
harmony with the biosphere and thus are in accord with the organizing
principles of life; whereas others are discordant. Harvesting nuts in
a sustainable manner, leaving enough for other animals to use and for
the reproduction of the species in perpetuity is an example of harmony;
whereas clear cutting and mountain top removal are examples of excess
and discord. Some actions compliment life; others diminish it.
Over
consumption and waste and the endless economic expansion they cause are
the governing principle of capitalism and over population; and, like it
or not, they fundamentally conflict with the natural order of things.
This ideology is counter to the organizing principle of life and it has
the effect of diminishing biodiversity and the ecological processes
upon which all life depends.
Capitalism and
reductionism hold that every component of the biosphere are resources
when, in fact, they are sources of life. At some point in human
history, man began taking things apart in an attempt to gain detailed
scientific knowledge and understanding; however, in nature—anything
apart from the organic whole is dead. It is easily understood that if
someone removes another’s heart from his or her chest cavity, that
person will quickly die. The heart is a vital organ that pumps blood to
every part of the body; it is a part of a connected whole. Sever that
connection and the body collapses and death ensues.
Likewise,
nature has no unimportant parts. The earth functions like a single
living organism of world-size proportions. Everything under the sun
exists for a purpose; every organism plays a vital role in the local,
regional, and the global ecology. Remove or destroy a part and the
whole suffers; one has diminished possibilities, foreclosed options,
and subverted natural processes, with consequences to untold numbers of
species, including Homo sapiens.
Western humans tend
to give value to the parts of nature that can be economically
exploited, and under values those that cannot. By continually teasing
out the separate parts of nature and isolating them from the organic
whole, we are undoing the very fabric of life: we are playing god.
Thus, we are living in the midst of the sixth great extinction episode
in the earth’s 4.5 billion year history, and we are the primary cause.
Few Americans are aware of this fact. It does not behoove capitalism to
advertise that it is killing the biosphere; it is not good for
business. Who wants to be a cancer? And fools believe that business,
rather than ecology, makes the world go round. After all, the highway
signs leading into West Virginia, the state where I live, are followed
by these revealing words: open for business. Whatever happened to wild
and wonderful?
By now it should be apparent that it
is foolish to think of the earth as a resource rather than the source.
All things, including Homo sapiens, are connected by complex
over-lapping food webs and natural processes; we are inextricably bound
to them. Apart from the whole, they perish and reduce biodiversity;
connected, they flourish and enhance it. There is sufficient overlap
in these interconnected food webs that if a part of the web is severed
or otherwise damaged; it continues to function reasonably well,
although in a diminished capacity. If enough of these food webs are
impaired, the consequences are dire and ecological collapse eventually
follows.
Our entire reductionist culture is committed
to taking things apart that can never be reassembled and brought back
to life. Conservationist Aldo Leopold wisely observed: “The first rule
of intelligent tinkering is to preserve all the parts.” Perhaps there
is no such thing as intelligent tinkering when the great web of life
cannot be reassembled and made whole again. Restraint might be the
wiser course. Intelligence without wisdom is both a dangerous and an
ugly thing.
The great danger of seeing nature as a
multitude of isolated objects and processes is that nothing lives in
isolation from anything, or apart from everything else. We are seeing
the world through a lens that contradicts reality; a way that ignores
how nature works. The fundamental understanding of ecology is that all
things are connected, and that is the way we ought to see them.
Perhaps that is the most vital role that environmental education plays:
teaching us not only respect for all beings, but restoring the ability
to see all things in terms of interconnectedness. That is the way
sustainable cultures have always viewed the world, and we would do well
to emulate their example; to recreate a new old paradigm that is in
harmony with the rhythms of life, and respectful of other beings and
diverse cultures; and the natural processes that ushered them, and us,
into existence.
So the next time you go into the
field and see a tree, try to see all of the processes and all of the
living organisms that cooperated to produce that tree. You will see
something; indeed, many things, that is greater than the sum of its
parts. You will see more than a tree; much more: you will see an aura
of interdependent life.
Think of the insects that
pollinate its flowers, and the migratory birds that feed upon them.
Think of the microbes in the soil that allow its roots to take up
nitrogen, and the earth worms that till and aerate the soil and allow
rain to penetrate deep into the cool cellars of the earth. Ponder for
a moment the decomposers moving nutrients through the soil, making life
possible at the surface. Think of the respiration of the tree’s leaves
that put moisture into the air, and think of the hydrological cycles
that circulate around the globe and produce rain as a result of them.
Consider as well the trade winds and the great oceanic currents that
regulate global temperature. Think also of the sun that provides the
heat energy that drives the entire process. Think of the insects
moving beneath the bark and the pileated woodpecker that eats some of
them, and rears its young in cavities made in its trunk; or the gray
squirrel that harvests nuts from that tree, and plants some of them in
other locations. That is ecological seeing, and it reflects reality:
the way the world works.
If economics are ever to
become a real science, rather than the fanciful flights of imagination
they so often are, they will have to be constructed around ecological
principles; and they must be tinged with ethics. Imagine that, if you
can.
Charles Sullivan is a nature
photographer, naturalist, environmental educator and free-lance writer
residing in the Ridge and Valley Province of geopolitical West
Virginia. He welcomes your comments at: csullivan@(no spam)copper.net.
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