invert anthropomorphism

anthropomorphism: to project onto the world human traits,

in terms of nature,

we have imagined that testosterone-driven competition and war

is paralleled in the animal and plant kingdoms,

where all plants and animals see the world as zero-sum

that if one wants something,

it has to come at the expense of the other,

that's how Rome was built,

conversely, recent research opens the possibility

that below our feet mycorrhizal fungi

have built a Wood Wide Web

of cooperation and blissful togetherness,

for that is the truth many of us want

particularly to contrast ourselves with the aggression of self-centeredness,

we need to invert anthropomorphism

so that we manifest the universe in our selves,

and then we can choose which aspects resonate mostly surely

with who we feel ourselves to be,

we an choose how to live a fullness

that the natural world has evolved

over billions of years of trial and error,

while following the imperative to connect and build

and to resist the imperative to break down and destroy,  

we are of the stars, both for good and for ill,

an Indigenous prayer I love asks the Earth to teach us:

to learn lessons hidden in every leaf and rock,

to learn resignation from the leaves that die in the fall,

to learn regeneration from the seed which rises in the spring,

to apprentice ourselves to the natural world,

one we learn some wisdom

then it is safer for us to act.

by Henry H. Walker

June 23, ‘26