Human and Ecology

In Social Ecology we look at the interaction between the individual, the community they are part of and the environment in which we operate (can be build or natural environments). Another level of looking at this as a Social Ecologist is by scaling picture up from an individual to an organisational level where the individual can be the staff members or the organisation itself with its vision, mission and objectives. The community is then seen as the stakeholders, suppliers and customers while the environment is again the build and natural environments in which they operate and run their businesses. At all times there is basically one constant which is the environment (both build and natural) and how we feel/behave within the confines of that environmental position with either respect (or not) and care (or not).  Based on our feelings (influenced by morals and personal values) we behave differently, our approach to being (ourselves) and doing business is grounded in our attitude which influences our behaviour(s).   

Hypervigilance can be understood as a state of increased alertness and the associated behaviour is manifested by being on guard (at all times) and ready to engage in the fight or flight modes. People who are in a state of hypervigilance, are extremely sensitive to their surroundings, making them feel like being alert to any hidden dangers, whether from other people or the environment. Often, though, these dangers are not real. In an environment (working or private/family) that sees an ever-increasing reliance on the technocratic society and shifts responsibility from self to guardians and governments hypervigilance can take on a form that physically and mentally effects the individual.   

On the other hand, we have Hyperawareness which may have been gained from early experiences in nature. Hyperawareness is a positive way to pay attention, and, when it is appropriate, be on guard. We are all familiar with the term “street smart.” one can use a term like “Nature Smart” for the wider, adaptive intelligence of understanding life and living. This deeper understanding goes beyond the natural environment and an understanding of plants and species ‘out there’, it goes to an understanding of self and our connectivity with Soul, Spirit and Body. 

A logical consequence than would be rather than ‘protecting’ ourselves and our children’s safety, we need to strive towards more time outdoors, in nature, thus enhancing our hyperawareness. Natural play strengthens children’s self-confidence and arouses their senses—their awareness of the world and all that moves in it, seen and unseen. While this natural ability towards Nature Smartness may become blurred and lost to a certain extent, most have had some form of natural connection throughout their lives and need to identify ways to re-connect in order to re-establish the healthy balance. 

If there is a danger of separating ourselves and our children too much from nature, which leads to a form of hypervigilance that is harmful and expresses itself in mental anguish and some physical conditions, then the reverse is also true—that we make them safer, now and in the future, by exposing them to nature. 

More injuries occur on the sports fields than in nature. Kids egged on to be ever more aggressive in order to win, win, win. The wilderness provides an environment for a child’s interior life to develop because it requires them to remain constantly aware of their surroundings.  At the constructive and co-operative side activities in nature setting provide less competition and seek support of each one there together rather than individualistic. You can see this in kids in the bush. They will not leave anyone behind, and often most activities are designed for group achievements rather than individual achievements. 

Connection between positive nature-risk and openness to beauty stands at the core of the activities, largely supported using the senses. Mastering each environment builds the senses as well as develops common sense, which is an unmeasured skill greatly underestimated. Is there something special about the experience in nature, at least a quality that sharpens a person’s senses? Surely the width and depth of nature, the added mystery—the abundance of sounds, smells and sights—is larger than the relatively short and known list of urban stimulations. In the city or suburb, much of our energy is spent blocking sounds and stimulants. Do we hear the honking of cabs—do we want to? In the bush, our ears are open—the laughter of the Kookaburra in the tree above us enlivens us, and when enlivened, human senses grow and develop. 

I remember when I moved to the city, with some trepidation, having lived in the rural and semi-rural environments around the world I was fearful of what to expect while also excited about the “city-life”. I found myself searching for green areas, like parks, even sports fields and travel as much as possible to fulfill the difficult to describe feeling of emptiness … of longing … something I could not quite lay my fingers on. I needed to smell the land, rather than the streets, enjoy the mess of mosses, lichen and leaves, twigs and an occasional dead animal rather than the uncontrollable household rubbish everywhere in the city streets. I used to pick up plastics and the like but was told not too…. for goodness’ sake! 

Missing nature is not just a state of mind, it is more than that, but how can the next generations (born and raised in the urban jungle) fill a longing, an emptiness they do not even know they have. As adults I would like to think we all have had some sort of wilderness experiences. We all have had country, semi urban adventures whether these were on the beach, the bush, the farm or any other contact with ‘real’ life and living rather than the ‘fake’ city concrete, neon-lights driven environments. Now it is our responsibility to pass that on. Especially when the threat of being locked up in our urban caves is real and tested. I ask every adult to take the sacred duty serious to get out there and be, maybe, uncomfortable. That heightened sense of uncertainty, opens your minds’ eye to understand so much more, while also appreciating what we have when we return to our urban dwellings.

There is another component to all of this. There is a connection between wildness and the paranormal. The paranormal is something that is uncontrollable, you cannot really predict when or what is going to happen. That is part of the problem the parapsychology has got with it. Because it is one of those phenomena that is going to occur in intense, strange social situations. It cannot get into the lab. So, the paranormal seems to be about the wildness. Thus, it is not surprising that when people go out into the wilderness, they have encounters with flying saucers in the bush, or encounters with a Yowie and that sort of thing, precisely because they are engaging with wilderness. While that may be an issue for the establishment, it certainly is not for the individuals’ experiences. There are parallels between paranormal experiences, their frequencies and potencies and ‘just’ wild animals. Both have been driven out by the hand of industrialisation. If we did not have photographs, how many people would believe that an animal like a Tassie Tiger is real, just because you will not see one in the middle of our cities, just like a Yowie, or the Blue Mountains and “Hawkesbury Tiger“. People have encountered these vividly, and they have become part of their experiences. The cities are just too noisy for some of these things, paranormal activities are in general quite subtle or require some sort of stillness or maybe focus to even get into that zone. 

I like the notion of mapping zones out around our houses. I understand it like a kind of sector analysis or zone analysis. Looking further into this one could make zone zero, which is me myself /oneself; zone one is the house one inhabits, and depending on the natural connections and maintenance, freedom from development and design, furthering out to zones three, four and five. Zone five is the wilderness. I believe there is a need to create a set of “wilderness corridors”, that come all the way from zone five up to zone zero, right into the self. Going into the wilderness is where we learn how nature works and then we can bring that back into the home and incorporate that into our gardens, lives and coping mechanisms that are more natural to us than any of the technocratic abilities we have become so familiar with. Continuing from here there is this interesting connection between the wilderness on the edge of the garden, where you go for inspiration or where the wild things live. It is in line with that idea of fairies being at the bottom of the garden. Who has not told their children to go and look for the fairies at the bottom of the garden? There is this connection between trepidation and wonder, fear, unsettledness and great rewards, magic. Those bottom areas are where the garden turns from being a tame place and that sense of it being an exciting wilderness place. I was fortunate enough to live in Mount Victoria, in the Upper blue Mountains, where my block of land had exactly that. Several zones from the self, the shell of the house, the top entertainment areas in the upper garden, the chook pen and trampoline further down towards the creek behind the block and beyond that …. the Blue Mountains southern escarpment wilderness areas with its shrubbery of hakeas and banksias, tea trees and grass trees, leading into the dry sclerophyll more open woodlands, intertwined with cool temperate rainforests at times leaping across the cliff tops into the valley below with a sheer drop, or following the talus slope more gently down. All sorts of wild things would traverse this environment, and yes exploring that can be full-on, and scary. We would admire the bottom of the garden at times from the large sliding doors at the split-level home we inhabited, and we worked with wonder and excitement to bringing some of that ‘wildness’ closer to our home. During my time there my children were between three and eight and the other from birth to five. The boy explorative and excited, and at times overcome by the wonders of that place, where the little baby girl just knew nothing else and lived it more fully. There were times where we would spot a dingo standing at the edge of the wilderness, not venturing into the back yard, yet curious as we were about the open place inhabited by us. This form of paranormal experiences, with the creatures and vibrations of the hidden world was seriously exciting for both me and my children. 

There is this film about a Goblins encounter. The Goblins are all out at the edge of the garden, and they are coming in and out of the shadows. Next, they are coming up to the house. It is like the wilderness on the edge, and the wilderness corridors coming right up to zone zero. I am certain there is a connection there between wilderness and extraordinary experiences, without knowing what the mechanisms are, it is there, nonetheless. 

I have always been amazed that people build so close together. Particularly in the wild and wilderness areas. For centuries people have ‘clustered’ and I always wondered why. Maybe that is why, to seek some sort of protection from the wild, wilderness and nature, which really is ourselves. It seems a shame to see so much land around the place and they build these communities right on top of each other. 

Many ‘enlightening’ encounters occur where we are alone in nature, or out on a country road and experience these phenomena. Isolation is a huge factor in this kind of experiences. I guess the part to wrap your head around is that, from an animist perspective, consciousness attached to another component, a human or animal, plant consciousness. I wonder what do we attach these phenomena to? Do they not have a physical component? 

There are lots of different ways to think about it. When the Romans and the Ancient Greek would speak about the Genius Loci /Numina Loci, the “Spirit of Place” with entities that are manifestations, not of an individual object but of an entire landscape. Or possibly a collective manifestation. It is not far off from the thoughts people have about the Gaia hypothesis, with the whole of the world being a single living organism and that that might have a kind of a super consciousness that contains all the mini-consciousnesses within it. Like a fractal of consciousnesses, not limited but ever growing and expanding without boundaries.

In a cosmos that is alive with many varied forms of intelligence, this may be an opportunity for people to do more about the biodiversity crisis we are going through, while managing themselves and their individual and communal place. Dealing with what we have trust upon us every day is surely enough to drive one into a state of confusion and alertness, let us use nature as it is intended, not for material gain but to maintain a balanced mind to deal with the day-to-day.

Your BushBasker