Farmers understand that there are many causes and conditions required for seeds to transform into healthy crops. So they try to optimize as many of these inputs as possible. Inputs include the right amount, temperature, and timing of sunshine, rain, snow, winds, and fertilizer, in relation to altitude, latitude, slope of the land, drainage, innumerable chemical and physical characteristics of the soil, contributions by beneficial critters like bees and worms, minimizing weeds, harmful insects, foraging birds and animals, and on and on. A crop of grapes, like everything else in our world today, is the inevitable product of all that preceded it. It is intimately and completely woven into the fabric of everything that ever transpired before. It is part of nature, natural, natural science.
Whether a farmer's crop is huge and healthy, average, or a complete bust, should s/he take it personally? Is there any benefit to taking it personally?
Yet intelligent, normally rational human beings take things personally all the time. The primary reason: our brain stem prejudging all our perceptions as beneficial ("good"), dangerous ("bad") or irrelevant ("indifferent") for my (my DNA's) survival. So based on this reptilian process, we naturally feel absolutely convinced that "it's all about me".
Nature of course is complex beyond comprehension. Our individual effort - just one of countless inputs - cannot predictably control our world. Nature is a massive impersonal organic process without any agenda to please or displease any one of its components - not even me!
Can I look at myself, my body, "my story" objectively - as at a crop of grapes - as a natural process? How could this affect the quality of my life?
Have you ever experienced an episode when everything appeared brilliantly clear, time didn't seem to exist, and there was a sense of complete freedom? How was that different than how you feel normally? Which feels healthier? Can we make the one that feels healthier increase in duration / continuity?
Have you ever experienced an episode when everything appeared brilliantly clear, time didn't seem to exist, and there was a sense of complete freedom? How was that different than how you feel normally? Which feels healthier? Can we make the one that feels healthier increase in duration / continuity?
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| Photo: Colin Bates http://www.coastalimageworks.com/ |
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