Life...

Today I watched a pair of pileated woodpeckers peck away at our apple tree. At the same time a big blue jay flew off with a hazel nut in its beak. Earlier I saw a squirrel scurrying away with a walnut. As I write, a tree frog is croaking away outside my window. When I went down to the government dock I saw a pair of kingfishers up in tree, loudly protesting my presence in their terrain. A mass of small fish swam around my boat. A seal swam, nose up out in the bay. Back at my trailer I noticed a whole colony of fruit flies on one of the apples I left on the patio table. And these were just a few of the life forms I noticed on this wonderful autumn day. As I sat looking out at our garden plot and the trees beyond I reflected on the rich web of life all around me. And I wondered about my own feeling of being somehow separate from this web.

With my over-developed human brain I am indeed different from other species. But when I notice how they live, I wonder how different I really am….

Nature is who I am. Nature is not "all around" me. It is not even "within me". The fact is, nothing about me, not one single cell, is "separate from" nature. My nature is human nature. My unique expression of human nature is who I am. Just like every fruit fly is a unique expression of fruit fly nature. And like the fruit fly, I am a work in progress. Growth is also my nature.

My life is nature’s way of growing human nature. So the purpose of my life is to live and express my human nature as fully and as beautifully as I know how.