Nature often talks to me in unexpected ways. Yesterday morning I went running and ended up on a road where earth has been removed to
make way for the road going around the hill. The rock wall that remains as a
result would have looked naked if it were not covered with creepers. This
served as a beautiful reminder that nature always finds a way. In the environment
of civilisation where I often feel oppressed and yearn for connection with
nature, I’m beginning to realise that living in harmony with other living
entities should not be that difficult to achieve. Amid the global panic about
the destruction to the planet that humans cause, I’m dealing with my own lack of
trust that I can make a living outside of systems governed by power.
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| Nature Taking Over |
Through my current studies of mythology, slavery, and
ancient civilisations I am forming the idea that systems of control and abuse
of power are fuelled by the need to possess life and enabled by the artificial
constructs that make this illusion possible. From my perspective, a lot of the
social and economic problems in the world can more or less be linked with
possession and control of life. The destruction caused to the planet makes me
feel anxious, but the creeper covering the rock wall reminded me that life
always finds a path to continue. It is powerful precisely because it yields: if
life is killed it shows up somewhere else. Ultimately domination cannot have
the final say because the life force that brought us here is stronger.
The creeper reminded me about a conversation I had with
someone about fallen sports heroes. I expressed my surprise that anyone would
want to cheat if they know that they did not truly win. My friend told me about
the weekend he spent weeding in the garden. He compared the persistent
appearance of weeds to the propensity to entertain dubious morals. He said that
like weeds, unwanted thoughts can grow in the mind. If they are not confronted
and removed, they lead us to justify our actions when we know they are not
right. We talked about the generation before us and how easily people who
generally had an interest in living justly accepted apartheid South Africa.
When we asked older people whether they had felt any sense of injustice with
the segregation of black and white, they told us that authorities used the
Bible to justify apartheid and they did not dare question. To my friend, weeds
represented those aspects of ourselves that we sweep under the carpet. From
that point of view, the tendency to delude ourselves about our own
infallibility had to be confronted head on and removed before it could corrupt
us.
Even from his symbolic perspective weeds are a gift. The
dark corners of our mind that we would rather not confront are more
health-giving when they see the light of day. If the weeds of our psyche make
us feel uncomfortable, they usually have a message for us. Rather than killing
them or throwing them out, I think we could realise that they are a form of
life giving us a message. Life is on our side and even through our darkness we
are presented with opportunities to grow and become whole.
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