Nature loves Complexity

By nature, with nature, we create & complexify.

Photo: Carolyn weaving willow during a TEK river side-channel restoration project.

We are busy, busy Beaver People.

So much to do, so little time… It is a common saying of the 21st century and a mindset of some cultures more than others. It seems there is always something to tend to, to grow, to create. It is also the Nature of the universe to grow and complexify where there space is made and the building blocks for creation exist. We are children of Nature, made of the same matter as this planet & everything animate on it, so naturally we feel the same impulses and rhythms of life too. But often times these days we can get driven out of balance from our healthy self awareness and human capacity. Perhaps it is due to the inertia of a hungry mind, or the movement of our surrounding culture, or a disconnect from our bodies.

In this time of increased busyness, access to powerful technologies, & systems of data organization, it is key to our health that we keep returning to root in the organic, material life-waves of the planet. The digital realm we interface with exists as a disembodied hologram, where the click of a button can make boxes from across the globe materialize at your doorstep.

What we create & tend to with our attention, however, means everything.…

It’s amazing that within my lifetime, these technological integrations & operations were born and have become the norm on a global scale through which daily we loose sight of the process, the connectivity, the natural seasons of life cycles, & the true value of relationships.

We lose sight when we lose connection with the seasons of the land around us, connection with the seasons within us, our cultural roots, our family roots.

The consumerist, extractionist culture is global, it is built into the foundation of our social systems, and it is where we are at in relationship to the planet.

The houses we live in, the cars that we drive, the food we put into our mouths, and the media we consume… where it all comes from & where it all goes is a blindspot for nearly everyone who is not living a village lifestyle at the pace of reciprocal care.

Photo: Ali Meders-Knight teaching willow weaving during a river-side TEK restoration session.

In these recent years more than ever, I have heard nothing more echoed in my community webs than the desire for connection to a place with a small community of people who share the food they grow and the materials they create with.

As an activist humanitarian, environmental steward, wellness practitioner, and community participant I see there is a powerful path of reconnection opening. From native grassroots up, I see and believe that while technology will continue forth, those who have suffered life pushed to the bottom will rise like wounded healers of a dis-eased system. Community organizing, wholistic wellness, land stewardship, natural design... these are age-old technologies too.

Our seasons are changing. To adapt and move with our changing environment, we must stay connected to the music of it all. Mother Nature has so much to teach us when we stay connected to the land, to our curiosity, to an embodied self-aware life, and through encouraging the same in others.