The Self & Nature

Over the past week I decided I wanted to try reflecting in an environment that had a few less distractions than on campus. Red Rocks Open Space seemed like a great location where I could sit alone and reflect about my environmental values. I realized that going to another environment such as Red Rocks would not necessarily be completely going into nature. For there really isn't any place that humans go that is not a human environment. This place that is now a natural recreation park has its complex history with human interaction. The parkland was once used as a quarry, a trash dump, and other industrial uses. Remnants of the past land use are most evident in the quarry where massive steps have been chiseled away from the dark reddish sandstone of the Fountain Formation. I climbed up the quarry to get to the top of the rock like I have done in the past. The view from the top is phenomenal and you have a unique view of the park. I can look from above at the birds flying from tree to tree, the deer grazing, runners trotting by, and bikers whizzing down trails. The main goal of my project was to cultivate a greater awareness of my surroundings and of my self. I was hoping to gain a greater appreciation and respect for my environment. In doing this I would possibly work towards cultivating other environmental virtues that could help me develop practical wisdom in regards to the natural environment. However thoughts of what is natural and what is human began to confuse me. I read Conon’s “The Trouble With Wilderness” and was aware of the cultural, historical, and linguistic baggage that is involved with our conception of the natural world especially when predominantly framed by the label of “wilderness.” I had planned to contemplate some of these ideas and also attempting to cultivate a greater awareness of my surroundings while I was at Red Rocks.

I was sitting on a rock and I began to question what the rock beneath me really is. I know that it is part of the millions of years old Fountain Formation found throughout the Front Range. This reminded me of my geology fieldtrip to a similar outcropping in the park. The red mass I was sitting on was once under about a few feet of water in a shallow marine environment millions of years ago. The very ripples of the sand are still perceptibly petrified in the walls of the rock. I walked over to a wall where I could study these prehistoric sand patterns. The distinctive form of the rocks thin sheet like protrusions from the earth are due to the fact that these layers had been pushed vertical through the mountain building process of the Rockies. This is a fascinating perspective to envision. The vertical stone wall before me was once the very flat surface of a marine sand bed. This made me think of the unprecedented change that the thing before me had undergone. It was still undergoing change. Erosion through weathering and even that steps I take as I walk across it change the rock. The stone was turning back into sand. The beauty of this geological process captivated me. A scraggly shrub and some grasses were growing in the sandy gravel at my feet. Life was growing out of this sand. These hearty plants were getting nutrition from this sandy soil. There were also decaying plants next to the living ones that were slowly disintegrating and becoming the soil.

The processes of change that could bee seen by just looking at this small area of rock were so beautiful. All the different things I had been looking at really were all the same thing. It is all the same physical material just going through processes of change. All this matter is simply just engaged in a patterned dance of energy. The sublime manifestations of matter and energy are all of the same thing. The reality that we perceive is truly one single entity. That includes humans. We are part of the dance. Our reality is our own, but it can be though of as a part of a greater reality. We are just a biological manifestation. The implications of such a view mean that humans are not as special as many of us think. However evolutionarily we can see ourselves as a biological marvel in that our brains are capable of intellectual thought, reason, and consciousness. These capabilities are just a part of who we are as beings. The implications for the self are that we are not simply our egos. We are material beings part of the physical world as everything else it. Whether any ethical conclusions follow I am still unsure. A perspective such as this allows us to experience the world with greater enjoyment and respect. Maybe we should respect, consider, and empathize with all of life as Naess has suggested in his development of Deep Ecology. The ecological self is a powerful perspective. It is surely a perspective that fosters a greater awareness of the relations that I have to other things and that which I experience. I however have to do more of an investigation into the implications of such a worldview.