Do we "trust" Nature?

Today's Star Tribune has a fascinating commentary, This is your brain on politics. [Since yr obt svt. is of the Gemini astrological sign, it's not that hard to understand why most days he acts as though he has both a "larger right amygdala" and a "larger anterior cingulate cortex." Go check the commentary. We'll wait.]

You're back? Good. Which part of the commentary struck you the most? For us it was the last frame's note that "...there is only one way we'll change another person's mind: FIRST, they must actually like and trust us." This made me wonder about the fears of nature expressed by many of us. There are many things in nature that trigger our fears: ticks? snakes? mice? lions? spiders? tornadoes? hurricanes? floods? The list goes on ad nauseum. Many of us have very different lists of fears.

storm clouds don't always bring lightning

Photo by J. Harrington

That's the same nature that brings us birds and bees and butterflies and eggs and honey and beauty and this list goes on ad infinitum. We often fear less what we are familiar with. Did we overcome our fears to gain familiarity or did we become familiar before we had enough sense to be afraid? We vaguely recall, from our younger days, reading an interview with a race car driver. The interviewer asked the driver how he could possibly face death every time he raced or practiced. How could he get into the car's cockpit? The driver, in response, asked the interviewer if his hope was to die peacefully in bed. The interviewer's answer was "Yes, of course." The driver then asked how the interviewer could face the prospect of climbing into bed each night.

Is it the unknown that we fear? Many times we ignore what we are told will harm us. (Full disclosure: we continued to smoke cigarettes for years after the first Surgeon General's warnings.) Something like 97% of qualified scientists tell us that climate change is happening, we're much of the cause, and we won't like the consequences, whether they're intended or not. The United States recently elected a Denier-In-Chief. Was that fearless, stupid, both?

We destroy wetlands, develop and pave floodplains and then complain about the destruction of property by floods. We're coming to the quite unpleasant conclusion that perhaps the preponderance of the human race neither likes nor trusts nature. That help's explain why we continue to exploit natural resources and ignore warning flags that should cause us to change both our minds and our behaviors.

Where Honey Comes From

Maggie Smith

When my daughter drizzles gold
on her breakfast toast, I remind her
she’s seen the bee men in our tree,
casting smoke like a spell until
the swarm thrums itself to sleep.
She’s seen them wipe the air clean
with smoke, the way a hand smudges
chalk from a slate, erasing danger
written there, as if smoke revises
the story of the air until each page
reads never fear, never fear. Honey
is in the hive, forbidden lantern
lit on the inside, where it must be dark,
where it must always be. Honey
is sweetness and fear. I think
the bees have learned to embroider,
to stitch the sky with warnings
untouched by smoke. Buzzing
is the sound of bees perforating the air,
as if pulling thread through over
and over, though the thread too is air.

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