The Great Separation
In my Eastern Religions class in college, we studied Taoism. I found it fascinating compared with western religions and philosophies. It seemed more like a philosophy than a religion to me.
One thing that really resonated with me was the Toaist idea of “The Great Separation.” The Taoists believed that there was an era of harmony where humans lived in tune with nature and all other species. According to Taoist belief, it was a period where there was no famine, disease, war, wealth, or poverty. But then humans began to build walls between their bodies and the rest of the natural world. They began to separate mentally from nature, to see themselves as apart from nature or even above it. This is what Toaists called “The Great Separation.”
Maybe that mystical/mythical belief is how it happened. How our ancestors invented our disconnection. It could have happened unintentionally. Maybe it started with some primitive form of shoes. Once we separated our feet from the ground, the rest just followed. Maybe that was the first wall, between our feet and the ground. There is speculation that by wearing shoes we have cut ourselves off from the negative electrical charge that the earth grounds us to. And, there are theories that there are all kinds of negative health consequences of being ungrounded in this way.
Maybe there is more to it than we have yet to understand. What if we are just beginning to realize that thousands of years of shoe wearing has had certain health effects? Or mental effects? Are we are just beginning to see the bigger picture?
But are there larger health consequences to our separation from nature? A lot of new science suggests so. Or, it suggests the converse, that getting out into nature and connecting with nature has a whole host of positive health effects, from decreasing cortisol levels, lowering blood pressure, improving bowel processes, improving immune response, managing body weight, improving memory function, decreasing depression and anxiety, improving attention, focus, and concentration. The Nature Fix by Florence Williams is a good place to start learning about some of this.
Of course, Shinrin-yoku, the ancient Japanese practice of “forest bathing,” has been around for millennia. Maybe it is a relic of the ancient wisdom that we have since lost. The practitioners of Shinrin-yoku just go sit in the forest. They absorb and breathe in the phytoncides (plant chemicals) that have many health benefits. But maybe before humans separated from nature, we were always in nature, absorbing its benefits.
Can we reconnect? Are we truly separated from nature? Or is the separation just in our minds? Something we have convinced ourselves of? What is the benefit of seeing ourselves as separated from nature? What is the cost of believing that? Or does it not matter at all? How can we know for sure?
Wow, that was kind of anthropocentric of me. What about the costs of our mental disconnection from nature on the other species we share the planet with? We tend to ignore the consequences of our modern lives on the plants and animals who have no say in what we do or what happens to them and their habitat as a result of our activities. We literally blow off the tops of mountains in order to get more coal to burn so that we can add more pollution to the atmosphere all so we can power more electronic devices. What about the plants and animals who lived on those mountains? Or in the streams that get polluted from the toxic runoff? When do they get a say? But we aren’t only blasting off the tops of mountains.
Everywhere humans are active (and even places where we aren’t), we have altered the environment. We have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, the oceans, filled the water and air with micro-plastics and forever chemicals that accumulate in animals’ bodies and our own. We are in the process of disrupting biological and physical processes on this planet. We are threatening wildlife habitat, and causing mass extinction. And yet, we constantly hear business leaders and politicians talking about growing the economy as if it is the most important thing and our lives depend on it. While in reality, life on planet earth (for us and most other species) kind of depends on us not growing our economy, and not doing the things we do all day everyday.
National Geographic defines an invasive species as:
“An invasive species is an organism that is not indigenous, or native, to a particular area. Invasive species can cause great economic and environmental harm to the new area.”
Are we an invasive species? We spread all over the globe after leaving Africa. And we have caused great environmental harm nearly everywhere we have spread to, and even places we haven’t. Scientists have discovered micro-plastics at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean. And no humans lives there. Yet our trash has found its way there.
… Are we the most invasive species?