by Allysyn Kiplinger and The Fig Tree in the back yard
There was a time when humans could trust the natural world to take care of them.
They could trust the seasons to be hot, warm, cool, cold. To signal when to move to warmer or cooler grounds, wetter or drier.
They could trust that drinking water from a living body of sweet water (river, lake, stream, brook, creek, pool, the palm of a leaf) would quench thirst and keep them healthy.
They could trust that salmon would return so they could eat.
The “outer” natural world activated a robust “inner” world of the human.
But that is not universally so anymore.
I see why my human ancestors may have become autistic, deaf, to the natural world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Water poisoned by corporations. Food poisoned by out-of-touch leaders. Seasons altered by the human desire for convenience. Trust was broken by the cultural establishments entrusted to keep them safe and vital.
Was that trust broken when my great grandfather drank bad water on a business trip and died of Typhus at the age of 46 in 1909?
Multiply that by millions. By billions.
A slow turn, a slow dependent co-arising of distrust – courtesy of the military-industrial-commercial-chemical-life-killing culture of the Western world – wedged itself between the inherent, natural, evolutionary trust that humans have for Earth and Earth itself.
If you and your people get sick and die from having ordinary interactions with the natural world, how do you create a culture of trust with nature?
In these times our historical mission is to alter our culture so that we may universally trust again and re-encounter, rediscover our genetic trust of Earth.
