Through Different Eyes
by: Deva DeAngelis
Written: 2012
Children play. They look at other living things with curious eyes, receptive, even hungry, to understand and connect. They seem to notice the slightest breeze, acknowledge the smallest movements, and at times, they are focused solely on their mothers. Constant gatherers, they are recording memories, from small sounds to symphonies, first emotionally, and then visually and more contextually, building the model for which they will be able to make decisions, and through which lens they will view the world. By the time a child becomes a young adult, they will have learned by which devises it is best to conduct one’s self; accomplishing writing skills and direct communication, by obeying or disobeying commonly acknowledged societal and familial norms; all of these become the framework for which we have to operate. If life feels satisfying enough for our contextual framework, we are content to continue building upon what we have. Through individual life experiences we encounter unique challenges and rewards; for different reasons, sometimes hard to understand reasons, we are introduced to experiences or information that begins to break perceptions apart.
What children stare in wonder of, adults speculate. These days, walking through a park, or sitting in it to have a picnic, the place can be reduced to an alternate home or recreational area, which can be utilized or wherein one may contemplate. I hear many people express contentment for the simple nature of resting outdoors, or at times there is frustration caused by an inconvenient gust of wind, or trying to eat when it begins to rain. But there is no awe abounding when adults see a zephyr rolling ripples through long grass. Appreciation for new and wonderful sights, and the piece of momentary relief from their normal, faster pace, yes, but the awe of a child has usually gone dormant. Children have to have respect for what exists outside of them; they are too small and limited and fragile to do anything else. Adults have no room in their grownup worlds for the raw awe and reverence for nature and it’s infinite systems. Whereas, Natives, whose habits have matured distinctly relative to habitats through the entire existence of the human species thus far, they are called savage and primitive, and treated with terrible disdain and disrespect. But like a child experiencing the world for the first time, having a reverent respect for the large and powerful can still open us up to learn like children.
According to quantum theory, space is filled with quantum potential; infinite possibilities, hanging like a thick fog; every option present until it is observed, whereby the cloud collapses into registrable data and tangible objects to the observer, largely dependant on expectation (deQuincey, 2002). This implies not only that our minds are both complex and powerful, but also that reality is subjective, not objective, and depending on what our goals are, where we focus our minds impacts our reality.
Our mode of science is founded in, and deliberates the idea that, life can be reduced to causal reactions of dead matter running into other dead matter, but while we are trying to understand every detail of every path in this dead picture, we are missing the whole picture, the greater wisdom of how life-systems work together, and how to be a beneficial participant. “Given the complexity of nature, and given the insights from complexity theory, the dream of mechanism-- the dream of complete prediction and control of nature for the benefit of humanity—must be given up. We are part of the system, and ultimately always at its mercy. Instead of control, the sciences of complexity and systems dynamics are telling us—just as quantum physics tells us --- we can only participate (deQuincey, 2002).” If we are going to achieve this sort of paradigm shift, we are going to need to do some work, starting with a reverent attempt to mend our relationship with nature.
“Remember the feelings of such moments (your interactions with nature), and you will know as well as I do that you were in the presence of something irreducibly nonhuman, something profoundly Other than yourself. Wilderness is made of that too (Cronon, 1996).” With this statement, we can go back to de Quincey’s description on Quantum theory, and make note of the fact that even science is now implying that there is something more intrinsic that holds us together, which also lends support to connecting intelligences or other realities. As an Okanagan elder observed of us, of our “civilized” culture: “Their actions have a source, they have displacement panic, they have been pulled apart from themselves as family [generational sense] and place [as land/us/survival].” They also notice that we argue inside of our heads (Armstrong, 1995). If we would sit down and let ourselves feel held again by nature, to appreciate and celebrate life, we may be able to embrace the environment, and each other, enough to soften our current impact, and begin rebuilding a sustainable future.
Though it might feel primitive to turn around, and head back toward simplicity, it is precisely through reconstructing our appreciation for nature and taking back a relationship with, and surrendering to, everything that is greater than we are, that we can turn hearts.
This is where Native wisdom, and a reconnection with nature and her systems, would serve to calm the chaotic, modern mind, gently easing the path back into a creative space where we can move forward by going backwards a bit, or we may experience what the Okanagan forsee: “that anything displaced from all that it requires to survive in health will eventually perish…[because] it compels all other life forms to displacement and then ruin (Armstrong, 1995).”
Armstrong, J. (1995). Keepers of the earth. In T. Roszak (Ed.), Ecopsychology: restoring
the earth, healing the mindSan Fransisco: Sierra Club Books.
Cronon, W. (1996). Uncommon ground. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
deQuincey, C. (2002). Radical nature: Rediscovering the soul of matter. Montpelier:
Invisible Cities Press.