Conquering Nature: Good, Bad or Both?
A little while ago when I was with one of my sisters, I mentioned to her something I say a lot: that we as a society are trying to conquer nature. She responded, “Well, sure, we live in cities.”
That struck me, because it made me realize how unclear I’ve been when I go around saying this. People don’t know what I mean.
The first thing I want to say about this is that us as humans trying to conquer nature is not necessarily good or bad on its face. When I say this, what I mean is that as humans, we break the rules inherent in the natural world (circadian rhythms, defying gravity, creating substances that last forever, cloning, synthetic food (aka processed food), medical devices that can circulate your blood, concrete over dirt, stuff that kills other sentient beings that we don’t desire around) and expect there to be no consequences.
There is a spell we’re under, as well, when we’re sold or think something is natural. I’m not saying we all need to go back to living in caves and roaming the land without agriculture. Far from it. I’m saying we need to open our eyes to how we as humans think we have the power of a god to conquer the natural world without consequences. There are always consequences, even if they aren’t imagined at the time of creating the thing.
A gorgeous summer sunset at Anna Maria Island, FL. Photo by Ron Michael photography.
The natural world always contains three energies: building, maintaining, and destruction. A seed grows to a tree (building), to a full grown tree which lives a certain number of years (maintenance), which then eventually dies, and is decomposed back into the earth for the cycle to begin again (destruction).
The natural world of earth also has circadian rhythms, lunar rhythms, and seasonal rhythms, and our bodies are subject to these, as much as we may not be in touch with them other than on a very gross level.
Remember too that these rhythms comes from outside of the earth: the circadian rhythm results from the earth’s daily rotations; seasons come from earth tilting towards and away from the sun and from the earth’s movement around the sun; lunar cycles are a result of shifts in positioning of the earth, moon and sun altering what we see reflected back off the moon’s surface. These shifts affect our bodies, again whether we are consciously aware of them or not.
Here is a list of 10 random things (in a sea of thousands) that are attempting to conquer nature (think about it, not good or bad per se):
Plastic
Overnight shifts
Synthetic pharmaceutical drugs
Air conditioning
Pesticides
Deodorant
Birth control
Concrete
Electricity
Protein bars with all your daily vitamins and minerals
I also want to remind you that whether we acknowledge it or realize it, mother earth provides EVERYTHING to us. Without her, we have nothing. She gives us raw materials to make our houses, to make our invented synthetic materials that she can’t always break down, food (either whole or the fake stuff we make), power and water for computers, TV and AI, to make our clothes, to craft jewelry, I mean, there isn’t a single thing I can think of that doesn’t originate with her. And we forget this pretty much everyday.
Pic from photo shoot with the amazing Christina Patsiokas at Green Lion Images!
We’re under a deep spell of disconnection from nature. You can learn a lot by simply sitting outside and observing, or taking walks on the same path as the seasons change and paying close attention. The deeper we understand the natural world, the deeper we get to know ourselves.
This is part of what Ayurveda teaches– it aims to bring us back home to our own personal rhythms, which are a mirror to the earth and cosmos.
To bring it all the way back to symptoms in perimenopause, getting deeply in touch with your own rhythms is where we start in terms of addressing the root cause of symptoms.