Paradoxes That Float Between Innocence, Evil, And Corruption

Humans and ecology are intrinsically linked. When nature speaks, humans react or listen. When human behaviors are destructive to nature, we ultimately hurt ourselves. This fundamental truth is not yet entirely lost in society, but it is something that we need to continually respect, seek to understand, and reinforce in all that we are and do. I recently enjoyed a picnic with my family. As I watched my two boys giddily chase each other around, my mind was brought back to my childhood and the sensation of sitting on a green bed of grass, feeling the sunshine warm my face and bones as a cool breeze flowed through the towering maple and elm trees above my head, bringing their leaves to life in a hypnotic dance of happiness. This summer day with my family was no different. Blue skies and big white puffy clouds were the backdrop of sailboats and powerboats skimming the surface of the beautiful lake as we gazed at the surrounding hills and absorbed the serenity. Days like this, like stolen time in a life that moves too fast, are cherished for the peace, joy, and wonder they deliver. As the laughter of my boys playing freely soothed my soul, I plucked a blade of grass near my bare feet, held it up to my eyes, and inspected it. It seemed like forever since I had sat still long enough to feel grounded and actually touching earth with my hands. When I sat on the lawn as a child, I would pick a blade of grass and run my fingers over it.

A Fool No More

As pulled through my fingertips, the grass might have felt sharp on its edges, thick and sticky, or think and pliable, all depending upon the random patch that the blade was taken from. A tactile muscle memory kicked in and I began to recall going through grade school, learning how plants create energy for growth through photosynthesis supported by the water cycle and from the magical geological, biological, and chemical interactions that need to happen in soils to support vegetative life. As a child I was enthralled with earth’s dynamic systems and how humans were impacting the world. In many ways the world made more sense to me as a ten year old than as an adult. Kennedy said, The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.5 One thing is for certain, the older and presumably more educated and wiser I become, the less I truly know. Intelligence and knowledge are two separate things, like computing capacity and storage. It doesn’t matter how much is stored in our brains. If we are not exploring and enriching our lives every day, asking new and brave questions of self and planetary discovery, seeking out truths and challenging our assumptions, well, then, we are not being human, we’re just idle robots. Life on Earth is teaming with intelligence. As humans, we like to believe that we are literally and figuratively at the top of the food chain. When it comes to our intelligence, however, humans still have a long way to go, as there is much we don’t know about ourselves, let along the earth’s living systems or the vast expanse of the Universe.

Don't You Want To Be There?

But just because we have those innate qualities that make us human, does not mean we excel at using them, particularly in developing and putting them to use in a productive and humane way. We have the intelligence and humanistic capacity and capability to create and love. Technology serves as a both barrier and an enabler for humans and nature to coexist. Technology and modern life can, if we choose to let it, distance us from nature. If we shroud our every waking moment and daily life in technology, we can become less in touch with the living systems that enable us to live on Earth. Technology can also, however, be an incredible conduit for ecologic awareness, discovery, and awakening. For example, advanced environmental sensors are being used to monitor subterranean geologic activity as a means to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Scientists are also using advanced sensors to detect and monitor the migration of chemical contamination in groundwater, hundreds of feet below the earth’s surface. Smartphone technologies have been deployed in places like Liberia to enable local communities to monitor and report illegal deforestation activities. Humans now have the opportunity to explore and engage with the earth’s ecology, climate, water, and geologic systems from land, sea, air and space. This kind of analysis is critical for governments to conduct planning for future scenarios, establish risk management strategies, and fashion appropriate resources to prepare people and our infrastructure for changes in weather patterns that will effect our environment. Blake’s use of the word augury is defined as a sign or omen, and the poem reads as a series of paradoxes that float between innocence, evil, and corruption.

Broken Down

As a young sophomore in college, I had taken European and American literature classes exposing me to the works of Blake, Wordsworth, Yeats, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Joyce, Melville, Whitman, and many others. Each were brilliant with their own characteristic way of envisioning life through words and imagery. Blake’s first line of Auguries of Innocence is well known, and I often think of it. But we are also as simple, defined, and connected as a grain of sand. Beauty and wonder can be discovered in the tiniest particles of matter and of living things. Our world in essence, is what we choose to discover, see, and make of it. Just as humans feel things physically, spiritually, and emotionally, so too does the natural world. Ecology coexists with humans. In a perfect system, we nourish and care for each other. We breathe the clean oxygen produced by plants and plants absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale. The relationship between humans and ecology is not so balanced, however. Right now we take and consume more from nature than we conserve and restore. I’m reminded of the philosophical question, If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Renowned philosophers and physicists including Elbert Einstein and Niels Bohr have asked similar renditions of this question.