By: Misty Murph'Ariens

The more I observe nature at work, the more I am in awe of it.  Natural systems are sometimes described in a linear way, to make it easier to explain them to people.  In science class, some time around grade eight, I was taught about predator/prey relationships, ecosystems, and the different classifications of life.  All through school, each year I took biology and each year, the classifications got more detailed. It seemed to me, at the time, a very glossy way of cataloguing nature for future reference.  I figured, if one studied science long and hard enough, one could have a mastery over biological knowledge and with that, unlock all the secrets of the past, ultimately knowing the answer 'why' to all questions.  Yep, I read Sherlock Holmes stories as a kid.  Having all the answers at my fingertips simply because I could understand the clues in nature was a very alluring idea, to say the least.  I chased this dream into University microbiology, biochemistry, psychology, and anthropology classes.  I had the snug feeling, (instilled in me by grade school, the media and 'Mother Culture' at large), that since science had 'pretty much figured everything out', some PHD professor, specialized in that particular field, would have all the glorious answers to `why?`.  Well, as Douglas Adams so aptly wrote, the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, turned out to be “42...Of course, it would have been simpler to have known the actual question...”.  Yeah, it seemed that we knew a lot of 'what', like what we call it, and how it appears to fit with the other things we have names for.  But, there is a difference between knowing what a thing is called and whereabouts it can be located, and how it actually works.  For instance, I know roughly what each part of a motor does, and where it goes.  But, I would be hard pressed to fix one without help and I certainly could not make any engineering improvements.  Well, I found about the same with the modern humans' understanding of nature.  We, as a group of people, tend to look at things in an anthropocentric, or human-centred way.  Like, “Mommy, what is this thing?”, “Susie, that's grass.  That's what we walk on, or play games on.”  Not so much, “Susie, that's grass.  It's one of many types of plants that protect soil from erosion in rain and create habitat for insects, snails and snakes, while producing oxygen for animals to breathe.” Of course, it is natural for us to prioritize the things that are good for us.  But, the problem comes in when we fail to understand the purpose of the intricate cogs in nature, and so, start rearranging and eliminating parts of it's precision machine.  Many call plants that are too successful 'weeds' regardless of how useful they might be, (even to humans).  Some try to eradicate whole species of animals simply because they are creepy or inconvenient.  I think many of us need to slow down, step back, observe and ask the glorious, “Why?”.  Everything that exists in nature has a place, a purpose and a balance.  Even us. “There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.” ~Mahatma Gandhi