Entry #5 - Life On Planet Earth

A Dane County Almanac And Other Short Stories

This little book is a revelation of the author’s most intimate feelings and thoughts about his life on planet earth.

Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Entry #5 - Life On Planet Earth

Suzanne and I have a new guest at our house. A little bunny rabbit who is probably less than one year old. She established his home in the flowers next to our house in the front yard. She seems to spend much of her time in our backyard. She is so cute. She is very slowly warming up to us. This AM on my return from my walk she was sitting and eating clover in the front yard. Up until now she would either run to our back yard or into her nest. This morning however she simply remained exactly where he was and continued eating. I quietly stood less than six feet from her and just stared into she eyes. Once I was satisfied that she was comfortable with my presence I began to softly talk to her. I told her that we were so happy that she had chosen our yard as her home, and that she would be loved and safe here with us. Further, I told her that we felt so pleased to see her running about our yard, and that her presence was really welcomed. I said I hoped she would be around for a long time. Only then did I look up and to my surprise saw Suzanne taking this entire encounter in with much interest.. We both were so pleased that the bunny had clearly developed some trust in both of us and the rudiments of a close limbic relationship had now been established. Watching her twitching her nose we named her “nose.”

In my last entry I shared a bit with you about A General Theory of Love. I described briefly how excited I was with all that it had to say about the human mind and both human and human to animal relationships. Of course in an earlier entry I shared with you the fact that I have been reading the Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Cabat-Zinn, and that I am now in my eighth and final week of stress training offered by the Boston Medical Center. I must say that I am quite pleased and happy that I have taken this course. You will recall that it consists of both formal sitting and more informal meditation and hatha yoga practices.

I am now noticeably stronger and thinner for completing this training, and I believe that it has also made me more emotionally flexible and balanced as well. Suzanne says that she has really noticed a difference and believes that both of us are currently experience a full emergence - her in her writing and at her new job and me in my voracious reading and weight loss. This book has also caused me to return to and re-read the “Three Pillars of Sen” by Roshi Kapleau.

Earlier I reported reading Matthew Fox’s “One River, Many Wells” and his “New Reformation” in which he presents his ninety-five theses for the third millennium. Earlier I had also read his “Original Blessing” which has been referred to as the most influential psychospiritual book of the decade. This book is all about celebrating beauty, compassion and justice and identifies the emphasis on original sin as receiving far too much emphasis to humanity’s detriment. I also mentioned that our pastor at Unity of Madison has been preaching based on Fox’s work.

You might recall that I cited Matthew Fox in my legacy when talking about the concept of ecstasy and Oneness with Self or the Spirit. Without going into too much detail I will just say that Fox believes that God is in all things. That God is in us and in all Creation. That God can also be experienced as formless and exist in Being, in Silence, in Spirit, and in Love, but most of all in His/Her wonderful and miraculous Creation - the Universe and our planet Earth. Fox says there are two ways we can experience God - in form (Creation/Our Earth) and in formlessness (in Being, Silence and Mystery). Then what do you think should happen to me next?

As I was asking Suzanne about a word that I ran across in Fox’s book she referred me to “A General Theory of Love” which I read and felt that it had arrived at a most auspicious time.Among its many wonderful insights I learned was that LOVE resides in our limbic sub-brain and enables us to experience relationships with both humans and animals. - both whom also have limbic systems. But just days later, again sitting in our beautiful living room, as I was reading Fox, Suzanne casually suggested that I take a look at a book she just got from the library - “Seeing Nature by Paul Krafel - Deliberate Encounters with the Visible World.”

Fox talks about looking outward and seeing God manifest or in the form of our planet earth or approaching God inwardly and in an unform fashion as Being, Love, Silence and Mystery. I had just completed reading “A General Theory of Love” which along with my Sen reading I could now better experience God inwardly as formless and Invisible. Now thanks to Fox and Krafel and “Seeing Nature” it has really helped me to experience God through Creation and Mother Earth. Let me try to briefly explain what I mean by this statement.

Grafel introduces the reader to James Lovelock’s book Gaia (pronounced Guya): A New Look at Life.”
He talks about Lovelock’s “Gaia Hypothesis” which states most simply: “that life, in a collective sense, has evolved the ability to create and maintain an environment favorable for life.” This hypothesis suggest that the Creator designed and put in motion on planet earth a life process by which it continues to create and maintain life on this planet. This theory suggest that it is a more or less a self-sustaining process that perhaps goes on despite what humans may do to it. Put differently, one could say that while Darwin’s theory of evolution saw how the environment shaped life, Loveland’s theory explains how life shapes its environment.

Shortly after reading Lovelock’s Gaia Theory, Grafel thought of one life experience which helped him to better understand Loveland’s overarching concept. A flock of geese can self sustain and maintain its flight by having the older leaders exchange places up front several times each minute. The lead goose cleaves the wind and creates a wind shelter behind it. He has observed how moss collects on a mountain side and on smaller flat surfaces and over many months and years gathers in and holds the moisture eventually creating a mat of more fertile soil which with the energy from the sun can sustain larger shrubs and trees. He also has observed how the kelp on the ocean’s floor and coast acts to slow down and cushion the waves so they do not too quickly erode away the coastline.

Grafel later learned that only eleven inches of the earth’s annual precipitation comes directly from the ocean while through the recycling of this moisture from the ocean another twenty inches of rain is created on land which sustains our fields and forests. Because of this process over the past 450 million years beginning with primitive algae and moss which spread over rocks and granite planet earth was transformed from a rocky world into the green Earth we know today. This is a continuous cycle of the earth eroding away into the ocean on the one hand, while simultaneously building itself back up. Subsequently based on further observations he now more fully realizes how important flat surfaces are. Whether it be the forest canopy in our physical environment which cushions the rain drops, or the convoluted surface structure of our human lungs. The latter allowing our circulating blood to absorb the inhaled oxygen. He goes on to describe the photosynthesis by which plants, using solar energy, convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and atmospheric oxygen which is then vented into the atmosphere and gratefully taken into our lungs.

He describes how islands are created and change over time through wave or running water action. Observed over time its possible during the human life cycle to witness a small island go through a growth creating process not unlike that which operates throughout planet earth. First a tree falls into the stream, and slowly the small rolling rocks, sand, gravel and mud begin to collect over the shallow floor of the stream.

Soon this earth matter builds up enough to rise above the surface of the stream and algae and moss begin to collect, which eventually leads to grass, flowers, shrubs and small trees. Once the transformation has completed this cycle many, many times the larger tress begin to decay and gradually rot into more earth matter….

He describes another way to witness this self sustaining creation cycle up close. If you have a small stream on your property, like a beaver, simply take a shovel or a log or large bolder and divert a small portion of the flow by creating a small fork-like trench and create like a fork in the stream. Over time observe how the new stream will expand and regenerate itself particularly if the divergence is made on a downward flow.

Reading this little book has helped me to better understand how I can help mother nature continue her self-sustaining regeneration and maintenance process. I suggested at the onset of this entry that Loveland hypothesized that this was a natural build-in self-governing process. Of course this is only true if we humans don’t upset this vital balance. By this I mean if we learn to work with and support this natural life giving process by following the land ethic of our late Wisconsin senator, Gaylord Nelson, and Thoreau, John Muir and Aldo Leopold. We need to get out A Sand County Almanac at least yearly, and read it as a family. Compost our organic garbage, walk gingerly when climbing a steep rocky bank, support all conservation projects in your area, help clean up your nearby creek or river or highway, advocate and lobby for clean earth and clean water and other non-pollution legislation, keep the leaves and lawn fertilizers out of your street sewers, when possible buy recyclable merchandise…

Leopold defines an ethic ecologically, as a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence in which the original free-for-all competition has been replaced, in part, by co-operative mechanisms with an ethical content. In a 1977 edition of his Almanac, Leopold reported that, “There is as yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. He further noted that while the Bible asserts that the despoliation of land is not only inexpedient but wrong, nevertheless Society has not yet affirmed its belief.

He goes on to note that land is often viewed as an adversary or only as an economic unit. Expanding on what has already been said about the creative life process, its useful to review Leopold’s biotic pyramid concept: Plants absorb energy from the sun. This energy flows through a circuit called the biota which may be represented by a pyramid consisting of layers. The bottom layer is the soil. A plant layer rests on the soil, an insect layer on the plants, a bird and rodent layer on the insects, and so on. Each successive layer depends on those below it for food. Each proceeding layer decreases in numerical abundance. Man shares an intermediate layer with the bears, raccoons and squirrels which eat both meat and vegetables.

According to Leopold, then, a land ethic reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land. Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal. Conservation is our effort to understand and preserve this capacity.

I regret to admit that until reading this book by Paul Krafel I have sometimes taken the attitude why bother. I am only one person and not important enough to make a difference. Now I know this is totally wrong. All we have to do is begin the journey with the first step in the right direction. My action and my example is critically important if we want to preserve this wonderful, marvelous planet for future generations. I do! I hope you will read this book and as your children grow I hope you will pass this book on to them and their children.

Finally, let me end this entry by telling you how happy and grateful I am for being able to walk and jog around on planet earth. Now that I have read this book I will never again take any rain or snow that falls out of the sky for granted. I will always support and contribute to conservation projects and campaigns. I will never take our woods or forests, our river and our streams for granted. I promise to celebrate Earth Day daily during the rest of my life. I won’t throw things down but I will pick all trash up.

Thankfully, it pleases me to know that I am preaching to the choir. It pleases me to know that my children already have a strong earth ethic and have been converts for all or most of their life. For this I am so thankful. I apologize for coming aboard so late in my life. But better late than never!

bunny