Kaitiakitanga – A Beautiful Word

Kaitiakitanga has recently been named the most beautiful word in the world according to Babbel, the subscription-based language learning app. Babbel, a German company founded in 2007, has sold more than 25 million subscriptions since its inception.

The company analysed online discussions and came up with 223 words from 75 languages. Babbel then asked an international panel of linguists, authors, and cultural experts to rank these words. The panel used four criteria for ranking the words: sound, meaning, rarity, and cultural significance.

The word kaitiakitanga topped the list.

Kaitiakitanga is a Māori word in the language of the indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Its meaning can be summarised as guardianship and protection. It is particularly associated with guardianship and protection of the environment and natural places, although it also has a wider compass. The word is closely associated with the Māori worldview of people and nature being one and the same. People are not simply part of nature, people are nature. Māori recognise various natural features (e.g. rivers, lakes, mountains) as being the embodiment of ancestors. Such features are living entities, they are not resources, assets, or possessions. Kaitiakitanga then, indicates a responsibility to protect, nourish, and heal natural places.

The Babbel language expert, Estaban Touma Portilla, noted that the word resonated with those experiencing the effects of climate change and that the repeated sounds within the word brought to mind ‘our planet, its natural cycles, and our place within them.’

Although the idea of a competition between words is a bizarre one, the word kaitiakitanga, and many of the other top-ranking words offer a space for reflection on what is important in the world.

The top 15 words all evoke feelings and meanings that resonate with deep human yearnings. None of them speak in mechanistic, economic, or managerial terms indicating control, manipulation, exploitation, or extraction.

As examples, here are four of the other words that made the top 15.

• Iriy (Ukrainian) meaning a mythical, warm place where souls and birds migrate for winter.
• Ubuntu (Zulu) meaning ‘I am because you are.’ It indicates the relationship we all have with each other, and that I am only who I am because of everyone and everything else.
• Hiraeth (Welsh) meaning a deep, bittersweet, longing for a lost, or never-truly-known home or time.
• Yakamoz (Turkish) referring to the silvery shimmer of moonlight on water.

All of these are words arouse, and remind us of, our true nature and yearnings. They all echo the underlying concept of kaitiakitanga – viz., that humans are part and parcel of nature, we are not separate from nature.

We all have a responsibility and the honour to be guardians of this planet. These words, and many others, remind us of this.

Solstice Reflections (A poem)

Here in the Southern Hemisphere the winter solstice is only three days away. For those of you reading this in the Northern Hemisphere it will be your summer solstice. This poem is written from the perspective of one living in the Southern Hemisphere.

Solstice Reflections

The day is short, the night is long

We mark it simply as another day, on

Calendars and watches, tick off time

Second by second, day by day

Never noticing the turning of our sphere

For we have turned the longest night, away

From darkness, dreams and from our fears

Made it resplendent with lamp and street light, this

Cycle we once knew

Day and night, night and day

Birth and death, death and birth

Where is our soul, where is our place?

We’ve torn ourselves from the earth

And now, another long night is here

We give it a number, give it a date

It is simply not as it was last year

Maybe I should go and mark the spot

Upon the horizon where sun does rise

Note the shifting of each rising sun, maybe

Then I would see, I would comprehend

My place, my time, is not marked by a line, but

By a circle, with no beginning, and no end.

Arrogant Ape – Book Review

Arrogant! Who? Us (humans)? Never! 

Christine Webb, in The Arrogant Ape,¹ claims that we (Homo sapiens) are indeed arrogant, and this is based on our (often unstated and hidden) belief in human exceptionalism. On page 3 of her book, Webb clearly expresses the tenet of her book. It is ‘that human exceptionalism – a.k.a. anthropocentricism or human supremacy – is at the root of the ecological crisis.’

That is a provocative assertion, yet Webb tackles it with rigour, extensive research, and often with wit and humour.

On the very first page of the book, Webb notes that ‘we’re not the biggest, fastest, or strongest’ beings on the planet. She has countless stories and evidence to back this up. We are not exceptional! We are arrogant to think that we are. In thinking that we are exceptional we have exploited, damaged, and plundered the earth and all her creatures so much that now we, ourselves, are also being harmed. Polluted water, noxious air, climate change, poisoned food sources, and more are all impacting our well-being.

This is no surprise says Webb. It is the natural (sic) outcome of our belief in our supremacy.

Before continuing it is worth pointing out that Webb recognises and acknowledges that not all peoples and cultures of the world share the belief in human exceptionalism. Sadly, however, the culture from within which human exceptionalism arose, has come to dominate the entire world. Additionally, Webb recognises that within this (westernised) culture the drivers of this belief have ‘…long been the dogma of a dominant minority.’

If those of us outside of this dominant minority have been afflicted by the belief in human exceptionalism and internalised it as our own, then The Arrogant Ape is surely one of the best books available to disavow us of this mistaken view. Drawing from her own research and that of many others in her field of primatology, Webb introduces us to many long-held beliefs that once were thought to pertain to humans only, including inter alia, the manufacture and use of tools, language, empathy, and possibly most controversial of all, that of consciousness.

Webb traverses the subject of consciousness from many angles and admits that there remains a lot of dispute and conjecture. Could it be that the belief in human exceptionalism is the reason for doubting, or even refuting, the possibility of consciousness in other-than-human animals? Webb adroitly concludes by asking, ‘Why should we doubt, downplay, or deny something in other species that we barely understand in ourselves?’

One aspect of Webb’s writing that I appreciated was being introduced to a number of concepts I had not previously come across. Many of these concepts are compressed into just one or two words. I will mention just four of them here:

The first word is quite a mouthful – anthropofabulation. Webb does not say where this word originated, but personal research suggests that you won’t find it listed in any dictionary published prior to 2013. Anthropofabulation Webb defines as the ‘tendency to define certain psychological processes by an exaggerated account of typical human performance in order to deny them to other species.’ We humans, via this approach, define standard psychology from a human standpoint, and then measure and judge all other species according to that standard. The flaw in this reasoning should be apparent, yet it is only recently recognised. Thank you, Christine Webb, for pointing out what is right in front of our noses.

The second word from The Arrogant Ape that I have chosen to highlight is a corollary to the belief in human exceptionalism. Human exemptionalism asserts that humans are exempt from the constraints, limits, and boundaries of nature. Our belief in human exceptionalism drives this belief, and results in crazy techno-fixes and other overly optimistic and cornucopian ideas, such as colonising Mars, or placing giant mirrors in space to reflect sunlight away from the earth (known as Solar Radiation Modification – SRM).

Christine Webb, as we might guess, is not a fan of SRM and warns us that ‘…solar geoengineering exacerbates human dominance over Nature precisely when we urgently need to curtail it.’ It is a warning that needs heeding.

The next word is Umwelt. This word and concept, Webb tells us, was coined in the early 1900s by the German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. Umwelt is the world as experienced by a particular organism. For each organism the umwelt is different. I was reminded of the concept of multiverses. Organisms experience the world (whether through sight, hearing, smell, touch, echo-radar, or other non-human sense) in such hugely different ways that we could say that the single world we think it is, is in fact, a plurality of worlds that different creatures experience. Thus ultimately no single world exists, but rather multi-worlds all here on Earth.

The final word I have chosen to highlight is Involution, a term proposed by two anthropologists, Carla Hustak and Natasha Myers. Involution is the flipside of evolution (which literally means to roll outwards), whereas involution means to roll, or curl, inwards. The term recognises how all species intertwine and that symbiosis and co-emergence are important aspects of evolution and the inter-dependence of all phenomena.

Four words, with four profound concepts embedded within them. Two of them indicate how human exceptionalism in the arrogant ape limits our understanding of the complexity and wholeness of the world as well as compelling us towards foolish endeavours. The other two offer us means by which we might better understand the world we are a part of and our unique, but not exceptional, role in it.

The Arrogant Ape is a valuable contribution to not only the environmental movement, but also to understanding our collective psychology. The two are linked, and Webb makes this clear close to the end of her book. She quotes Einstein’s reply² when asked what he would do if he had one hour to save the world, and then follows that reply with this crucial observation:

‘…grappling with the ecological crisis means dismantling not only systems of exploitation and destruction but also the very worldview that makes them possible.’

The Arrogant Ape helps us to recognise the worldview and thus how we can begin dismantling it.

Notes:

1. Christine Webb, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters, Avery, New York, 2025

2. Albert Einstein replied to this question that he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and then five minutes solving it. 

Reflecting On Refraction

A couple of days ago I was sitting at my favourite café early in the morning with a freshly brewed hot coffee in front of me. A light shower of rain began to fall. Within a minute or so a rainbow formed its arch across the sky. When I looked downwards at the creek that flows beside the café, I could see the rainbow reflected in the waters. (see photo)

The rainbow and its reflection in the water was a beautiful sight.

I was moved to reflect.

I recalled from my school days learning about the physics of how a rainbow is formed. Light is refracted, reflected, and dispersed into its constituent colours by the drops of rain. Most people know the colours of the rainbow from the initials: ROYGBIV. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. These are the classic seven colours of the rainbow. Most of us know that the section of the electro-magnetic spectrum that we see as light is made up of many more colours than these seven. It is though, these seven that we classically associate with a rainbow.

I reflected further.

The rainbow is a pleasing metaphor for life and its myriad forms. Individual lives do not exist in isolation. No matter what animal or plant you can think of in nature, it does not exist without interacting with other animals and plants around it. Together, all the various plants and animals combine in almost unimaginable complexity to co-create whole eco-systems.

Each eco-system supports and sustains all the plants and animals within it. Each plant and animal supports and sustains the eco-system.

We humans are part of these complex eco-systems. We are not isolated beings. Without the eco-systems we are part of we could not exist. We are like one of the colours of the rainbow.

Try to imagine a rainbow without one of its colours. Suppose the colour blue was missing. It would no longer be a rainbow, would it?

Sadly, much of humanity is acting (metaphorically) as if one or more of the colours of the rainbow do not matter. Species (and even genera) of plants and animals are being made extinct as an insane rate.

My reflection continued on.

If light is passed through a prism the entire visible spectrum of colours appears on the other side of the prism. The unity of light (what we call white light) is refracted and dispersed by the prism, and we see the diversity of colour contained in that unity. Unity creates diversity.

Now place another prism after the first prism. But invert it. Now pass the white light through the first prism and then the colour spectrum through the second. What happens?

The colour spectrum is returned to white light. Diversity creates unity.

It is a metaphor worth reflecting upon often, because it can be very easy to forget that everything in the world is co-created by everything else. Nothing arises or exists completely on its own. Nothing is independent of other things, although it may be unique (i.e. it may be the unique colour red in our metaphor).

Next time you see a rainbow think and reflect upon the diversity of life and how that creates the wondrous unity that life is.

Five Environmental Songs (late 60s/early 70s)

There have been a number of songs with an environmental theme, but these five from the late 1960s-early 1970s are amongst the best. Coincidentally, the period in which these five songs were written was concurrent with the global transition from humanity requiring one planet to live on to requiring more than one. Overshooting the planet’s ability to restore what we extracted and to recover from the pollution we created globally occurred around the time these five songs were recorded.

The first three of the songs lament what was being lost, and the other two rejoiced in the pleasures that nature still had to offer us.

After The Gold Rush – Neil Young (1970)

Neil Young’s song encompassed a number of themes, although Young himself called it essentially an environmental song. The lyric ‘Look at Mother Nature on the run, in the 1970s’ was a particularly poignant observation on how nature was being exploited, ravaged, and abused by humans. After the turn of the century, whenever Neil Young played this song in concert he amended the lyric to, ‘Look at Mother Nature on the run, in the 21^st century.’

Nothing had changed in the 30 years following the original recording. Mother Nature is still on the run in late 2025.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Zf4D1tHdw

Where Do The Children Play? – Cat Stevens (1970)

When Cat Stevens was growing up he and his family were living in the midst of some of the bombed out areas of London following WW2. He recalled how the playground at his school was in the basement of the school building, because there were no playgrounds.

By the time he wrote and recorded his fourth studio album, Tea for the Tillerman, Stevens noted that there were still few areas for the children to play, and that nature was being encroached on so much that the question, Where do the children play? was begging to be asked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCJhNiKhFE

Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell (1971)

In the late 1960s Joni Mitchell visited Hawai’i for the first time and arrived in the evening, and booked into her hotel. When she awoke in the morning and pulled back the curtains she could see beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then she looked down. She was looking at a huge parking lot, and the adjacent hotel was building another parking lot just as big. ‘It broke my heart…this blight on Paradise’ she later stated. The jolting experience was to be the inspiration for one of her best known songs. ‘They paved Paradise, and put up a parking lot,’ she sang.

A further lyric from the song, ‘They took all the trees, put ‘em in a tree museum’ is likely to have been stirred by a trip to the Foster Botanical Gardens in Hawai’i where she had to pay an entrance fee to see the trees.

Nature is still be paved over and commodified.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2595abcvh2M

Mother Nature’s Son – The Beatles (1968)

This song features on the Beatles untitled double album – often referred to as the White Album (the cover was entirely white). Credited as being written by Lennon-McCartney, John Lennon said it was inspired by a lecture the Beatles listened to by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi whilst they were in India. McCartney says he was motivated by a Nat King Cole song called Nature Boy.

The simple lyrics evoke a pleasant day sitting by a stream in the mountains. ‘Sit beside a mountain stream, See her waters rise, Listen to the pretty sound of music, As she flies’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMMiXjwhODU

Nature – The Fourmyula (1969)

The Fourmyula were a band from New Zealand with several hits during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The biggest of their hits was undoubtedly Nature. In 2001 the song was voted as the best New Zealand song of the 20^th century by the Australasian Performing Rights Association.

The band’s guitarist/keyboards player, Wayne Mason, wrote the song, ‘in an hour on the front porch of my mum’s house, looking out on a beautiful day with trees and stuff. Bees were buzzing and my heart was fluttering.’ He was just 19 years old at the time.

The lyrics, including, ‘Up in a tree a bird sings so sweetly, Nature's own voice, I hear
Rustling whistling trees turning breeze to speech, Talk to me now, ease my mind’ evoke the ability of nature to soothe us and ease our stress levels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2EiHOB0Mw

Time Is Running Out, We’d Better Slow Down

There are lots of articles, books, presentations, podcasts, and videos that point to a rapidly shortening of time before a cataclysmic future overwhelms us. We hear that by 2050, and perhaps by 2030, we need to have reduced our dependence upon fossil fuels significantly. We read that, if we don’t do something urgently, then one-third of species on the Earth will be extinct by 2100. We look at the increasing polarisation around the world and fear for the possibility of another world war, and note with terror the likelihood that such a war could include nuclear weapons.

Or, perhaps we think of ourselves. Each birthday reminds us that we are one year older, one year closer to the end of our time on Earth. Yet, there are many things we still want to do, much we wish to accomplish and achieve.

Time is running out.

We must act with urgency.

We gotta do something, and fast.

We must complete our bucket list.

We have to save the planet.

We have to reduce carbon emissions. We have to transition to green technology soon.

Each of these sentiments are understandable. Yet, more than likely, they are unhealthy and unwise. Speeding up might get us there faster, but when we get there we will find that it is not where we wanted to be or what we expected.

Just look at the current situation we are in with carbon emissions. It can be argued that we have got to this position because we wanted to hurry up. We built, purchased, and drove private motorcars because we wanted to get from one place to another quicker. We tapped into the stored sunlight of fossil fuels so that we could more rapidly heat our homes and cook our meals. Those same fossil fuel power stations enabled the elites of the world to more quickly build their fortunes.

The mobile phone, too, is a go faster piece of technology. We can more quickly contact anyone, anywhere on the planet. We can send text, photographs, and documents at the speed of light. That’s fast! Yet, those same phones have presented us with numerous problems; e-waste, cyber-bullying, cognitive decline, and the modern disease of nomophobia – the fear of not having access to a mobile phone.

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh names all this as Habit Energy which he describes as,

"We are always running and rushing. It has become a habit, the norm of everyday living. We run all the time, during our sleep, the time we are supposed to be resting and regenerating our bodies. We can be worst enemies, in conflict with ourselves, and therefore, you can easily start conflict with others..."

It is exhausting us. It is exhausting the planet as well.

‘But surely we have to do something quickly in the face of imminent and mounting crises. We are in the midst of a predicament of massive proportions. We can’t sit back. We have to get on with it. We have to save the planet, and ourselves.’

I hear such sentiments every week.

And, we are responding to this predicament in exactly the way described. We are quickly digging up not only fossil fuels, but also minerals to power the green energy transition. The speed with which we are doing this has not reduced electricity consumption at all – it has simply added to it. We are using twice as much electricity today as we were at the turn of the century. Wind and solar electricity production is 1/3^rd of that increase. Wind and solar have added to the consumption, they have not displaced it. They are not proving to be alternatives at all.

What if we slowed down?

What if, as a friendly psychologist told me about four decades ago, we stopped awhile and smelt the roses?

At an individual level slowing down has been shown, in numerous studies, to lower our levels of anxiety and stress, improve our cognitive responses, enhance our connection and relationships with other people, and elevate our body’s ability to heal and recuperate. In short, slowing down is good for our well-being.

For the planet too, our slowing down would have tremendous benefit. We have vastly overshot the carrying capacity of Earth. Overshoot occurs when the Earth can no longer recover from the effects of human waste and pollution quicker than the waste and pollution is created. Overshoot is also when the Earth can no longer replenish the stores of forest, minerals, water, and other components of an eco-system faster than humans are extracting and exploiting those components.

We have been in this state of overshoot for many decades, and the rate of overshoot is increasing. Globally, we now require 1.6 Earths to satisfy our rate of extraction and levels of pollution. This figure (1.6 planets) is unevenly distributed around the world. If everyone lived as those in rich nations lived, we would need between three and six Earths to satisfy our consumption levels.

Slowing down would assist the Earth in restoring its balance immensely.

The Earth is always seeking to restore balance and homeostasis. But it needs time to do that. We could greatly assist that process by simply slowing down.

8,699,999 + 1

Ernst Haeckel's
"Tree of Life."
(note the position of MAN)

It is estimated that there are 8,699,999 animal species on Earth. Plus one; the species we call Homo sapiens.

That makes a total of 8.7 million species. Of these 8.7 million, it is thought that as many as 86% have not yet been discovered, let alone described. Yet, that number is only the animal species, a small fraction of all species.

If plant and microbial species are added into the count then the total number of species upon the Earth could be one trillion, or more.

Yet, that one species – Homo sapiens – has come to domesticate, dominate, or destroy many of the other species that share this planet with us.

Of all the mammals upon the Earth, we humans account for 34% of the total biomass. Mammals domesticated by us make up 62% of the total biomass. That means that just 4% of the Earth’s total mammalian biomass is made up of wild mammals.¹

Just 4%! The biomass of wild land mammals has declined by an estimated 85% since humans emerged onto the planet. 85%! The numbers are staggering.

Humanity has also domesticated chickens, which are not mammals. What about them? Well, that is a sordid tale as well. Domesticated chickens make up 71% of the total bird mass on the planet.

What of the number of species we have destroyed?

It is estimated that the average length of time for a species to exist on the Earth, before becoming extinct, is between one and ten million years, with most going extinct at the lower end of this range. The extinction rate, since the arrival of humans, is assessed as being between 100 and 1,000 times the natural background extinction rate. Another staggering number.

All the numbers and figures cited above are because of that one extra species added to the 8,699,999 total for all animal species. Just one! Yet another staggering number.

How did, and why should, one species, amongst 8.7 million animal species, come to domesticate, dominate, and destroy so many creatures?

Within western cultures the origin can perhaps be traced back to its genesis. Yes – Genesis. The first book of the Bible. Whether a person today, living a westernized lifestyle, is a religious follower of the Bible is immaterial. Western culture has its roots firmly embedded within Judeo-Christian belief systems.

Genesis 1, verses 26-28 twice repeats the phrase that humans are to ‘have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air…and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’² This word dominion has for some two and a half thousand years often been interpreted as meaning mankind has the right to subdue, control, and exploit the creatures of the earth.

Over the past couple of centuries this interpretation has come under scrutiny, with many Biblical scholars and linguists advising that the original Hebrew words limited the interpretation to meaning a stewardship or governance.

Notwithstanding the debates within Biblical scholarship, the right of dominance is the one that has firmly entrenched itself within western worldviews. By extension, this right of dominance and control led those worldviews to a belief in human exceptionalism – the belief that humans are different from, and superior to, other forms of life.

This Biblically mandated role for humankind remained a foundation of the human journey for many centuries. It was not until the middle of the 19^th century that the Biblical position on the place of humans was challenged. Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species, published in 1859, introduced humans to the Theory of Evolution. But even this theory did not dislodge the belief in human exceptionalism. If anything, it gave it pseudo-scientific credibility.

The German naturalist, Ernst Haeckel, was fascinated by Darwin’s ideas and actively promoted them. In doing so, Haeckel depicted evolution as a tree with man (sic) placed at the apex of the tree, insinuating that humanity was the inevitable and only possible outcome for evolution (see graphic). This depiction still has favour today. Human exceptionalism remains embedded within our westernized worldview.

With two such powerful influences upon westernised worldviews – the Biblical one and the evolutionary tree one – it is little wonder that the 8.7 million species upon the Earth have become domesticated, dominated, and destroyed by just one species – us.

A final comment should be made about this one species. Yes, we are one species amongst 8.7 million, but we don’t all share the same worldviews. The worldviews summarised above have been developed over millennia within western cultures. They are not shared by many indigenous and nature-based cultures. However, the process of colonisation, beginning in the late 15^th century, has all but eradicated any other worldview.

Human exceptionalism remains a dominant view throughout the world.

8,699,999 creatures continue to suffer because of this view.

Notes:

1. All data from https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass  accessed 18 November 2025

2. Text from Holy Bible, New King James Version, Genesis 1: 26-28

Choosing To Make A Difference (Vale: Jane Goodall)

Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, with orphan chimpanzee
at Tchimpounga Sanctuary.

Jane Goodall made a difference in the world. She also encouraged others to make a difference. Just six months before her death (on 1 October 2025), Jane Goodall was interviewed by Brad Falchuk for a Netflix series entitled ‘Famous Last Words.’ The premise of the series is to interview notable people and then publish the interview posthumously.

Jane Goodall is the interviewee in episode 1 of this series. In the interview Jane is asked about the message she would like to leave for those listening following her death. She responds clearly; ‘Every single day you live, you make a difference in the world, and you get to choose the difference that you make.’ A little later in the interview she reiterates this and adds, ‘You have the power within you to make a difference. Don’t give up.’

These words echo those she wrote in her acclaimed 2021 book The Book of Hope.

Jane Goodall did not just say these words – she lived them. She made a difference in the world with her life. Had it not been for Jane Goodall we possibly would not understand the world of chimpanzees and gorillas anywhere near as we do today. As a consequence of this understand it can be argued that we therefor understand more of ourselves, as Homo sapiens. Chimpanzees are, after all, our closest evolutionary cousins. We share about 98.8% of our DNA with chimpanzees, and bonobos.

Returning to Goodall’s encouragement to make a choice about the difference we make in the world. How do we make that choice, and what sort of choice should it be?

Earlier this year the world also lamented the passing of another notable woman with a similar message to those of Jane Goodall. Joanna Macy, like Jane Goodall, made a difference in the world. Her words address the question of what difference to make and how to choose.

‘You don’t need to do everything. Do what calls your heart. Effective action comes from love. It is unstoppable… We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.’

These two women, Jane and Joanna, are two of European culture’s true Elders. Both lived to reach their 90s, and both advised us to make a difference in the world. Furthermore, they both recommended what difference we make and how to make the choice.

For each of them, this advice can be encapsulated in just two words:

Love and Hope.

Find what is in your heart, they both advised, and then do not give up.

Let us not forget their words and their actions.

Bow To A Rock

Kummakivi balancing rock
in Finland

The Thai monastery, Wat Suan Mok, was under the guidance of the abbot Ajahn Buddhadassa. He was approached by a rich man from Bangkok who offered to build a grand temple full of Buddha statues at the monastery. Ajahn Buddhadassa would not allow Buddha statues at the monastery and suggested to the rich man that the real Buddha was in the natural environment. He told the man that if he wanted to bow to something, he should bow to a rock.¹

This story is a reminder that Earth is not just where we live, but that we are nature and nature is us. We are not separate from nature; we are an intimate part of nature. Unfortunately, we have come to perceive ourselves as separate. This perception leads to human exceptionalism and the demeaning of all things.

This story, though, reminds us that all things are worthy of respect.

Many indigenous cultures acknowledge the sacred in animals when they are killed for food, clothing, shelter etc. This homage may be by way of a prayer, an offering, or a bow. Trees too, are acknowledged when they are felled for making canoes or homes.

The sacredness of all life, including what we perceive as inanimate, is respected and honoured. This honouring is a recognition of the cycles of life and death.

How could it be otherwise?

The elements that make up our bodies are found also in the rocks, plants, and animals all around us. It is even conceivable that the atoms in our bodies right now are the same atoms that existed in a rock many millions of years ago. That rock was crushed, moulded, and broken apart by huge geological events. Eventually the soil was enriched by those elements, in turn providing nutrients for plants to grow. The plants then in turn were eaten by animals, and we humans ate the animals and/or the plants.

So, when you next eat a meal consider that the atoms contained in your food were most likely part of a rock somewhere on Earth millions or billions of years ago.

Isn’t that worthy of contemplation?

For those of us from a European/westernised heritage much of this recognition is lost within our culture. But, not irretrievable.

Many musical groups are now exploring the antecedents of westernised culture, and remembering that nature is us, we are nature. One such group is Heilung, made up of musicians mostly from northern Europe and Scandinavia. At the beginning of all their performances (it might be more accurate to call them rituals) a prayer is recited, which includes the following lines,

‘Remember that we are all brothers (sic),

All people, beasts, trees, and stone and wind

We all descend from the one great being’

Ajahn Buddhadassa was correct. The rocks are worthy of respect and bowing to.

Notes,

1. Cited in Rodney Smith, Stepping Out of Self-deception, Shambhala, Boston & London, 2010

Shattering The Clock

In 1609 Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer, mathematician, and natural philosopher published Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy) in which he outlined the first two laws of planetary motion. It was a significant advance on how we understood the movement of the planets.

Four years earlier, in a letter to a friend, Kepler wrote, ‘My aim is to show that the celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism, but to a clockwork.’ The metaphor of the cosmos as a clock was promoted at the time by many of his contemporaries.

In his Astronomia Nova he, no doubt, considered that he had achieved that aim.

Sadly he, and many other pioneers of the Scientific Revolution, by introducing this mechanistic metaphor into the world helped to entrench our perceived disconnect from nature. Nature was no longer an organism, but was now a mechanical, automated, and lifeless machine.

And, being mechanical and lifeless, nature could be exploited and open to another of the disturbing metaphors to come out of the Scientific Revolution – misogyny and rape. Francis Bacon, for instance, avowed that the scientific method allowed him to uncover ‘the secrets still locked in (nature’s) bosom… (so that) she can be forced out of her natural state and squeezed and moulded.’ Descartes too, was emboldened by this metaphor, asserting that science could ‘render ourselves the masters and possessors of nature.’

With such metaphors and the attendant worldviews, it is little wonder that today we are exploiting nature and extracting every little resource we can.

But, is the clock beginning to shatter?

The sciences of the 20^th and 21^st centuries are overturning the outlook of the Scientific Revolution of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Perhaps we could say that these sciences represent a Second Scientific Revolution. The sciences of ecology, quantum physics, biology, systems theory, and theories of Emergence, Chaos, and Complexity are all reasserting the cosmos as an organic wholeness.

Throughout the world there are groups of people, small communities, and especially indigenous societies challenging the mechanistic view of the world. Workshops, seminars, retreats, and vision quests are all being utilised to return to an organic outlook.

Although small, these enterprises and experiences are important. Our belief systems and worldviews are built upon the stories we tell ourselves and the metaphors we use. When we contest these, we open up to new, refreshing, possibilities, including the potential to return to an acknowledgement that we live in, and are part of, a divine organism.

All that is exciting. It reconnects us with a sense of wonder at the mysteriousness of life, the universe, and all it contains.

(The) Hidden Life of Trees - Book Review

(Note that this review is late in coming - this book was published nine years ago)

Go for a walk in a forest. When you get back home read The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.¹ The chances are high that the next time you go walking in that same forest the experience will be wholly different. You will see things you hadn’t noticed before. You will hear things you hadn’t heard before.

Chances are, too, that you will stop and want to linger. You may want to get closer to the trees and examine the bark. You might want to dig your fingers into the earth, or peer high into the canopy.

Not only will you see and hear things differently, after reading Wohllenben’s book you may also be able to visualise the vast network of roots, fungi, and mycelium that exists underground, out of sight.

Wohllenben’s book has certainly gained wide attention – it has sold more than three million copies worldwide and been translated into more than twenty languages.

Whilst it has gained an appreciative lay readership, it has not been without its critics in the scientific community. Some have criticised the book for its use of anthropomorphic language. For example, some of the book’s chapters are titled, Tree School, Community Housing Projects, Hibernation, Street Kids, Immigrants etc, all as epithets for aspects of forests and/or trees.

Although it is possible to understand this criticism, it is, in this reviewer’s mind, unfair, or at least misplaced. This book is undoubtedly written for the layperson, a person who may know little or nothing about the workings of forests. It is clearly not written as a scientific treatise. Had it been written in scientific, unemotional language it would not have been bought by three million readers.

Wohllenben outlines in the first few pages his intention in writing the book. He states, ‘This book is a lens to help you take a closer look at what you might have taken for granted. Slow down, breathe deep, and look around. What can you hear? What do you see? How do you feel?’ He’s upfront. This is written for those unused to analysing what is going on in a forest. It is written to evoke an emotional response. And – it works.

By writing in the way he does, using what we understand to be human feelings, behaviours, and functions, Wohllenben helps the reader associate with forests and trees. In one sense the criticism of anthropomorphism becomes a two-edged sword. Can we really say that trees do not have feelings, do not behave in ways that humans might, or that trees do not communicate with and look after one another? To say that they do not and try to write of trees and forests in neutral terms is itself an anthropocentric rendition. Many indigenous languages and cultures worldwide do not name trees, streams, mountains, and other living creatures in the third person – i.e. as it. For many, these entities are imbued with the same energies and sacred attributes as are humans.

In the final few pages Wohllenben addresses the divide between humans and non-humans. He states, ‘I, for one, welcome breaking down the moral barriers between animals and plants. When the capabilities of vegetative beings become known, and their emotional lives and needs are recognized, then the way we treat plants will gradually change as well.’   

Perhaps the sooner we come to appreciate trees and other entities in the same ways we value ourselves, the sooner we might desist in destroying nature and the planet in which we live.

So, my suggestion as reviewer, is to ignore any criticism you may have heard, go with the flow and recognise you in the trees and the trees in you.

For myself, as someone who had previously come across some of the concepts Wohllenben writes of, I found this book illuminating and enjoyable. I learnt a lot more about trees and forests than I knew before I read page 1. I learnt something of myself also.

The final words I will leave to Peter Wohllenben himself, they are also the final words he writes in the Acknowledgments section.

‘Only people who understand trees are capable of protecting them.’

Note:

1. Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees, Black Inc., Collingwood VIC, Australia, 2016

Where Did Our Selves Go?

Around one in eight people globally suffer from at least one form of mental health issue. Whether it be anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, bi-polar disorder, or schizophrenia, the costs of mental health are estimated at $2-5 trillion per year, and expected to rise to over $6 trillion by 2030 (just five years away.)

Surely, such a crisis raises the question of: how did we come to this? How did our selves become so lost and confused that so many of us suffer these conditions? As Gabor Maté notes, ‘In the most health-obsessed society ever, all is not well.’¹

Quite simply, I would claim that this disjoint in our psyches is because we have come to perceive ourselves as being disconnected from nature and from each other. I recognise, of course, that this claim is highly simplistic, yet if you follow through the implications of each of these two disconnections the threads joining it all together become evident.

Disconnection from nature is tantamount to a loss of Earth as our collective home. Disconnection from each other isolates us from our community. Together, these two disconnections mean that we have lost contact with our human support systems and our place of identity, resulting in a psychic disruption that varies from person to person.

Is it any wonder then, that over the past few centuries, we have become more and more disconnected from our own selves? We are homeless and have little sense of belonging. Both these disconnections cannot fail but fill our psyches with a toxic concoction of conscious and unconscious thoughts, feelings, emotions, and worldviews that serve to disconnect us from who we are, from our true selves.

Our mental health statistics show this. Over the past 50 years mental health issues have been steadily worsening, with the most severe disorders being depression, specific phobias (extreme fears of objects or situations that pose little or no danger but make one feel anxious), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and alcohol abuse. Ominously, a 2023 study undertaken by researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of Queensland involving respondents from 29 countries concluded that, ‘by age 75 approximately half the population can expect to develop one or more of 13 mental disorders.’² For both men and women major depressive disorder was one of the most prevalent disorders. The next most prevalent was alcohol abuse for men and specific phobias for women.

This is a serious disconnection within and from ourselves.

What has happened to our selves? Where did our selves go?

It is highly likely that we left our selves behind when we allowed ourselves to disconnect from nature. We left our selves behind in the forests, the mountains, the rivers, and the myriad other natural habitats.

If this is so, then it is no surprise that spending time in natural settings helps to reduce mental health problems and to restore balance in our lives.

Over the past 40 years a conscious practice of spending time in natural settings for health benefit has been spreading around the globe. Japan can be credited as the birthplace of this practice, where it is known as shinrin-yoku. The term shinrin-yoku (literally Forest Bathing) was coined in 1982 by Tomohide Akiyama, who was Director of the Japanese Forest Agency at the time. Since the beginning of the 21^st century the science of forest bathing has built an impressive research base.

Amongst the benefits of forest bathing that this research has shown are: Increased relaxation of the body due to increased activity of the parasympathetic nervous system; Reduced stress of the body due to reduction of sympathetic nervous system activity; Reduction in blood pressure; Lowering of pulse rate. These health benefits allow forest bathing participants to feel a sense of comfort, feel calm, feel refreshed, less anxious, and an improvement in their emotional state.³

If such health benefits can be experienced by just an hour or two of forest bathing, imagine the benefits that might ensure from reconnecting more completely with nature?

Another, associated, health practice has also been slowly spreading. Green prescriptions first began being prescribed by doctors in New Zealand in the late 1990s. Green prescriptions are a medical prescription to spend time in nature. In New Zealand it is now possible to self-refer to a green prescription. A number of countries, including Canada, the UK, Korea, Finland, the US, and of course Japan, are utilising this form of “medication” regularly as part of those nation’s healthcare services.

Sadly, at the very time we are starting to re-discover the benefits of spending time in nature we are also busy chopping down our forest, polluting our riverways, and mining the tops and sides of our mountains.

If we are going to find our selves again then we have to act with nature in a reciprocal manner. We must stop chopping, polluting, and mining.

Notes:

1. Gabor Maté, with Daniel Maté, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness &healing in a Toxic Culture, Vermillion, London, 2022

2. Prof John McGrath et al., Age of onset and cumulative risk of mental disorders, The Lancet Psychiatry, 2023. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(23)00193-1/abstract  accessed 23 April 2025

3. Yoshifumi Miyazaki, The Japanese Art of Shinrin-Yoku, Timber Press, Portland, Oregon, 2018

Learning From Cousin Bonobo

All our siblings have died. Homo erectus – dead. Homo habilis -dead. Homo neanderthalensis  - dead. All our evolutionary brothers and sisters are dead and extinct. Only us – Homo sapiens – are left alive from our immediate family.

But we do have a couple of cousins. Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus. More commonly these two cousins are known as chimpanzees and bonobos. They are the closest to us in the evolutionary family. We share 98.7% of our genes with these other two primates.

Our common ancestor lived some 6 million years ago, at which point our immediate families diverged. Then the families of bonobos and chimpanzees further split around 2 million years ago.

Using corridors across the river that no longer exist, one family, the chimpanzees, settled north of the Congo River. The other, the bonobos, made their home south of the Congo River. Neither chimpanzees nor bonobos have learnt to swim, and so the two species live separated today by the mighty Congo River. Hence, they learnt to adapt to their unique environments and learnt differing behaviours.

When Jane Goodall began studying chimpanzees in their natural habitat in the 1960s she thought that if the behaviour of chimpanzees was similar to that of humans, then the behaviour of our common ancestor (the one that lived 6 million years ago) was probably also similar.

Soon after she began her research one of the big debates in the scientific world was that of nature versus nurture. This debate centred around the question; Is a baby born with a clean slate, and will only experience make that child aggressive or kind? Jane Goodall thought she could answer this question through her studies. In a 2021 interview in response to a question about this debate, Jane Goodall replies that, ‘When I said no, there’s an instinctive element to it, I was heavily criticised. But I think it makes sense. How can you possibly look around the world and say that there is not an innate aggressive tendency in humans?’¹

Goodall’s reply is based upon the recognition that within chimpanzee society males show a tendency to use violence and to dominate female chimpanzees. This portrayal of chimpanzee behaviour has been tempered slightly in recent times, with the co-director of the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, in the US, saying that aggression ‘only makes up a very small part of their daily activity,’ and that the trait has been overemphasised.

But what of the other cousins – the bonobos?

Research on bonobos living in their natural state has not been as long as that for chimpanzees. Bonobos tend to live in less accessible forest than do chimpanzees, plus their numbers are much less, making study of bonobos less easy than the study of chimpanzees.² However, we are able to discern differing behaviour between these two primates.

Bonobos tend to display contrasting behaviours to that of chimpanzees. They are less aggressive and females are the leaders of bonobo groups. It needs to be noted however, that (as with chimpanzees) this portrayal is also simplistic. Bonobos can be aggressive.

The aggressive behaviours of chimpanzees and bonobos, though, are markedly dissimilar. Chimpanzees show a proclivity towards ganging up on an opponent, whereas bonobo aggression is displayed in one-to-one combat. Significantly, chimpanzees will kill (murder) their opponent, whereas bonobos do not.  

Learning from Cousins

We might ask ourselves: Can Jane Goodall’s wondering about whether the behaviour of chimpanzees and that of our common ancestor suggest an innate tendency towards aggression in humans?

The answer has to be: not necessarily. The answer is nuanced and ambiguous.

When our cousins diverged from each other 2 million years ago, with one going north of the Congo River and the other heading south of it, then, presumably, they took with them the innate tendencies of the common ancestor of them and us from 6 million years ago.

Yet, their behaviours in natural settings today are very different, albeit (as noted above) their behaviours are not clear-cut. We have to conclude that chimpanzees and bonobos learnt differing behaviours. This suggests that they each adopted dissimilar cultures.

Since chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest cousins we could learn something from them.

If we could listen to Cousin Bonobo we might learn how to get along with each other without resorting to murder or warfare. We might also learn how to live in a more egalitarian society in which women bring their nurturing skills and values into the communal setting.

For us to listen to Cousin Bonobo however would mean we would need to give up our belief that we are superior to the “animals” and have nothing to learn from them

Au contraire. We have much to learn.

Notes:

1. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22585935/jane-goodall-chimpanzees-animal-intelligence-human-nature  accessed 20 August 2024.

2. Both chimpanzees and bonobos are endangered. Estimates for chimpanzee numbers in the wild vary from 170,000 to 300,000. Bonobo numbers are much less, estimated at between 30,000 and 50,000

Mystery, Awe, and Curiosity

How many times have you stood, sat, or lain, watching a sunrise or sunset? How many times have you gazed at a rainbow as it hung in the sky? What about the stars at night? Have you peered at them and wondered how many there are, how far away they are, or how big they are?

Turning to the smaller things in life: have you ever lain in a field and studied a blade of grass, or a tiny flower? How about sitting on a beach and letting a handful of sand filter through your splayed fingers? Have you seen the world, as Blake did, in each of those grains of sand?

Mysterious isn’t it? How is a sunrise or a rainbow formed? What enables that blade of grass to grow?

If we do stop to ask ourselves such questions, we are compelled to stand, sit, or lie, in wonder and awe. Life, in all its magnificent arrays is mysterious. Albert Einstein commented that, ‘the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science.’ Remember that this was a man who probably understood the workings of the cosmos far better than any other person. Yet, he perceived this cosmos as mysterious.

Perhaps, like another Albert – Albert Schweitzer – both of them understood that, ‘as we acquire more knowledge, things don’t become more comprehensible, they become more mysterious.’

Mystery invokes curiosity.

A meteorologist can tell us how a rainbow is formed.

But, a meteorologist cannot explain why a rainbow is formed. A meteorologist cannot take away the mystery.

And I, for one, do not want a meteorologist to remove the mystery.

I want to stand, sit, or lie, in awe and wonder. I want to be curious about the mystery of life and all it has to offer.

The mystery of life does not need to be explained to me. I do not need a first cause. Nor do I require, as Aristotle did, an unmoved mover.

We might want to explain this mystery by positing an anima mundi, God, Allah, the One, or even the Divine. Yet, all of these imply a first cause, as if everything can be explained if only we could trace each effect back to a cause, which itself is an effect with a cause. We could do this ad infinitum, without ever arriving at the initial cause.

Because there isn’t one.

Everything is dependent upon everything else. In the ancient Indian texts of the Vedas and Upanishads and early Buddhist writings we find the Pali word Pratītyasamutpāda which has roots in words that can be translated as to spring up together, or to come to pass together.

Simply put, when everything arises together, and co-dependently, we can only stand, sit, or lie, in awe and contemplate the mystery of it all.

Furthermore, we are part of this mystery. Jack Kornfield observes that; ‘We not only are witness to the mystery, we are the mystery looking at itself.’¹

So, next time you are gazing at a sunrise or a blade of grass, or letting grains of sand run through your fingers, or looking up at the Milky way, be curious enough to consider that you are seeing yourself.

You are contemplating the Mystery.

Note:

1. Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart, Ebury Publishing, London, Sydney, Auckland, Johannesburg, 2008