Category: Nature

It’s an intriguing thought that we might lose the ability to “see” nature, as explored in this recent BBC article on “plant blindness”. Presumably we only know or see anything through having had it pointed out, drawn to our attention, its significance successfully conveyed in the form of language and attitude (Notes One). How else do we learn to recognise things and understand their importance?

We’re apparently also most motivated to preserve or defend those “like us”: animals with traits echoing ours, such as reassuring forward-facing eyes. I suppose what’s clear from this and most other news items is how much we’re focussed on ourselves, mainly feeling empathy or concern for beings bearing characteristics or qualities similar to our own.

But, in reality, don’t all nature’s living beings and materials matter? We might justify our limited interest in evolutionary terms regarding the threats or advantages certain animals or environments offer for our survival, but all of nature is effectively this intricate balance of relationships, dependencies, mutually beneficial habits and cycles that, together, create and sustain “life” on this planet (Notes Two).

The mind might fairly easily spin any number of fascinating or compelling theories, downplaying some factors and dialling up the importance of other outcomes. And, in the absence of deeper understanding of all the ways nature’s entwined and all the indispensable functions it’s carrying out, maybe there’s little to fall back on but the natural affinity of self-recognition?

I mean, how are we to make sense of an incredibly complex world and grasp our place within it? How can we imagine all the ways our actions, here, within our immediate, national or economic landscapes are impacting remote places and, perhaps, upsetting delicate balances? With all that’s going on in modern life, how are we to value the natural world? With what eyes can we see it?

As discussed in the article, we tend to notice what we already know, what stands out or holds meaning in our eyes. Like the anecdotes on cultures with forty-plus words for snow or no word for green, the language we use shapes the world we’re able to see. As we talk more about modern phenomena and become increasingly detached from rural environments, it’s perhaps “natural” our awareness of nature risks going into decline?

It might be “easy” to say that doesn’t really matter, that life evolves and human civilisation has more to worry about than whether people recognise trees, appreciate the fact they’re alive, or relate to creatures completely unlike themselves (Notes Three). In a world where empathy for one another is often sorely lacking, maybe it’s a luxury to expect people to care for nature as well.

But, where does such thinking lead? We might be faced with many pressing, overwhelming distractions, but understanding how nature forms the foundation of life seems fundamental to what it is to be human: we exist within our environment. Surely it can’t be anything less than deeply problematic if society loses sight of essential human realities?

Notes and References:

BBC Article “Why ‘plant blindness’ matters – and what you can do about it” by Christine Ro, 29 April 2019: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190425-plant-blindness-what-we-lose-with-nature-deficit-disorder

Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Mirrors we offer one another
Note 1: What we know to pass on
Note 2: Intrinsic value of nature
Note 2: Nature tells a story, about the planet
Note 2: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 3: Tuning out from environment
Note 3: “Ecological Intelligence”
Note 3: Aesthetic value of nature

While there may not be much agreement on the details, one thing we might all have in common is the desire for things to be better: for things that matter to be better respected and the things that threaten them to be better restrained. It’s a statement that might be interpreted within various contexts, but here I’m thinking of our relationship with nature.

So often, the value of the natural world seems secondary to other, commercial concerns. How many areas of wild beauty are going to be encroached upon or paved over for the sake of “expansion”? How much waste is going to be generated, then pumped “somewhere else” within our atmosphere? What will it take to see that balance and self-restraint might be a better way? (Notes One)

It’s astounding really, the attitude humanity has had toward its environment over the years. You’d think, logically, that “the world that sustains us and makes life possible” might be higher on the list of priorities, but apparently not.

Could it not be that we might apply human ingenuity to being more fully aware of our surroundings then finding imaginative ways to protect, maintain or, even, enrich them? Could academic understanding not be brought to life through creative challenges to industries, individuals and communities to simply do things better? Could our values in respect of the natural world not shift to another level?

Rather than ploughing on as we have been, might we think deeper about what’s happening? Can we really replace “a tree with a tree” and call that even, despite the fact hundred-year-old trees within established ecosystems are incredibly different from vulnerable saplings? Often, we seem to casually destroy things we cannot truly replace.

Could we not come to live in greater awareness of both local and global environments? Forcing ourselves to see and feel all the ways our consumer or lifestyle choices impact these places, now and into the future. Might we not value nature’s realities, relationships and resources differently, given that their as much as our lives essentially depend on them?

What if we invested more into gardens and other landscapes so they truly became places for nature to thrive and people to witness its delights and forethought? What if, instead of being increasingly grey and urban, our streets were genuinely filled with the buzz of insects, the beauty of seasons, and the joys of engagement with nature? (Notes Two)

Of course, pulling together on behalf of something that can’t defend itself is perhaps idealistic. It’s usually easier to continue as we are than insist on finding room for ethics within established systems. But, while it may be inconvenient or “uncommercial”, should profit and power really outweigh other concerns to “win” these conversations by default?

It’s certainly not simple finding common vision for how things might be instead, and cooperation between humans has pretty much never been easy (Notes Three); but hopefully we might choose to follow nature’s example of living more harmoniously in balance with our environment.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Limits having a purpose
Note 1: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 1: “Ecological Intelligence”
Note 1: “Small is Beautiful”
Note 2: Tuning out from environment
Note 2: Gardening as therapy, the light
Note 2: Gardening & local environment
Note 2: Intrinsic value of nature
Note 3: Can we reinvigorate how we’re living?
Note 3: How do we find a collective vision?
Note 3: Values on which we stand firm?
Note 3: Some thoughts about ‘life’

In quite a childlike way, I find it amazing to think that pretty much everything on earth is alive. It’s fairly easy to get swept up in things and start to take that simple fact as a given but, really, it’s incredible to realise all that goes into sustaining life here in all its forms.

Taking time to imagine all the varied interconnections that maintain the ecosystems, relationships and processes on which our own lives depend seems a valuable choice in terms of how we employ our minds. Sometimes I wonder if modern carelessness isn’t perhaps a consequence of not having the opportunity or inclination to contemplate, appreciate and fully understand the wonder of it all.

We have enough going on, but the volume of activity that’s also going on ‘behind the scenes’ to keep life ticking over must be absolutely staggering to comprehend. The hierarchical, interdependent synergy of the animal kingdom building, as it does, upon the sustenance of plant life and mineral richness surrounding it all. The shelter, nourishment and stimulation of the environment and passing seasons.

It’s just so impressive how it all works together seamlessly, almost casually, while we have such difficulties coordinating ourselves. Life just gets on with it ‘out there’, while we throw problem after problem in its direction: pollution, urban encroachment, farming innovation, tourism, waste. The ways humans interact with nature seems so bizarre, so out of step with the calm industrious wisdom it’s demonstrating to us (Notes One).

Humans certainly present quite a challenge. To ourselves, in countless ways, but also to our very environment. The question of what right we have to impact the world as we do seems as old as life itself: woven into the foundations of various belief systems as this fundamental sense of where we stand, what our roles are, and the purpose or responsibility of our existence.

Surely, we only exist because we have somewhere to live? Some environment able to sustain life. This sense in which Earth makes human life possible. Not only physically, but also by way of history and civilisation, the pathways of thought and innovation over the years that’ve led to where we now stand. Everything building on everything else, coexisting more or less harmoniously so life can go on.

Quite often, I find myself asking what exactly we think we’re doing here (Notes Two). And while, at times, I can be hesitantly critical of attempts at change, I’m honestly not sure how much of a future we have without it. There’s this almost fatalistic sense in which we’re ‘living for the now’, for ourselves, rather than maintaining those things that’ll preserve life into the future.

But then, we’re clearly both intelligent and creative. We have the capacity to reflect on what’s around us – the harmonious integration of nature, the fundamental ways it sustains and enriches existence, the fragility of it all – and realise the magnitude of the problems we’re pushing onto those who follow us. Hopefully, somehow, we’ll figure it out.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Intrinsic value of nature
Note 1: Limits having a purpose
Note 1: Tuning out from environment
Note 1: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 1: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 2: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 2: Can we reinvigorate how we’re living?
Note 2: The power of understanding
Note 2: Smart to play the system?

I’ve talked many times here about nature, our relationship with it and all that it offers. Beyond our more obvious physical dependence upon it for resources such as air, water, warmth, light, and food; there’s also the other, psychological, sustenance it provides by way of beauty, wonder, and reassuring metaphors around renewing life (see Notes One). But I’m aware such musings can seem anachronistic.

There’s obviously immense splendour to the natural world; as well as many other qualities like humour, poignancy, danger, or scientific value. All these ways that nature can pop up within modern life, whether as light relief from the strain of how we’re living or alongside growing concern around the risks attached to that lifestyle in terms of natural resources and environmental impacts.

And maybe those broad simplifications of modern ‘interest’ in nature hint at our altered relationship to this world around us? At how we’re now looking to this as a backdrop, a commodity, a venue for social or sporting pursuits, an aspect of carefully-curated personal style. Is the world around us simply ‘a setting’ or something we pull into frame as a prop within our lives? Or is that a slightly detached way of viewing it?

Looking to the past, communities generally lived in very close harmony with the natural world: patterns of work, cultural traditions, food and clothing often stemming from the resources of any given place and time. People would structure their lives around the seasons and their harvests, making use of all that was available and paying close attention to the signs and relationships within nature.

Even fairly recently we seem to have had a much closer connection with our environment; often working closely with it and knowing the names, timings, and details of the lives of its plants and animals. There seems to have been this close observation of interest, admiration, wonder, respect, and gratitude for both the beauty and opportunity nature affords us.

Not to say that’s entirely disappeared, but it certainly seems to have faded out or be doing so fairly dramatically. The sense in which we often now live in essentially urban environments, without the immediate proximity of industries such as farming, seems to be giving rise to generations of people with very little by way of that living relationship and understanding of the natural environment.

Rather than existing within nature, ordering our lifestyles and celebrations around it, acting in respectful cooperation with it and seeing it as an indispensable resource for our continued enjoyment of life, our attitudes now seem so casual and distant. Presumably this relationship needs to be mutual? A sense of tending, preserving, enriching that which gives us what we need?

So much has changed in the last hundred years or so, and perhaps “this” is the least of it; but I don’t see how we can logically justify such detachment from our environment when we are almost completely dependent upon it. Reducing nature to frivolous self-service or casual disregard is surely pretty questionable?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Intrinsic value of nature
Note 1: Why are we like this about the weather?
Note 1: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 1: “Ecological Intelligence”
Note 1: Gardening as therapy, the dark
Note 1: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 1: Living the dream

A garden can be said to exist by having a boundary and, within that, a single regulatory or guiding presence: some wall or line where the gardening ends and nature begins again. There’s this sense of creating a space where we have a role to play, where our actions can combine with the forces of nature to bring something else into being.

It’s a thought that’s interesting enough in terms of gardening itself – the vision we have; the tough choices we also have if we hope to realise it; ways executing our goals might involve as much death as it does life; and the alternative possibilities that must often fall away if our plans are to be successful. Nature can be a pretty powerful metaphor for understanding our agency in life (see Note One).

Beyond that, we could look more generally at how limits serve to define us. How youth holds meaning because it ends and arguably has to be used wisely. How those times we limit our options are the times something can happen, in relationships or work for example. How by saying “No” to some things, we’re saying “Yes” to others. Definition then acting almost as a doorway to growth, change, or power.

All these pinch points of the paths we take becoming the lives we lead and what matters most to us. We might question whether life has much meaning, much power, without decisions having been made (Notes Two). Whether we would be ourselves without the ways we’re different from others – our stories, wounds, insights, and all those things we express through our existence.

This sense of definition and expression can be intriguing: how any act of drawing a line creates both an identity and an opportunity to develop something further; carving out territory that can be worked over, taken in hand, or made into common ground. It might be our space, but we might also cultivate it for the benefit of others (Note Three).

Talking about gardens or individuals, the principles seem comparable. We make choices, play to strengths, tackle problems, bear fruit in some areas, and ultimately contribute to the world around us through our vigilance or oversight (Notes Four). We can develop a vision and make the best of what we have, investing time and doing what we can with our understanding, capacity and resources.

It’s a slightly obvious metaphor, but the thought of gardens only existing through being distinct from, yet related to, what surrounds them is quite fascinating. Only through boundaries do we gain control over that space and the potential to change it. Only by deciding what we want to happen can we weed out that which we don’t. Through definition, we gain the power to establish those rules.

What we make of things – what we let grow, what spills over, what we put into the world, and what all that can represent within our natural and social environments – must rest within our hands, in our response to what we find.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Gardening as therapy, the light and the dark
Note 2: Masks we all wear
Note 2: The need for discernment
Note 2: “Women who run with the wolves”
Note 3: Gardening & local environment
Note 4: Can we reinvigorate how we’re living?
Note 4: The creativity of living

Likely my most ‘British’ topic so far, but it intrigues me how much weather and climate might shape our outlook on life and day to day moods. How we respond to and live within our environment seems so important if we’re to create harmony within ourselves and in the world at large.

Whether surroundings leave us feeling relaxed and warm, or lead us to ‘battle’ against heat or cold could presumably impact our basic psychological makeup: how at ease, vigilant or protective we are. Maybe that might even foster tendencies toward optimism or pessimism, as we feel ‘welcomed’ by the world around us or uncomfortable within it.

Anecdotally, people generally seem happier, more outgoing and open to others on sunny days – as if the soul soars and we’re all happy to be alive. Persistently cold or wet weather might leave us frustrated, inward, starved of sunlight. But then unusual events such as snow or storms more often seem to bring out community spirit and childlike appreciation of the power of nature.

And I suppose it’s difficult to gain a real sense of the extent to which all this influences us as people, because differences in climate and culture must almost go hand in hand: geographical locations having shaped agriculture, seasonal patterns of work and cultural traditions throughout the year (see Notes One). Culture and nature must be quite closely interwoven, I would’ve thought.

These days we may have the ‘luxury’ of shopping around or opting out of seasonal realities – travelling further afield to ensure we have a reasonable summer holiday, possibly moving country if that climate and lifestyle suit us better, or just generally working and living more independently of nature’s moods – but it’s arguably not a relationship we can or should forget about entirely (Notes Two).

Whether we still live in close connection with it or not, nature undeniably continues to sustain us in countless incredible and unfathomable ways. How could we exist without an environment to live in, and what would such a life be like? So much of value seems to come from experiencing the joy, wonder and variety of nature.

Slightly paradoxically, it appears we’re both losing touch with and becoming overly sensitive to nature. Life now tends to take us a step or two away from engaging with our environment: work and culture not being so tied to the rhythms of nature, it can be more an inconvenience than a reality. And alongside that – possibly partly because of it – nature itself seems to be struggling, adapting to all we’re throwing at it.

Maybe that’s the thing: having detached ourselves from nature’s realities we’re not acting so much in harmony with it, not actively tending it or considering our impacts, while also having these artificially heightened reactions to events which are now communicated in sensationally dramatic tones (Notes Three).

Ultimately, maybe all this really signals is the need to re-create more meaningful relationships with our environment, to treat it with understanding rather than intolerance or indifference?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Culture and the passing of time
Note 1: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 2: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 2: What if it all means something?
Note 3: We may as well laugh
Note 3: Anger as a voice

Do we value things only if they are limited in supply, if otherwise there’s some cost to us or a risk we might be held accountable? It seems we might be viewing everything as an asset, taking it as a given, until we realise the clock might be ticking.

The question of what motivates, incentivises or concerns us applies across the board in life, but here I’m mainly thinking of environment. I’ve heard it said that Western thinking is flawed in the sense that it takes natural capital out of its equations; not having made respect for nature a driving force in its initial plans, we now struggle to change track and factor it into our projections for the future (see Note One).

It seems quite an oversight, given how essential it surely is for our existence (Notes Two). But then, are we also limiting our perspective by only caring for our planet to the extent that it serves humanity?

We tend to talk along the lines of how everything relates to us: what benefits, threats or insights we’re offered by plants, animals and nature in its widest sense. We look to the design features, chemical formulations, physical compounds and complex relationships that sustain life, using them as starting points for scientific, commercial or cultural initiatives.

It’s essentially valuing life in the light of ourselves. Even appreciating the natural world for how it makes us feel – the joy, comfort, relief, beauty it affords – could arguably be viewed in that way (Notes Three). Of course any relationship is give and take, so looking solely at our side of the picture is bound to throw things out of balance.

From the other side, nature is what it is. A snowdrop is different from a rose or an oak. Turtles are different from pandas or whales. Who’s to say which matters most, which is better or more valuable? They all mean different things – culturally, socially, historically, personally, ecologically. Does something become more important to humanity because it’s the last one, or was it always significant but we never really noticed?

Maybe it’s natural that we look at life as we do: expanding our understanding, forming ideas of how best to organise society to meet our various needs. And, in doing that, we clearly need some way of evaluating and deciding what to do; money being this means of assessing opportunities and costs – be they environmental, social, systemic, psychological, or whatever other standard we choose to measure ourselves against (Note Four).

Within all that, I guess one option is look to our own ends: to personal or collective interests; to immediate gains, longer term implications or the legacy we leave in our wake. But then there’s this question of life itself, the meaning of it all (Notes Five). In that, we might well see everything as it stands relative to our own position within it all; or we might choose to look more to the absolute value of life itself, for its own sake.

Notes and References:

Note 1: “Small is Beautiful”
Note 2: Living the dream
Note 2: Nature tells a story, about the planet
Note 2: Culture and the passing of time
Note 3: Animals in human society
Note 3: Gardening as therapy, the light and the dark
Note 3: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 4: At what cost, for humans & for nature
Note 5: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 5: What if it all means something?

Looking further at the importance of how we think about things, there’s David Bohm, thoughts on life.

Writing about nature, I may at times wax a little lyrical or seek comparisons that might appear vast, remote or impractical (see Notes One); but our relationship with and place within the natural world can be this tantalising picture in which it’s hard not to seek meaning. With all nature offers, might it be that it has important lessons to teach us in how to live?

At the end of day, we all live within our environment. It’s true of us, of animals, of nature as a whole: there’s this complex interrelationship of forms, how they live and meet their needs, and the overall usefulness of their actions and by-products in serving the greater whole. And within all that, humanity seems to really stand out as both highly intelligent yet also possibly fairly stupid (Note Two).

That’s clearly harsh, but it does seem justifiable in many ways. I mean, no other part of the natural world seems to operate as we do (at least not anything we would likely consider healthy). Why is that? Why do we see the benefits and examples offered by nature, yet draw some quite different conclusions around how best to live?

It’s a genuine question. Because it seems pretty crazy on many levels: to take so much; to give back mainly waste products, which are not only useless but often permanent and highly damaging. The only reasoning that really seems to be offered here is “because we can” or “everyone else is doing it”, and those hardly seem that mature or compelling.

We might try to convince people to care a little more by pointing out the beauty, the wonder, the fragility, the life forces, or the senselessness of simply destroying these things; but ultimately all those arguments tend to be dismissed as sentimental or uneconomic, else drowned in the almost overwhelming inertia of modern ways.

It seems undeniable that we rely in many ways on the world around us, and – beyond the realm of essential needs – that it also offers much in terms of respite, breath-taking beauty, and varied forms of enjoyment. That we might choose to not only act irresponsibly but maybe even carelessly in the face of that is hard to understand.

Maybe we’re somehow planning to replicate all we now have? Somehow, either here or elsewhere, re-engineer these complexities and recreate the freely sustaining qualities we have in the natural world. Why we would wilfully destroy something in order to need to save the day ourselves is honestly a little beyond me, but it’s one way of grasping what’s going on.

As ever, this veered into slightly deeper and darker territory than I’d anticipated at the start; but is it wise to avoid looking at things that seem to be headed in that direction? What is the right response, the right way of understanding these situations? I might be wrong. But surely if we are to respond wisely then we need to understand, and to understand we need to see clearly.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Living the dream
Note 1: Culture and the passing of time
Note 1: Nature tells a story, about society
Note 1: Nature tells a story, about the planet
Note 1: Gardening as therapy, the light and the dark
Note 1: At what cost, for humans & for nature
Note 1: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 2: Selective intelligence in what we do

Beyond this, “Ecological Intelligence” takes the path of exploring environment as a metaphor for our personal & collective journeys.

It’s almost astounding to think that the world around us is essentially a reflection of our position within a cosmic reality; that everything our existence depends upon and the everyday realities of our lives over the years are shaped by where we rest in the larger scheme of things.

Maybe that’s something obvious which I should take for granted more than I do, but it’s also an interesting exercise of thought. After all, our lives are pretty much defined by the rising and setting sun, the lengthening or shortening days, the activities that fill the different seasons, and the cultural variations that developed in response to it all (see Note One).

Life, culture, and often even our emotional state can be seen as largely informed by the unfolding movement of the planets. Movements in space effectively moulding our existence through the marking and passing of time: sunrise; the promise or disappointment of weather; seasonal associations of growth, warmth, abundance, or otherwise; memories, frustrations, colour itself; then the enfolding calm of the night.

It’s just interesting. It’s this daily reality that we may be innately inclined to ignore (given how anything consistent seems to generally become as if invisible to the human mind). So, all the while there’s this reassuring regularity in nature, we may well drift into taking it all as a given.

And maybe that’s also partly because it’s so out of our control. Spending time contemplating the revolution of earth within an almost incomprehensible sense of space, guided by forces we may or may not fully understand, could be a questionable use of time. What can we do about it, and what’s the point in thinking about things we can do nothing about?

Appreciate them, I suppose. That sense of reverence for the magnitude of existence and respect for those things we don’t understand. Gratitude maybe, and responsibility for a possibly precarious state of balance. There’s many ways of approaching that which is outside our control, but also still effectively within it (Notes Two).

Sometimes I write about seeking the bigger picture, and it may well be that zooming out to the planetary is too far and risks losing a useful perspective; but it does offer quite a wonderful example of a consistent and integrated system capable of giving rise to some pretty perfect conditions. The principles of balance, renewal and harmony woven throughout the natural world and its planetary causes might actually be a good picture to keep in mind.

And I might be being almost deliberately naïve and poetic in this, but that’s because modern thinking often seems to cast some things aside that maybe could be worth keeping and reworking into a newer form.

I mean, our world is literally a depiction of our place in the cosmos; and nearly everything that makes up our cultures, societies, and personal lives is marked by that reality. It may not be a thought that ‘goes anywhere’, at least not directly, but it still seems important to note.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Culture and the passing of time
Note 2: Spirit as the invisible
Note 2: At what cost, for humans & for nature
Note 2: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 2: Living the dream

Environment must be almost undeniably important. It’s the spaces we exist within and the meaning we see within them. Whether we’re talking on a global scale or more locally, the physical realities around us tell us a lot about our priorities and how we think about life (see Notes One).

Of course, I realise I’m being quite conceptual here. In reality, local environments are spaces we move within as we live our lives and global ones are perhaps remote places we might occasionally visit or become aware of. But essentially they do paint a picture of life, demonstrating our choices and their impacts.

Leaving aside the global perspective, our local environments are often bleak enough in their own right. The ways we act, and the kinds of materials and developments that form part of our daily lives can make modern life seem depressingly short-sighted and careless (Notes Two). We might not have much control over some of those trends, but when it comes to gardens we can have a say in what we put out into these shared spaces.

In the past, there might’ve been a slightly moralistic expectation that we create a certain impression: competing with neighbours or cultivating an acceptable sense of style. The social history of gardens is fairly fascinating. And that kind of approach can still be seen in what’s shown as fashionable or coveted in the world of garden design.

Understandably, this might put people off. As with art, I sometimes find the gardening world unusual: a strange subculture of Latin terminology, mysterious practices, countless things you can get wrong, and conversations you don’t really want to be having. But, beyond that, it’s fairly straightforward and forgiving (Note Three).

And I really feel gardens can contribute a great deal to local community. Not just in terms of tackling trends for paving things over to make room for more cars, or setting about window-dressing to increase the value of our homes and so on; but because they offer signs of hope, joy, and life.

The passing of time is most evident within the natural world: the first signs of spring, the riotous colour of summer, the comings and goings of animals in tune with the seasons, and the sometimes unexpected beauty of going into the winter months. All these realities weave into our everyday experiences of life.

And when someone takes the time to tend or curate a plot of land to showcase aspects of that for those who happen to pass by, then that can become quite a meaningful offering. Children might walk past, notice those plants and their colours, and begin to appreciate the wonder of nature. Others may gain a lot from the simple enjoyment of watching the antics of birds or squirrels, or the reassuring emergence of new growth.

For me, it’s one of the simplest and most beautiful things we can offer our community: the vision, effort, faith, and light-hearted humour of interacting with nature just for the sake of it.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Nature tells a story, about society
Note 1: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 2: The challenge of community
Note 2: Real estate, rental and human nature
Note 2: What are the true costs?
Note 3: Gardening as therapy, the light

This also links in some ways to The human spirit, which spoke of what we can offer others through our actions.