Spending time in nature, contemplating beauty, surrounding myself with calm, reading nourishing poetry, and making photographs bring a profound sense of coherence to my heart and soul. When I slow down to walk mindfully in the woods or even on a path in the neighborhood I feel connected to and a part of everything.
I experience a sense of coherence in wild areas that fills me with ease. And I draw sustenance from the time I spend in nature, especially the time I spend among the trees.
There is incredible symmetry in a tree, between its inner life and its outer life, between its rooted memory and its external active presence. A tree grows up and down at once and produces enough branches to incarnate it’s wild divinity. It doesn’t limit itself- it reaches for the sky and it reaches for the source, all in one kind of seamless movement. So I think landscape is an incredible, mystical teacher, and when you begin to tune into its sacred presence, something shifts inside you.
― John O'Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World
Even now, when I fear for our planet and what will happen due to climate change, I know that the earth and life on earth will survive. We humans may not survive but life will go on.
One of the problems of modern life is that there is no coherence between what we know about the conditions that promote life and what we as humans do to maximize the health of our ecosystems and planet. We behave as if we humans are separate from and immune from the laws of nature.
The word “coherence” literally means holding or sticking together, but it is usually used to refer to a system, an idea, or a worldview whose parts fit together in a consistent and efficient way. Coherent things work well: A coherent worldview can explain almost anything, while an incoherent worldview is hobbled by internal contradictions. …
— Jonathon Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis
Modern life has taught us to behave as if the resources of the earth are infinite when we know that they are not. For generations we have been robbing future generations by spreading a kind of virus that believes that the more stuff we create, buy, and sell, the better off we are. The human population on the earth continues to grow even though we have seen what happens to wild populations when they grow beyond the capacity of the environment they live in.
We are already living with catastrophic climate changes that have destroyed cities and towns with floods, fire, and wind. People around the globe are facing homelessness and famine.
And while there are those of us who decry what is going on, the corporate juggernaut and our cultural blindness keeps us all focused on extracting, destroying, and selling our very future. It’s as if we are all wearing blinders while saying to ourselves, “I’m okay so I’m just doing what I’ve always done.”
Instead of focusing on changing our zeitgeist about what really matters, we focus on how much we can buy. And we numb ourselves by watching professional sports, idolizing celebrities, and buying more and more stuff, avoiding confronting the destruction that is occurring all around us.
Sometimes when I’m out walking in the woods I’ll see plastic trash that someone has thoughtlessly dropped on the ground or in the water. It hurts my heart to see this profound disregard for the beauty of the wild world. It feels to me like an act of violence towards nature or at the very least a lack of respect for the natural world. And this is just a small act compared to the wanton destruction that is occurring worldwide.
Notice for yourself how you feel when you gaze at the previous photograph of a discarded plastic cup dropped into a beautiful marsh area. Then take a look at the photo below where the focal point is a little red squirrel on a rock. Notice how there is a coherence to this image that is lacking in the previous one.
Everything feels as if it belongs in this photo. The tree, rocks, foliage, and tiny squirrel all tell a story of an undisturbed place in nature.
Coherence Beyond Nature
We have known for decades that economic growth cannot continue indefinitely. But our way of living, measures of well-being, and a “healthy” economic system thrive on the idea of growth, growth, growth.
We also understand the reality and threats of climate change. Yet corporations, politicians, and popular media ignore this reality. Or they care more about popularity, making money, or selling something than they do about what is really happening. I’ve noticed that more and more of the nightly newscast is devoted to telling us about what consumers are buying, where to look for the best buys, and what the latest popular stuff to buy is. In my opinion, this is another sign of how very dysfunctional our society has become.
Everything is aimed at consumption, consumption, consumption, rather than living respectfully and within our means. The holidays are a time of buying stuff for others, whether they need it or not rather than a time of giving thanks and connecting with one another.
What would be a more coherent approach? It begins with the stories we tell ourselves about what is important. Small actions can add up to large change. But it also requires a systemic approach. We need to create a new story of what the good life is. And it’s not the person who dies with the most stuff. It’s a story about beauty, compassion, sustainability, relationship, appreciation, and connection.
Nature is good at connectivity. The impact of diverse human activities is observed and absorbed throughout nature. Everything is linked. Nature has no problem with coherence. Ecosystems react with their own logic.
— Jonas Gahr Store
Think about coherence the next time you go walking in the wild. Then try to do one small thing to create coherence in your home, family, and community.
Note: This is the tenth essay in a series of photo/essays for a project that I am working on.