By Dana O’Driscoll
Nature is a perfect system. A tree falls during a thunderstorm. Within several weeks, the wood is colonized by fungi, bugs, and others who begin the years-long process of breaking down the wood and returning all of the nutrients into the web of life. Soon, oyster mushrooms are erupting from the log, bugs burrow in deep, and mice make their home under the old roots. In 10 or 15 years, moss grows thick, and an acorn takes root and begins to grow in the soil that was a stump. The tree’s trunk becomes a nursery tree for many other plants to get a foothold, off of the forest floor. Suddenly where there was death, there is life. This circle continues and continues, connecting us all in a great web of life. There is no waste in this system–every single part of nature can be recycled and reused infinitely.
One of the challenges humans have in this age is that they have built systems that have disregarded the cycle of life, which includes both creating things that do not easily return to nature and removing ourselves entirely from this system. Rather than think in a circle or cycle, we think in a line. This embedded linear thinking currently pervades modern Western human society. The Story of Stuff short film series does a great job of visually describing these problems: many human systems are based on the foundation of greed, quick profit, and short-term linear thinking. What often happens when someone takes up nature spirituality is that their patterns of shifting slowly change from lines to circles. This happens with people connecting to many different nature-connected communities: including nature spirituality, gardening, rewilding, bushcraft, natural building, or permaculture practice. As soon as you start being part of nature, living with nature, and connecting to nature, you are aware of the cycle. The longer you take up these practices, the more profound this cyclical thinking becomes.
Paths I Walk 
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