EVERYTHING IS NATURAL

To most people, of all my notions that confirm me as a genuine crackpot, probably none is more jolting than my insistence that everything in the Universe is "natural." That includes myself, what I'm thinking and feeling right now, the computer being typed on, and the red plastic cup beside the computer.

I came to this belief slowly, as with most others in my culture having had "Nature" defined for me by Walt Disney, Sunday drives in the countryside, our birdbox and, underpinning it all, my religious indoctrination assuring me that Nature was at the service of humanity, for humans enjoy special status in the Universe.

When I was a farmboy I saw clearly that individual pigs, cows, goats and even chickens had their own personalities, displayed emotions such as feelings for offspring and special friends, and to varying degrees could think, so at what point did the human species start being unnatural? The belief that a red plastic cup is unnatural because its naturally occurring compounds have been altered and manipulated by humans is religious dogma that shouldn't enter into one's search for higher levels of spirituality.

To believe that everything in the Universe is natural is useful, maybe critical. Once the insight is achieved, it's easier to grasp that everything everywhere, including humanity on Earth, is affected by everything else, is "entangled" with it, to use Quantum Mechanics terminology. And then it becomes easy, maybe obligatory, to get worried.

Worried that we are so unrelentingly destroying and poisoning the Earth's Life Support Systems we're entangled with -- forests, oceans, soils, aquifers, and such. Maybe worried enough to change our behaviors.