Sublime

It is a law of physics that all matter is conserved—our bodies return, return, return. This is the message of ecologists, and of mystics—that each life is radically connected to all of life, always, with nothing so small that it can be lost.

In the same vein, we’re reminded of author Richard Louv’s description of “nature deficit disorder.” Louv recognizes our alienation from nature, but his choice of language is weak and conventional. His “nature deficit” and “Vitamin N” suggests that nature is something akin to a dietary supplement, something that we can purchase in a health food

Focusing mainly on philosophical rather than safety concerns, the authors discussed what it meant to be human, to pursue happiness, to respect nature’s gifts, and to accept the given. It argued the case, or more accurately it preached the case, that going too far to alter what is “natural” was hubristic and endangered our individual essence.

View in the Farnese Gardens

This suggests a general operating principle similar to the Leopoldian land ethic, often summarized as “what’s good is what’s good for the land.” In our current situation, the phrase can be usefully reworded as “what’s good is what’s good for the biosphere.” In light of that principle, many efficiencies are quickly seen to be profoundly destructive,

Alienated from nature, human existence becomes a void, the wellspring of life and spiritual growth gone utterly dry. Man grows ever more ill and weary in the midst of his curious civilization that is but a struggle over a tiny bit of time and space. —Masanobu Fukuoka, THE NATURAL WAY OF FARMING

a chastened version of civilization — one that’s learned to live within sustainable limits — stumbles through. That’s our best case scenario, if we’re being realistic.