Mother Earth Monday – Everything is Connected

I think in our modern age, we tend to dismiss ancient wisdom far too readily. I am not saying that planting by the signs or holding your hand in a certain manner is going to ward off evil, but there are things we ignore because some new science seems to indicate something else is important, only to later recognize that there was actually a measurable truth to that old tale. Chicken soup does help with illness and acupuncture can improve the condition of certain problems. Facts that got dismissed as flim-flam because they were derived from ancient wisdom rather than scientific research. The research came far after we had all but abandoned these things as ridiculous concepts.

If you want healthier land, introduce animals that we think of as destructive. Let them move in a more natural manner and suddenly the land improves. Right now, the US suffers from a lack of large herbivores and it wasn’t even understood as a problem until recently. Certain species of tree are growing invasive due to a lack of predation and grassy lands suffer from a lack of regular migratory herds grazing them.

More interestingly, a study was done along with the release of wolves into a habitat that hadn’t seen them in a very long time. The expectation was that the wolves would spread out, fill in their former niche and eventually the animal populations would level out. I believe it was elk that they were expecting to see a reduced population of. As it turns out, they saw much more dramatic shifts for the better among a large number of populations.

Wolves changed the grazing habits of the elk so that they now moved more and because of it, the land itself improved. When the land grew healthier, other animals moved in with greater numbers and the entire area began to recover in a way that people hadn’t even realized it was suffering. Eventually, the changes were so dramatic that erosion issues faded away and the very path of the rivers themselves began to change as well. Everything was connected and without the wolves, everything was suffering. We never even knew they were suffering or understood it until the wolves returned and someone took the time to measure what was happening.

Face everything with a sense of caution. Don’t believe every old story without proof, but don’t believe everything in science as absolute truth either. We only know what we have been able to measure and the tools for measuring have changed over the centuries. They will doubtlessly continue to change. Maybe one day I will find out that I am wrong about those planting signs, but then again, I might find out everything we understood about physics is wrong. Oh… wait… we already did that with the quantum physics. There you are. Everything is connected. Try not to forget that. Maybe we can’t yet measure how it is all connected, but it is. Every choice matters, so make your choices well.

What are your thoughts?

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