Nature and Us – One and the Same


I’ve been continuing to read the book The Deep Ecology Movement. This includes an introduction to the movement and a collection of essays with varying thoughts and opinions. Along with finding many similarities to Buddhism, I feel this is a meaningful framework to express nature and humans, and the dependency of each on the other, and the critical task to strike balance.

An important concept that would help to start down the right path is the ecological self. A quote from the essay “Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World” by Arne Naess –

“We may be said to be in, of and for Nature from our very beginning.”

My favorite quote that sums up everything simply and elegantly is from John Haines –

“We speak of nature, of the natural world, as if that were something distinct from ourselves and the social world we appear to have made, seldom noticing that we are in nature and never out of it…”


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