Complexity Within the Natural World

The ultimate fear that humans hold concerns lies in the factual truth; we will die and that the people we love will die. Humans latched onto false plastic versions of indefinite change if that’s from the reality of climate change or in life’s beliefs after death and heavenly realms. Everything is subject to continual change and painless regulation in the natural world’s silence without human chatter. The natural world regulates humans’ fear of change with violence, denial, prejudice, fear, discrimination, and dehumanization. The hum of nature lingers, persists, dances in our being. We grasp onto something hopeless to the mutation of change. Nature does not grasp; it does not hold onto something that is begging to be let go. There is no drama; the violence within nature stabilizes and harmonizes itself within food and life cycles that construct the ecological community. 

Mother Earth challenges the human world, questioning the actions of the parasitic humans that inhabit her. Humans have become more disconnected from nature, and the tempting sirens of blue light screens seduce their eyes into false worlds. I’m from Asheville, North Carolina, a city planted in the Blue Ridge Mountains and surrounded by natural sanctuaries. My return to the natural world always grounds me into my faith in life’s wildness. 

On the rocks of Big Creek, the complexity of my nature buzzed around me. The sunlight beamed in my eyes. I swatted and tried to block the sun out in one graceful motion. Something beautiful lingered in the air, but the smell began to dwindle so much that I caught myself huffing for one more hit. As we remove our bodies and minds from the shelters of the human-made world and silence ourselves, the beauties of nature dance around us and remind us that the natural world is wild with complexity, just like the human world. 

The air’s lightweight nature, the streams, and crispy green leaves were canopying the scene into golden heaven. The water concealed the rocky mountain and created cascading clear waterfalls that sing the great Pisgah Forest’s soul. The lightness of nature contrasts with its complexity. As humans, we view nature and admire her beauty, but underneath the elegance is destruction and rebirth. The distinction that defines the human versus the natural world is how their citizens react. 

The arch of my back hovered over the solid rock ground, and I spread my legs extended, and my arms reached the edges of the rock, surrounded by the musicians of the wild. The buzz persisted. Nature challenges us; by placing ourselves in that power, we must consider our own nature. I turned my head to give my left side a break from my tiring actions of thinking. I wrestled. Focus on the music, I thought to myself, listen to the strumming of the stream. Movements of peace faded in and out. Through this mediation and restlessness, I felt my desire to imitate her gracefulness. 

I focused on the sunlight surging and dodging through the generous lush leaves that occasionally caught a hymn off the moving creek and ruffled their music. A green hue filled the hidden spot on the stream intensely, but the shade swallowed the sunlight just as quickly. I observed the sudden and dramatic change, but nature persisted on, not showing any reaction to the forces of time. A fallen tree catches my attention, its limbs stretch across a thin rocky section of the creek, and green leaves create branches that droop into the water, creating ripples. This massive tree had fallen, and the appearance of order and regulation persisted around me. A tree falls, and the world goes on; nature reacts peacefully and adjusts. 

As nature carried on in a random and perfect mess, I began to feel like a stranger. I loved being outside, but the peace of heart made me unsettled with the lack of stability I felt inside myself and the social world. Is humanity catastrophic? Before there were humans, was there peace? I think about the harm that humans are imposing and infecting the world with. Although climate change occurs naturally, an anomaly, humans have undoubtedly interfered with the natural systems and are infected. Without the planet, there is no peace; there is no humanity. I believe that humans must appreciate the natural peacefulness and processes to stop the disruption we impose. 

• earth day
• humanity
• mother earth
• nature
• peace