I find myself at times tending to treat Nature as an object, and a static object at that. It’s “out there,” and it looks like a certain thing now because it is spring.
Recently, I was in three different parts of the country, two of which are much cooler than my own area in metro Atlanta. We are in full-press Spring in Atlanta. In those other two areas, though, Spring is just beginning to show up. Nature reminded me that she is not an object, but a being, the Nature of Earth herself. She is dynamic and always changing, moving and responding to the things that are offered her or done to her. She, in turn, offers and presses back.
A thing or being happens when all the conditions are right.
I learned that principle from Buddhist teachers, and it brings me back home to what Nature is doing all the time. When the conditions are right–a green bud appears. When the conditions are right, a flower comes forth. When the conditions are right, bees show up and begin to work the flowers. When the conditions are right birdsong fills the air as mates find each other, build nests, lay eggs and raise young. When the conditions are right warm air and cold air do a terrible dance called tornadoes. When the conditions are right the quality of the sun changes so that my skin greets it by making Vitamin D for the health of my body.
When the conditions are right, being happens.
Nature is a Being, and she dances with all the conditions that she encounters. That includes the conditions that we create for her to deal with. She will accommodate much. After so much, though, I am fairly sure that she will press back and say, in so many non-verbal words: enough.
We live in vital relationship with Nature. She deserves our respect.
Bob Patrick
