Sermons and Articles | Religious Naturalist Association

Tracks and Scat: Noticing Nature

tfindlay — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 15:49:03 +0000

by Laura Emerson Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

Engagement with nature is the same as with people. It requires slowing down and paying attention to details. It isn’t driving past and enjoying the view. It isn’t jogging through a park while chatting with a friend or listening to music. Engagement means walking, looking, pausing, noticing, analyzing, comparing, and appreciating.

In this regard, one of my favorite pastimes in the remote part of Alaska where we live, is to identify and interpret the scat and tracks of the wild animals that live here. In winter, the tracks are clear for several days in the snow, but the warm excrement slips below the surface and disappears, so that clue is lacking.

In summer, ground cover obscures the tracks, other than in mud. But I see vague footprints in gravel along creeks, and of course our forest is riven with myriad animal trails and the occasional matted grass where one bedded down for the night (or day). Among bushes and trees, I notice branches stripped by moose, berries scattered by bears, trees gnawed by beavers, and tree trunks rubbed raw by bull moose as they shed their velvet and paddles (antlers). Bears leave swatches of coarse hair where they rub against trees (and our cabins). In summer, animal scat lasts for days, and I can infer how recent it is and what the animal ate.

By paying attention, I learn about my largely silent neighbors: where they travel, if they are moving fast (in fear or in pursuit) or slowly (feeling safe), what they have been eating, how recently they have passed through, and the conditions for their respective dens.

In the spirit of the season, this article focuses only on WINTER TRACKS. A summer article will describe SUMMER clues.

Every afternoon above about 0 degrees F, my husband, dog and I take a walk. We prefer the frozen, windswept lake for easy walking in shallow snow, but we also go into the woods on snowshoes (to cut firewood). Either way, we look for tracks, point them out to our chocolate lab mix dog, Buddy, and try to interpret what we see.

VOLES, HARES, WOLVERINES, BEARS, MARTENS, WEASELS, LYNX, ad WOLVES

VOLE

This week, in the flat light of an overcast day, we barely saw the close, shallow tracks of a vole (meadow mouse) heading away from the woods and out toward the middle of the lake. Why? Any dark colored creature on the white expanse would be an obvious appetizer to an eagle eyed carnivore – avian or otherwise. Usually, we find their serpentine trails in spring when the snow melts, in long stretches dug slightly into the mud and slightly into the lowest layer of snow, where they are insulated to a balmy 33 degrees F. Why would one venture out into the cold exposure of a windswept lake? I do not know.

Our dog and other animals hear or smell the voles beneath the snow. Buddy sniffs and digs where he can reach under the chicken coop, where I am sure voles hole up during the winter and gather occasional bits of food and straw.

MARTEN

A more dramatic occasion occurred with a marten. These animals (whose fur is the ermine you associate with royalty) are about the size of a cat, but with shorter legs, all brown/black, with cupped ears. They have been referred to, evocatively, as “nature’s most adorable assassin.”

My husband was soaking in our outdoor, wood fired hot tub mid-winter. I happened to be looking out our kitchen window and saw the following, too. A black marten left the shelter of trees (which they can climb) and trotted out to the middle of a meadow. There he stood for a moment and then jumped up into the air and straight down into the snow, emerging with a vole in his mouth. He returned a while later for a second course, but the voles had skedaddled. Instead, he was attracted to the sound of Bryan splashing water over his head in the tub. Did he hear another meal? The marten bounded toward him and even climbed up the lowest two steps to the deck surrounding the tub! Adorable or not, my husband was disinclined to be so close to those sharp teeth, so he splashed water onto the marten, who ran away into the woods. He has his space; we like ours.

HARE

Hares, being a prey species like voles, usually stay in the woods, but one time we watched from our front porch as a hare raced out of the woods and along shore, as fast and straight as I have ever seen one move. Sure enough, a predatory marten was chasing. Before they disappeared beyond the trees, it looked like the marten was gaining. It is a dog eat dog world out there. When we walked down to the lake to analyze the tracks, the distance between the leaps of both creatures was greater than we had ever seen, reflecting their speed.

Usually, hares stay in the woods, sheltered among the roots of birch or under the snow weighted boughs of spruce or a thicket of alder laid low by the snow. When they venture out for forage, like dead grass or berries, they move from one sheltered tree to another. Their tracks are distinctive from the way they jump – their big back feet tend to obscure their smaller front foot prints, like a frog jump.

In spots illuminated and warmed by the sun, the older tracks (of any creatures) expand in the snow, looking much larger than is true. This is one way to assess how much time has passed. Tracks in shaded areas tend to remain true to size longer.

The tree canopy protects the hares somewhat, but since the deciduous trees shed their leaves in autumn, they are particularly vulnerable to predators in winter. One year, we spied a bright red (so fresh) blood pool at the base of a tree, and a light blood trail leading away, but no footprints at all! Our interpretation was that an eagle or hawk dove down to grab a fleeing hare just as it emerged from its sub-nivian hideaway. I doubt it was an owl because those birds are so light. I have seen them dive to break a duck’s neck, and then sit there to feed on the large bird that it could not lift.

LYNX

Here, the lynx/hare population follows a predictable 10 year cycle: more hares = more lynx. Last year was the trough, so we anticipate seeing more of both in upcoming years. Only once have I seen what I think were lynx tracks. Their feet are so insulated with tufts of fur that you can barely see the toes and claws. The tracks looked to me almost like a big softball shape slightly indented into the surface, surrounded by a softened snow edge.

MYSTERY DECODED

Perhaps the most joyful discovery occurred shortly after Freezeup this year. When the lake ice was thick enough to support our weight (4 – 6 inches) and barely covered with an inch or two of snow, we ventured out, wearing ice cleats since the ice was so slick, and carrying a rope in case one of us fell in. Can you can interpret what we saw before I answer the question?

Along the perimeter of the lake, maybe three feet from shore, we saw what looked like a single tire track that scraped the snow down to the ice. It was about 6 inches wide and 6 feet long. Then a gap of 10 inches of snow, and then another track of ice, then snow, then ice, for 1/3 to ½ a mile! Two or three times, the track veered right up to the shrubbery along shore. What was this?

We bent down to get a clearer view, because in the flat light of winter, there are no shadows to illuminate nooks and crannies. Then we saw it: two small foot prints at the end of each icy track. Of course! This was a river otter sliding and then leaping and then sliding along shore! Wouldn’t you have loved to see that in action! How fun! Perhaps its forays to the shrubbery were to find any remaining open pools of water. On the far side of the lake, two such pools remained liquid for another week where little creeks drizzled into the lake. Sure enough, we found evidence that the critter slid into the water and disappeared into the woods. What a delightful discovery and happy memory! Had it snowed before our walk, we would have missed the evidence.

WOLVERINE

A few years ago, a wolverine hung around our place. These are creatures that look like small bears and are noted for their fierce temperament. We used our scat and tracks book to identify the animal by the size of the feet and the distance between steps. We found two trails, on two different days, where it wandered out of the woods, in a loop along the lake, and then back into the woods about ½ mile north of our cabin.

A night or so later, our dog alerted to an exterior visitor. The next morning, we found that the wolverine’s tracks led from the woods north of us, under our cabin’s front porch, out the other side and down to the lake. Because of the dusty dirt beneath the cabin, its dirty paw prints left a clear trail in the snow where he exited. We even saw sharp front claw marks in the icy snow berm that he had to climb up from under the cabin. Did it smell the gray water line under the sink? Did our dog leave a bone somewhere? I do not know why it paid a visit, but I am glad that we did not let our dog out that night. He surely would have lost his life to this apex predator.

MOOSE

Moose prefer riparian landscapes where rivers offer open water longer than our lake in the winter, and shore plants like willows can feed them. When they travel through snow, they, like we, travel along hard packed snowmachine tracks for easier walking. Imagine the caloric stress for a 1200 lb pregnant herbivore laboring through belly high snow, looking for food for 6-7 months! They are understandably ornery and often unwilling to cede the trail to an oncoming snowmachine or dog sled. For this reason, it is common to carry a gun to startle the huge ungulate into moving away a few dozen yards so we can pass.

For the same ease of transit, moose are often seen walking on roads in Alaska. As you may imagine, collisions can be fatal for both beast and driver. In the populated area around Anchorage, volunteers are on call to collect the enormous road kill, butcher it, and deliver it as food to homeless shelters and other food charities. Nice.

In winter, we see moose when we near rivers, and less often on our lake, especially now that we have the dog. I recall seeing one curl up, rather miserably, it seemed to me, out of the wind below our cabin, after nibbling whatever she could reach on low birch and ash branches. The next morning, we saw that she had traversed the snow paths on our property, sampling adjacent tree branches, before heading into the woods, which protect her from wind. Off the path, her footfalls in the snow were so deep that we could see her belly scrapes in between them.

If reincarnation exists, I do not want to become an arctic moose. It seems to be an arduous and vulnerable life.

BEARS

Bears hibernate, of course, so we were astonished to see the unmistakable footprints of a large bear in a glen low on our property one New Year’s Day. Naturally, we were disinclined to follow in our bulky and cumbersome snowshoes, so we retreated. I called Fish and Game after the holiday to inquire, citing measurements for the footprints and the stride length. A warden explained that the bear was likely old or ill and left a den to die outside somewhere. Somehow this strikes me as both sad and noble. How about you?

These excursions illuminate my environment. From animal tracks, I discern (or interpret) evidence of joy, thirst, hunger, fear, confusion, illness, and dying. Human footprints surely yield such clues, too, to attentive doctors, policemen, and forensic analysts.

We just need to pay attention.

Laura Emerson

—

Laura is the author of Log Cabin Reflections: Our life off-road and off-grid in Alaska, which is available on Amazon. She also blogs at www.alaskauu1.blogspot.com and www.alaskauu1.substack.com. She welcomes comments and questions.

Love and Nature

tfindlay — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 15:08:26 +0000

Love is not unique to human beings. Dogs love, elephants love, whales love. In fact, almost all mammals love their young (at least until they are grown and independent); many love their mates; and a number of them love their brothers and sisters. [note] Vicki Croke, “Animals Do Have Emotions, But What Should We Call Them?” 8/28/14, WBUR’s The Wild Life. [/note]

Animals of different species may also learn to love each other, particularly if they live in a protected environment. For examples see “Animal Odd Couples,” from the television series Nature, on PBS. [note](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/animal-odd-couples-full-episode/8009/.)

Love is the deepest form of interconnection that humans can experience because it involves not just intellect, but also emotion and a great sharing of time, effort, and wealth. Family love especially enlists our genetic drive to pass on our genes. Love makes it possible for human parents to fulfill our children’s needs during their uniquely long period of childhood dependency.

While the sharing of time and resources is limited, human love in the forms of empathy, kindness, and emotional connection can flower and grow over an entire lifetime. Ants or computers may succeed the human race as principal occupier of Earth, but it’s unlikely that they would have the same capacity for love as humans… or as dogs, elephants, and whales now have.

As a religious naturalist my vision of Love calls for different levels of love and concern for the different circles of each person’s acquaintance, and this is consistent with our biological Nature. Usually, we naturally have more love for members of our immediate family than we do for our extended family, and we have even less for strangers who live far from us.

True, a small minority of humans – including Jesus, Saint Francis of Assisi, and Mahatma Gandhi — may elect and succeed in manifesting universal love toward all human beings. But their lives should not be held up as the model for the rest of us. If we all became like St. Francis of Assisi, no Thomas Edison would have invented the light bulb; no Jonas Salk would have discovered the polio vaccine; (both standing on the shoulders of earlier inventors). Instead, Edison would have become, say, a missionary in Africa; and Salk would have become a monk or an officer in the Salvation Army. Who did Continuing Creation most need: The inventor of the light bulb and the inventor of the polio vaccine, or one more monk and one more Salvation Army volunteer?

— by J.X. Mason

Patterns that Repeat in Nature and Science

tfindlay — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:20:43 +0000

J.X. Mason October 22, 2024

Geometric patterns are often found in nature and science. Why is this so? For many reasons:

If you take a string of any given length, you can enclose more area by forming it into a circle than you can by forming it into any other shape – triangle, square, octagon, rectangle, or whatever. This makes the circle an efficient enclosure used by living organisms.
The grid or “stacked boxes” pattern is everywhere. The cells of all living things are assembled in this pattern, because it provides the optimum way for each cell to be individual (with its own enclosing walls) and yet in communication with cooperative neighboring cells.
The branching pattern and the network pattern are also ubiquitous (tree branches, roads, blood vessels), because they preserve some connection while exploring and covering more distance and space. This greater coverage permits access to light, air, water, and transportation (cars, trucks, blood cells).
As shown on the Home Page of our ContinuingCreation.org website, the Spiral Pattern is present in everything from galaxies to snail shells. Why? Probably because this pattern can be generated by adding together a simple series of numbers.
Fractals, where a pattern is repeated over and over on different scales, as seen on a head of broccoli.

Fractal Patterns in Nature

In 1968, Hungarian theoretical biologist Aristid Lindenmayer (1925–1989) developed the
L-system, a formal mathematical grammar which can be used to model plant growth patterns in the style of fractals.

A fractal is a pattern that repeats itself over different size scales. These are also called “self-similar” patterns. For example, the irregular, in-and-out shape of a coastline looks the same from a mile above, from 10 feet above, and (under magnification) from a millimeter above. The ins-and-outs are so numerous, that the true measured length of a coastline is practically infinite.

Fractals are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven feedback loops, fractals are images of dynamic, recursive systems. A perfect example of a fractal pattern in nature is a floret of broccoli, below:

More Patterns That Repeat in Nature and Science

Science and mathematics can also explain how Nature produces many other patterns, including the following:

Chains and ladders, such as the strands of DNA found in every living thing.
Weaves, such as spiders’ webs and birds’ nests.
Concentric rings, like the growth rings in tree trunks.
Hexagons, such as the cells in bees’ honeycombs.
Spots and Stripes on animals – leopards, tigers, zebras.
Waves, Bubbles, and foam in liquids.
Tessellations (tiling patterns) on things like dried mud, fish scales, and pineapples.
Widmanstatten Patterns can be seen in the cross-sections of meteorites.

Widmanstatten Pattern in the cross-section of a meteorite

Lessons from the Brevity of Fall

tfindlay — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 14:21:34 +0000

Laura Emerson

Some people find autumn and winter depressing and prefer spring and summer.

I am not among that group. To me, the brevity of a gorgeous, Alaskan fall is a very visible message to appreciate each day, each morning, each rapidly changing view. Part of the reason is psychological: Because THIS WILL NOT LAST, so enjoy it. Part of the reason is practical: the changes of fall and winter contribute to the fecundity of spring and summer.

Sometimes, we need to be hit on the head with important reminders like this. Autumn does both. It feels transient but its benefits are long lasting.

Sadly, I have two friends whose cancers have metastasized. Both are using phrases like, “I will never see X or Y again.” I think of them as I watch the leaves drop to the ground. Is this their last autumn? Some of us know when death is right around the corner, but others are caught off guard. We are lucky who enjoy a springtime youth, a summer’s middle age, and transitions to autumnal and then winter’s old age. Not everyone does. Fall drives that message home.

So I luxuriate in the beauties of the season. I stare in awe of electric yellow birch and larch trees (the latter is the only conifer that sheds its needles), framed by purple mountains. I inhale the earthy aroma of highbush cranberries and the tannic scents of crispy leaves as my boots shuffle through the accumulating piles of red, orange, yellow, and brown that flutter gracefully to the ground. I harvest rosehips and berries and potatoes and horseradish root.

Besides the beauty, this annual blanket of fall leaves is as important to the ecosystem as elders are important to younger members of society. The skirts below trees and bushes blanket them from cold and add biomass to the soil. The leaves deter weeds. From the trails that do not need the leaves, I rake piles to strew over my vegetable and flower gardens as mulch. Over the winter, the leaves break down under the snow weight to lighten the soil the following year. Voles and insects burrow beneath the leaves for protection from winter weather. With so many benefits of autumn leaves, I don’t know why anyone rakes them into a garbage bag to be carted off. They are valuable to every plant and critter in your yard.

Looking upward from the lake shore, I see termination dust (initial snow) coating the cap of the 4600 foot mountain west of our lake and draping the 5000 foot mountain range to our north. Each 1000 feet of elevation is about 5 degrees cooler than below. So after each rain or fog here, we watch the snowline creep downhill until it envelops us, too. The natural world is our thermometer and barometer. Mine is beautiful.

October 10 we awoke in the dark to the sound of hundreds of geese, swans and cranes vectoring south. In the early morning light, we saw a flock of a hundred or more bright white geese resting on our lake. They huddled so close to one another that they looked like an island. I don’t think my dog, who gets very excited about individual water fowl, could even interpret what that mass was. The timing of their flight south was clear when the light lifted and we saw the first dusting of snow in our yard as well as deeper incursions on the mountain tops. These huge migratory departures in fall and arrivals in spring punctuate our year more decisively than any calendar date.

In this short and dramatic season, I know that some morning later this month, we will awaken to a black and white world. Technicolor autumn will disappear for a year. For others, this is their last season. So, for me and for them, I savor every image of these last few days of evanescent beauty.

Religious Naturalism Reflection

tfindlay — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 14:57:36 +0000

Though I was raised in the progressive, justice-focused Lutheran Christianity of my parents, over time I have come to identify as humanist or spiritually independent because my personal sense of the spiritual arises from many diverse sources within and outside of the Christianity of my childhood. For example, since I was a child, I have been enchanted by the natural world, finding magic, mystery, and wonder in the beauty of forests or the transformation of a flower into an apple. And in divinity school, I began conceiving of the Divine as something akin to the Buddhist concept of Indra’s Net – where the jewel – the being at every eye in the net – reflects all others infinitely. I came to think about the Holy as this web of interconnectedness, reflecting the space between you and me and all the intertwined relationships in every ecosystem (big or small) across the universe.

Until a year ago, I didn’t know anything about religious naturalism as a worldview or an organization. But after almost a decade of work as a hospital chaplain, I was delighted and fascinated when I recently started hearing and learning about religious naturalism as a worldview and the RNA as a chaplain endorsing body. Reading about religious naturalism brought me a sense of spiritual alignment that I have not felt when trying to fit myself into other religious organizations and worldviews. Religious naturalism aligns with my awe and wonder in nature, from the small microorganisms to the cosmic movings of galaxies. It makes sense of my foundational beliefs in mystery, curiosity, and interconnectedness, all of which then impact how I try to live my life grounded in these values and in a reverence for all life.

I especially find comfort in religious naturalism naming the shared story of the universe,via the big bang. I love the commonality that this shared central story can bring. And I personally feel very spiritually grounded in this extreme spiritual long view of the universe, that is, in the understanding that human existence is but a small moment in the vastness and mystery of the cosmos. We are not the center of the universe, literally or figuratively, and I believe the universe will continue on in beautiful ways someday when humans are gone. Many find this view of the potentially-fleeting nature of human existence to be depressing or fatalistic, but I find it comforting and inspiring, because we get to be part of the beautiful dance of life and death and change that is the universe. We get to consciously live in the sacred interconnected space in which our lives affect and reflect all that is around us.

In my work as a healthcare chaplain (and especially in my current work in palliative care), this long-view story of the universe that religious naturalism holds is a source of spiritual grounding and sustainability for me. Looking to the natural world and the vastness of the cosmos for perspective on human joy, suffering, life, and death helps me feel grounded in something bigger in the midst of my chaplaincy work. In addition to this sense of spiritual groundedness that gives me energy, perspective, and comfort in my day to day work as a chaplain, religious naturalism is also helping me consider ways of looking towards nature to learn about how to live well with and for others. Engaging the concepts of religious naturalism encourages me to consider what I can learn from plants and creatures about how to live and work in ways that honor natural lifespans, that value interdependence and collaboration, and that use resources sustainably. In many ways the religious naturalist worldview felt familiar to me when I encountered it and has been a spiritual grounding for my chaplaincy work for many years, and I have been excited to engage this worldview now in ways that are deepening my thinking about the world and how I live, think, and act both in my work as a chaplain and as a human being.

Cynthia Driedger-Bauer, MDiv, BCC

More than Self Existence

tfindlay — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 16:19:51 +0000

Photo by Robin Stuart on Unsplash

Knowing more than Human Self is an enormous part of this journey. It takes time, I am not going to lie, many in the ‘old ways’ of journeying to know self, aren’t at a space to consider that through their separation they have never found their wholeness. That without discovering ourselves within, as a part of, all things, we never truly know who we are. In fact our journeying to this point has led us through the tail of the snake back into our own self and minds.

We are in fact beyond this skin. This form. We are formless.

To know and understand the One Living System means we see beyond our own being to truly recognise that all that is above, below, within, without, is a part of our wholeness. And so to step in to seeing more of Life we must first recognise this point of Being that is all around us.

From the book

…

The living of this is what moves us from a Human centric stance to our place ‘amongst’. It allows deep unity from soil to soul to solar. It reveals the self perpetuating system that is Life to be visible as the same continuous flow existing at once within all things. It is for us to witness and experience this interconnected space as all things to fully know the Living System.

…

From Soil to plants, we find the deep connection beneath us. From plants to people, we allow all that has grown to flow through us. To the solar skies above – which begins the cycle from solar to soil yet again. there is a weaving of energy that subtly exists between us all, it is alive, thriving, energetic, and exists visibly as the One Living System.

From soil to plants

The deep connection that exists throughout the universe is felt within all sentience for we are but one, each an expression of this. Within each expression we find the universe itself, or as Rumi would say ‘we are not a drop in the ocean we are the entire ocean within a drop.’ The sky looks down at us as its own reflection. Each planet, each plant, each person holds all of the universe within it and so to regenerate, to sustain, to nurture, nourish, we consider the whole. We begin with the soil to plant connections. That the sun and moon, the stars, every planet all sets itself upon this soil, it holds the very beginning for all life. All that lay within it is a necessary element in the equation of conception. Not only that it provides us with our capacity to live, within its systems we find our own heart beat. Deep engagement with nature and the elements provides us with knowledge in design. A simple example of companion planting can provide pest control, water management, and stronger yields.

This space also engages instinct and intuition, that to be connected and conversational with the plants as sacred expressions of life allows us to acknowledge them with love, honour with gratitude and protect with vigilance. The soil biochemistry and its vitality is written and spoken about by many scholars, their fields of expertise tell us daily that new discoveries highlight all that can be achieved through the soil. More than, MORE THAN, its carbon sequestering service, within lays its own desire to exist and to fulfil its purpose and role within the Living System. To begin, grow soil. Seeking nothing more from its being other than for it to grow and become. As with all living things, its being is valid and of worth to its own existence, and that then, is valid and of worth to all else that exists from it, including us.

Plants to people

Asking – as we do the Earth, which plant is needed for soil and plant nourishment to build its greatest terrain – we ask our inner system where do we need nourishment? Where can we increase our immunity and diversity, with what foods? So we build the best terrain for our inner system through the outer system. We are asked to deepen our knowing. Testing, listening, responding – like soil knowledge – becomes self knowledge. How we move to understand our cycles to strengthen and build resilience. We tune into energies and release elements to create our most nourished self. Mimicking – is in our becoming – our being. We learn and become from mimicking. We observe what way can we flow as one with nature? How can we mimic nature in our living? Using awareness and observation as components of being one with nature and her systems – as one system. In what way can we BE a part of this system of life? At all times in mutual benefit to the other, never how do you serve me, how do we serve each other?

As one living system we recognise not only our place within that system, we make place amongst that system and become one with it. This is the ability to regenerate and rewild back into life. Acknowledging symbiosis, that which is within plants, is within the body – above/below – within/without, as Hermes Trismegistus so rightfully told us centuries ago.

From plants to people and beyond

Since time immemorial, the cycles of the Moon have been used as a guide to life in many facets and forms. This is not based on superstition, rather tradition. Even science has a significant amount of research showing that the elemental forms of life (such as plants) are strongly, intimately (albeit invisibly) connected to the rhythms of the Moon. Likewise the moon cycles impact human life in many ways, from the ocean tides to the female cycle. This is old wisdom, deep wisdom, dating back to centuries old cultural and traditional knowledge. In reconnecting to this ancient wisdom we reconnect to the resonance of the unified energy that is held between all that lays beyond our Earth and all that lays within and upon it. Rudolf Steiner’s work with Biodynamics is arguably one of the more modern approaches (despite it coming to recognition in 1924) compared to that of the First Nations peoples of our lands who have held all systems as one and navigated the stars in a way that has held our systems in place since time began

Into the elements

In going beyond, we are called also to understand and reconnect with the elements of life, that which are ‘alchemically’ at the base of creation of all things. In allowing the elements to be experienced again, in their visible form, as well their invisible form within all things, we come to recognise an even deeper connection to all things as one. We feel and experience the elements as a part of this language of life for it resonates within our own being when we are exposed to their natural form. The raw truth found sitting around a fire, the ease when floating on the water’s surface, the grounding we long for from the earth when we are off balance, or the air’s capacity to allow knowledge to be drawn to us. We cannot and should not turn from our unique connections to the elements and in living into the system of life, ask ourselves to explore the potential of expansion offered through knowing ourselves in this capacity.

More than human form

There is of course another essential element to the Living System and that is the essential role of more than human form, which is of course referring to all other sentience as animal, plant, insect, creature.

Every aspect of life requires all forms of life for balance of any living system. Livestock for soil success, as much as being human companions for our mental health. Padfoots, clawfoot, hooves, trotters, to butterflies, bees, frogs, all kinds of above ground livestock, that all play a vital role in building and maintaining an efficient and thriving ecosystem both externally and internally. Likewise essential is the underground livestock, the earthworms, insects and bacteria that are required for a truly whole ecosystem. There is an abundant need for the ‘having’ of more than human life in every way. From ground stimulation and movement, to providing space and flow for water, to controlling the delicate balance of life elements, we need all life to complete any Living System. ‘Live’ stock comes in all forms and shapes and sizes, many without legs, all an essential element, without them we can say that not only is the system incomplete it is not fully regenerated. The role of every living sentience within the Living System can never be ignored or taken for granted.

Sacred system

The final, arguably the most important quality of the Living System, is that it is a Sacred System. It is the Sacred thread of Life that exists within all things as one energy. It expresses itself in all forms at once. At no time are we truly separated or individual, for we are at all times one within all things. We each are unique aspects of the whole and this uniqueness is the quality that life itself calls for to build its symphony. That we and all things exist is proof of our worth and value and we are tasked with stillness to allow our uniqueness to rise and be offered in service to the Living System, as well as silence, through which life’s language is revealed in nature. The sacrality of the Living System is not hard to find. No human could have dreamt of the wide array of colours in the master craftsman’s pallet, nor devised a way for space to give life for all things, let alone for the creation of love in which to continue its own existence. Life is Sacred. That we step in and revere that is all our tasks, that we hold ourselves to moments of breathless awe at the beauty and wonder that stirs us to love, that we take long walks into her arms to return to our very essence is at the core of our being. We are each a thread of sacred yarn destined to weave ourselves back into the web of life’s meaning. That we seek life itself to nourish and nurture its own creation is essential. We are but one of its many creations, therefore listening and observing are the ways to fully embodying her wisdom. As we apply this system we find what works with us and our environment as one. We add things, adjust things, create things, all in response to the Living System as a whole system. It is alive. It is all knowing.

Returning to the foundations of life as the Living System considers every aspect of our wellness and wellbeing amongst that of the whole, from our mental and physical state, our food/home/relationships, our sources, our environment, our connections and becoming as one. It considers each of us as an entire system as well as our place within that system. It is congruent with making Life whole, and what place we make within that. It is life’s living philosophy.

Naturalism, Spinoza, and the RNA

tfindlay — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 15:34:37 +0000

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was born in Amsterdam and lived in the Dutch Republic, where he worked as a lens grinder. In 1655-56, He was expelled from the Jewish religious community, but his love of philosophy brought him a small but dedicated circle of supporters.

In his book Ethics, (1665) Spinoza was one of the first thinkers to argue that the Universe comes not from an anthropomorphic super-person, nor from a supremely intelligent “Mind,” but from something that is abstract and impersonal.

Spinoza re-defined “God” as a singular self-subsistent “Natura” (Nature) or “Substantia” (Substance). Spinoza wrote that Natura is absolutely infinite, self-caused, and eternal; and it causes the infinite number of forms and attributes that we see around us. He regarded both physical matter and thought as derivative forms of Natura.

Spinoza wrote that “God is the sum of the natural and physical laws of the universe and certainly not an individual entity of creator.” I agree. But rather than describing God or Nature as a basic “substance,” I think it is the set of Interrelated Creative Processes that work onand with substances by channeling energy into and through creative steps. These Processes include Emergence, Evolution, Innovation, Complexity, and many more.

Naturalism is not so much a coherent philosophical system as a point of view common to a number of philosophical and religious systems. This point of view looks upon Nature as the one original and fundamental source of all that exists, and in attempts to explain everything in terms of Nature. Theists challenge the idea that Nature contains all of reality; however, some theists hold that natural laws may be viewed as secondary causes employed by God or by Gods. Pantheists believe that Nature is identical with divinity (but usually do not recognizing a personal, personified, anthropomorphic God). In the Far East, Naturalism was the foundation of two out of six orthodox schools and one heterodox school of Hinduism.

In philosophy, Naturalism is the idea that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. “Ontological Naturalism” connects to Ontology, the philosophical study of what exists. Philosophers often treat naturalism as equivalent to materialism. Western metaphysical naturalism originated in ancient Greek philosophy. The early pre-Socratic philosophers, because they investigated natural causes, often excluding any role for gods in the creation or operation of the world. This eventually led to fully developed systems such as Epicureanism, which sought to explain everything that exists as the result of atoms falling and swirling in a void.

(Note: main source is from, and links are to, Wikipedia.)
— J.X. Mason

Bathtub Whirlpools & Hydroelectric Dams

tfindlay — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:37:20 +0000

The Third Law of Thermodynamics says that energy seeks to move from areas of high heat to low heat until a calm equilibrium of everything is attained. Water at a high level will flow to a lower level whenever it can. The force of gravity causes the water to move downward. But often this movement builds a complex structure as it moves! For example, when we pull the plug on a bathtub full of water, it will form a spiraling whirlpool as the water leaves the tub. Why? because the spiral structure of the whirlpool moves more water faster. Similarly, on land, flowing water creates the structures of streams and rivers. If a wooden water wheel is built on one of these flows, it can power the grinding of grain between two millstones. With a very large drop of a great deal of water, the energy released by the force of gravity can turn gigantic steel turbine blades, and that energy can be converted to electricity for human homes and industries.

In his excellent book, The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity, the neuroscientist Dr. Bobby Azarian tells us that energy flows also create chains of molecules, chemical structures, which are then further propelled to become the earliest form of life. He persuasively argues that in the right environments, Energy Flows always drive systems into forms of greater complexity. This is what Dr. Azarian calls the “Fourth Law of Thermodynamics.” Azarian argues that this is happening in the millions of Earth-like planets and moons in our Milky Way galaxy. Of those, a good number will evolve consciousness and intelligence. While we humans may so mismanage our energy flows and resources that we kill off our biosphere here on Earth, hundreds of thousands of suitable planets and moons in the Milky Way alone will be more successful. As all these planets and moons communicate with each other, the Universe itself is on track to “wake up.”

— J.X. Mason.

Where Do We Belong?

tfindlay — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 14:12:35 +0000

Riffing off the post about Belonging, it’s funny it stays within me. The words we write become the conversations within, maybe even the dreams as we sleep.

But with belonging, it also becomes every awake moment. We are – when we seek to belong – dreaming with our eyes wide open. We are visioning, sensing, feeling, opening… when we are seeking to belong.

Curiously – belonging is one of those spaces within – that truly holds an ache. This shouldn’t surprise us as its reckoning – like love – belongs to the heart and all things heart related – hold an ache.

So, let’s take a wander down the other path. It is a displaced path, an ‘I don’t belong path’. Or – as with this very moment we are all in – a separated path.

We know when we don’t belong, the ache resides in our stomach. It is an uneasy squirmish feeling that is saying this isn’t right for me. It is no different from when we eat something (that is hard to digest, by taste or flavour or being fouled) that doesn’t sit right and our stomach has this lurching feeling of wanting to release everything that isn’t right. That’s the very same feeling when we don’t belong. The ache in the stomach as this isn’t sitting right – or we simply can’t digest our surroundings – and so we lurch forward to release ourselves of here to find there.

BUT – the key importance of why I write again is – where do we belong?

Finding where we belong is such a personal mission. There is much we can talk about how we find so many arriving here feeling this displacement. An answer as simple as – being a part of the current humancentric model we live in, racing our hamster wheels, success and achievement calling us from every angle of promotions or more money or the desire for a new toy of some description – all means we spend a lot of time doing, and buying, and little time truly making place.

This displacement for many can begin from leaving ‘home’ lured to travel far and wide to see the world and know how successful you are in doing so – means we leave many of the true strands of our BEing behind. There must be curiosity aroubnd – why was I born ‘there’, what did it mean. It is more than coincidence or simply that’s where my parents were, there’s reason, why there? That town that place those people, the stories, the energy the vibration of that place… means something. And it means something in the framing of belonging. And it’s a very worthy path to walk down and ask and observe deeply to sense into all the threads that reveal you – quirky pieces, different views, crazy resemblances – all matter.

And so here we are separated in so many ways. Separated from that which created us, separated from our source, from all that is sacred. Separated from the very ties that bind us hold us and support us. (Separation is the next piece of writing to share)

Yes – in a collective, oneness perspective we are separated from Life and Nature and All That Is, on an internal level separated from our home, our place, our heart connections. And this tender moment of aching means we need to find that space in order to beheld enough for all we are to BE.

WE CANNOT change our way forward without belonging. It sounds strange perhaps, but it is the tether that holds us so that we can learn, understand, accept, become all that we are to BE. Our rooting down, which happens as we settle into belonging, nourishes us as it does the trees, the plants, the soil. We become one with and therefore a part of … and so …. loved and nurtured from all that surrounds us.

SO where do you belong?

The big question – which I know I led with questions in our last post – things for you to ponder. But here are things for you to feel….

Where do your eyes soften when out walking… is it along a waters edge, in the canopy of a forest, under the stars?
Where does your heart hold ease? – notice who is around or where you are
Where are you when you can talk with a slow steady pace and a soft tone?
What space do you dream in, do you see and feel alive in?
What place holds memory that binds you, supports you.
What place holds connection to trees or rivers, to rocks and stones, to rubble. Where have you seen the rain fall and flow, where do you know the way the land shapes and forms?
Where do the people accept you and allow you to BE you? Where feels to be true family of essence, that perhaps is not same in blood.

These feelings are a good way to begin the call to belong. For they will be the truth that guides you. Belonging is never about fear or withholding, trauma or banishment, rather everything that is free and fluid and goodness within.

Taking time to know our belonging begins our capacity to align with Life and the journey of creating all that is yet to be written in building a new Earth.

And so – as with all things important – do the work. Step in and take the time to know where you belong. Is it where you are? Do you know it is where you stand this moment? Or is it a place you are yet to meet? Maybe it comes disguised as a place from your past, that you had left, thinking nothing more of it – and yet when you wander into your heart there it is.

In whatever way you step in to begin the journey to belong, do so with an aliveness that itches the sole of your feet and soul of your being. An itch that hides the strands within you longing to dive deep and root into the place you know you belong.

Cari Taylor

https://onelivingsystem.substack.com/p/a-tad-more-about-belonging

The above article is a followup to a previous article on “belonging”. You can read the previous article here: https://onelivingsystem.substack.com/p/we-move-into-belonging

Berry Picking and Grief: A Religious Naturalist’s Eulogy

tfindlay — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 22:29:11 +0000

Eulogy thanks to Berries

Laura Emerson

Alaskauu1.blogspot.com

Alaskauu1.substack.com

Book: Log Cabin Reflections, Kindle version

Yesterday, my dad died. I spent a few hours processing the news, but all I felt was an emotional maelstrom and a physical need to go outside and DO something.

So I harvested Saskatoon berries.

Berry picking has always been a calming and meditative activity for me. It engenders feelings of gratitude at the reliable plenty of a summer’s harvest.

Today though, my mind was whirling with images of my dad and my siblings as I plucked the fruit. In the process, the berries soothed my knot of grief.

I remembered when I planted these six, spindly little seedlings a decade ago. Every year, I worried when the springy boughs bowed below the snow, wondering how they would fare the following spring. Some branches broke. Of those, I taped and splinted a few. Some benefited. Others didn’t. I pruned low branches girdled beneath our deep snow by hungry voles. I mulched in the fall and fertilized in the spring.

Of the six trees, two are tall and prolific producers. Three are middling, and one is the runt of the group.

Since each tree has grown differently, I have lots of “woulda, coulda, shoulda thoughts” about my interventions. What if I had planted them elsewhere and farther apart? Some trees hog the sun, grow taller and stronger and their boughs whip the narrower branches of an adjacent tree, which becomes stunted. What if I had pruned them better, earlier? Now such intervention on some major limbs might kill the tree. What if I had watered them deeper? What if?

All of us who are children, as well as parents, co-parents, step-parents contemplate such what ifs. It is hard to step out of a family or community and view it from outside.

As I gather the berries this August, I reach for those of the darkest blue hue, heavy and round with juice. Since the berries do not all ripen at the same time, I leave those that are purple or red that need additional time to mature more slowly in the sun.

Some berries grow in ideal locations – plenty of sun, protected from the wind, with room to grow, well separated from other berries.

Others are physically deformed by birds that pecked part of them. A few look fine, but skinny larvae burrowed inside and rot the interior. In thick clusters, a single berry in the middle is always desiccated and surrounded by a gray fluff of mold, which taints the berries surrounding it. It did not have room to grow so it died and infected those surrounding it.

Each tree, each berry, each season, teaches me a different lesson.

Today, different from a decade of other harvesting days, my mind is viewing this line of trees as a community, each tree as a family, and the berries as individual members of that family tree.

My dad has died. The saskatoons console me because I observe among those trees and branches, life experiences that illuminate my own.

I can’t hug my dad. But I can stroke these branches and think about his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who will grow toward the sun, strong and resilient. He was a strong tree with, like all of us, some weak branches. He has many progeny, who will blow and bend with the winds of the future.

We have a bench along the lake shore with three stone cairns of memory. Tomorrow, we will build a fourth.