zaterdag 1 januari 2011

The ongoing work of nature

The work of nature is ongoing till the day of today. If I look at our daughter in this picture I think nature must still be meaning well.
We were at an antique and fruit market near the square Brittanica in Zagreb. When she passes everybody wants to hold her. She was very tickled by the banana. She ate half of it and as you can see, it gave her a special gleam in the eyes.

Ishi the last Yahi. The man in this picture is demonstrating how stone age man makes fish prongs. He walked into a village in the area of Sacramanto, California in 1911. He had just left his whole world behind. At the moment he was found, he was in between two worlds, in nothing.
He had lived on the run for 40 years. On the run for an encroaching civilisation we are assuming is normal. The professor who took care of him described him as a man that exercised the filosophy of patience. Without a trace of selfpity or bitterness poluting the purity of the rest of his existence.
We knew many things. Many of them wrong things. He knew nature, always truthfull. He had characteristics that always are valable. He had a good heart; He had courage and selfposession and although all had been taken from him in his heart was no bitterness. His soul was that of a child while his mind was as wise as that of a philosofer.
Looking at what we are doing in Croatia and our work in nature; What style of living has been handed down through the ages? How is the impact of this style in every context of our life? Isn't it time every country in the world had an area where a totally new eko friendly village could be built? Where everything done & built has it's direct connection with nature and only natural materials? Thinking and operating cradle to cradle?
And look at the expression on the face of Ishi. Busy in the here and now with something holding his whole concentration. In all humility this is one of the examples we want to follow. In learning from nature and living in nature. And the mindfulness of which Ishi was an example. Probably without knowing, or did he not?