Heroes Not Zombies

Autumn is a beautiful season, filling the world around us with glorious shades of yellow, gold and red.

Then the leaves start to fall from the trees, leaving bare branches to face the winter chills and winds, scattering dead leaves across the garden, and down the street.

The leaves decompose, breaking down and adding nourishment to the soil. We might feel driven to “tidy up” some of them, but it’s best to allow nature to make the most of her well developed process of change, rest and growth. Even if it’s good to sweep up some of the leaves so we don’t slip on paths and steps, it’s good for gardeners to collect them and allow them to turn into rich mulch.

Nature doesn’t produce waste. Well, only we, the human part of Nature does. It’s one of the worst characteristics of our species….that we live, produce and consume in ways which creates waste which is toxic to the rest of the planet.

The plastics we have created and thrown away can be found on even the most remote beaches, are everywhere in the oceans killing sea-life. The chemicals and radiation we have created find their way into every living being, including ourselves, combining and interacting to produce who knows how many chronic diseases.

Can’t we find a better way? Can’t we learn from what Wordsworth called our greatest teacher…..Nature?

We need to live more like the other species on the planet, at least in relation to how we produce and deal with waste. Short term, blinkered, narrow thinking prevents us from seeing the connections which exist. It stops us from understanding the cycles and seasons of the planet.

But living with no thought to the damage our way of life causes all of Life is coming back to bite us, our children and our grandchildren.

Don’t we need to take a bigger, broader, deeper view? Don’t we need to become much more aware of how everything is connected and to live more sustainably, more gently, on this little blue planet?