Allowing Ourselves to Be Awed

Yesterday morning, a pair of well-fed coyotes trotted past my open door, no more than 10 feet from where I sat writing a blog post. They didn't turn to look my way, although they must have smelled my presence. It was only after they passed out of sight that I noticed the shouting of the ravens, a half dozen or more, working together to drive the intruders away.

I hear the ravens every morning during these spring days. They're always going on about something, but I guess I've learned to ignore them because even as they sounded the alarm about predators in the neighborhood, I didn't take note until the danger was literally upon my doorstep. Indeed, I really only attended to their cawing once the coyotes, the danger, was gone.

Or not gone. They had passed from my sight, but I knew they remained nearby because the ravens' intensity didn't abate. Not only did I hear their raven voices, but also the fierce flapping of their wings and the frantic scratching of their talons on my roof as they took turns dive-bombing the canines who must have been along the side of my house without windows. Then one of the coyotes reappeared, not running, but definitely hurrying, once more passing where I sat without looking my way, ravens with wingspans as wide as the coyote was long chasing after it.

It's peak nesting season for the ravens. There is a nest in a tree outside my backdoor. They have been exhibiting courtship and territorial defensive behaviors for months now, all of which they do noisily, which probably explains why I've learned to ignore them.

The ravens, of course, were protecting something far more important than mere territory. They were protecting their loved ones. My heart, of course, was with them.

Shortly after the coyotes had been driven off, I pulled our dog away from the remnants of what I took to be a rabbit not far from the front door, bits of fur still clinging to it. Maybe the ravens weren't protecting their young. After all, if there are any fledglings, they're at the top of a tree, out of the reach of any coyote, which, of course, the ravens knew. Any danger to their young will come from above -- a hawk or a mocking bird. Maybe, after all, they were harassing the coyotes for a share in the kill. 

The local rabbit population has been robust this spring, which would explain the arrival of coyotes, who normally avoid our dog-infested neighborhood, to thin the herd.

The cycle of life is as brutal as it is beautiful.

I've shared in this post a few "facts," but most of what I've written here is what George Bernard Shaw called metabiology. I've engaged in speculative reason about animal behavior from the perspective of a man sitting on a sofa. A proper scientist would likely be disappointed with me as I've cobbled together a story about nature that borrows from observed phenomenon, of course, but also includes such non-scientific concepts as "loved ones," "brutality," and "beauty." But I've gone even more off the rails than that: I've engaged with the mystique of nature.

"Just as the realm of speculative reason lies beyond the facts of science," writes naturalist and author James Wood Krutch, "so also, beyond the realm of speculative reason, lies the realm of emotion. To me that realm is no less important than the realm of fact or the realm of speculative thought, though to discuss what one experiences in the realm of emotion one must either depreciate it and explain it away, as the pure rationalist does, or one must accept what one can only call the mystique as opposed to the rational of the human being's intercourse with the universe around him."

Krutch wrote this some 70 years ago. He wrote in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, blending science, personal experience, speculation, philosophy, and emotion, to create an understanding of nature that places awe, joy, and beauty at the forefront. He writes, "If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food either."

It's a perspective that borders on what "pure rationalists" mock as pantheism, a belief that the unity of the universe is, for want of a better word, god. 

I've had the privilege of having spent thousands of hours observing and playing with children in natural places, not to mention amongst the cedars, lilacs, insects, raccoons, squirrels and other living things that shared our urban playground. We even once had a bald eagle devour its prey in some overhead branches, showering us with what I believe were pigeon feathers. There amidst the children, I experienced the "mystique of intercourse with the universe," the joy, the awe and wonder, the beauty, which includes likewise those things we sometimes mistake for brutality.

It's only when modern humans are involved that brutality comes into it. The eagles and coyotes may kill, but when they do they are culling the weak, the aged, the sick, and unborn. Our human sadness is mitigated when we know that this ultimately strengthens the herd, helping to insure that the strongest genes survive and that suffering is minimized. They take only what they need for this day. Then the ravens and other scavengers ensure that nothing of those sacrificed lives is wasted. That bit of bone and fur was gone when returned to look for it a few moments later. 

Modern humans, however, shun the "easy prey," opting instead to hunt and kill the strong, weakening the herd, while often taking much more than they need. That is brutality. 

It is the brutality of a consumer society, one that attempts to exist outside the cycle of life.

One of our modern heirs to Krutch, Leopold, and Thoreau, is botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer who writes, "In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness."

That is what I witness when I'm with children in nature: fullness, gratitude, contentment. Our schools are products of a consumer society and as such the self-styled rationalists, the people who never enter the realm of the mystical, insist on the strictly "practical" -- ciphering and spelling and shaping proper letters. As Krutch puts it, things confined exclusively to that which is 'relevant to the child's daily life.'" This too is a brutality, a severance, one that leads inevitably to emptiness. The economy might need that, but human beings do not.

"Perhaps the mind is not merely a blank slate upon which anything may be written," writes Krutch. "Perhaps it reaches out spontaneously toward what can nourish either intelligence or imagination. Perhaps it is part of nature and, without being taught, shares nature's intentions.

"How could the part be greater than the whole? How can nature's meaning come wholly from man when is is only part of that meaning? . . . Only in nature do we have being." And the simple beauty is that all we need do to satisfy our emptiness is to open our doors, go outside, and allow ourselves to be awed.

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I've been writing about play-based learning almost every day for the past 14 years. I've recently gone back through the 4000+ blog posts(!) I've written since 2009. Here are my 10 favorite in a nifty free download. Click here to get yours.

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