Die Natur hat Kunstinstinkt

Die Natur hat Kunstinstinkt – daher ist es Geschwätz, wenn man Natur und Kunst unterscheiden will.

Nature is instinctively artistic—therefore, it is idle nonsense to separate nature and art.

                                                               --Novalis

butterfly rock

Living with Nature

In one of his books, Joseph Wood Krutch decries the idea of nature as spectacle.  He reminds us that in order to truly understand and appreciate nature, we must have an intimate connection with it.  We must allow ourselves to be molded by nature, its rhythms, harmonies, and cycles.

We must know the habits and ways of everything surrounding us: the life cycles of the insects, the way that stones weather, what the birds and animals depend on for food, and what plants emerge only after the rains, as opposed to those that stubbornly persist even in times of drought.  I think of how much I love the desert marigold, one of the most beautiful of wildflowers.

Or the five-needle pricklyleaf, that is ubiquitous in the little corners of wildness that exist in our neighborhood.

 Bright globe mallow, that, like all mallows, has many medicinal uses.

  The Turk's head (eagle claw) cactus, like this young specimen.

Or the nipple beehive cactus, which, like many species in both the U.S. and Mexico, is affected by illegal poaching, and habitat loss due to unchecked land development.

We can learn harmony with nature, whether in the wilderness or in the garden, by only taking what we need,

and leaving the rest undisturbed, so that others, whether they be our fellow human beings or our fellow creatures, may find enough for their needs--even if that need is only for a place of beauty and peace.

The Desert Greens Up

The desert greens up with the late summer rains, turning rock and sand into a carpet of lush growth.  The drought resisters put on new leaves, and the drought evaders spring up, grow, and flower almost overnight.  As we walked the Cottonwood Springs trail in the Franklin Mountains State Park, we were surrounded by an unusually lush Chihuahuan Desert.  I was reminded of Isaiah 35, which anyone who has lived in the desert can relate to--a vision of the dry land blooming and suddenly filling with springs and waterholes as a metaphor for hope and joy.

Amid the rock and sunshine, life finds a foothold, as roots search for moisture brought by the monsoon winds.

"The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya . . . everything is emptiness and everything is compassion."
                                                      --Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton

The Monsoon Rains

In the late summer the monsoons arrive, bringing heavy, though spotty, rain showers.

The desert greens up and wildflowers bloom, like the spreading fleabane (Erigeron divergens), a medicinal herb with many uses.

Gardens and fields also welcome the nutrient-rich rains.

Depending on the amount of rainfall, one species might be abundant one year, and another, the next--like these Blackfoot daisies.

Cacti store water and ocotillos make leaves.  These Texas rainbow cacti, prickly pear, and ocotillos live in the foothills of the Franklin Mountains, on a slope that carries heavy runoff during the monsoon rains.

Colorful mesquite pods.  Edible honey mesquite pods should be harvested before the monsoons.  They can contain high amounts of toxic aflatoxin B1 produced by a common fungus (Aspergillus flavus) if left wet on the ground for too long.

Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

A few years ago, President Obama created the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument to protect the historic, scenic, archaeological, paleontological, and geological treasures of the Organ Mountains, Potrillo Mountains, Doña Ana Mountains, Robledo Mountains, and Sierra de las Uvas.  The Potrillo Mountains unit contains volcanic cinder cones, lava flows, and craters.  The creation of the monument was the result of many years of effort by a broad-based coalition of people and is certainly one of the finest achievements of the Obama Administration.  Overall, the four sections that make up the monument encompass a total of 496,330 acres.  Adjoining it is Prehistoric Trackways National Monument, which contains footprints of numerous amphibians, reptiles, and insects, as wells as plants and petrified wood dating back 280 million years to the early Permian period.

My wife, Libby, and I recently visited Aguirre Springs Recreational Area, which is located in the Organ Mountains unit of the monument. 

Eastern face of the Organ Mountains

Tularosa Basin from the Organ Mountains

Sugarloaf Peak

Pine Tree Trail

Rabbit Ears

All Creation is Holy

The sloka from the Isha Upanishad:

        īśāvāsyamidaṃ sarvaṃ yatkiñca jagatyāṃ jagat |

       tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā mā gṛdhaḥ kasyasviddhanam ||

  can loosely be translated as:

      God is present in everything; therefore, everything is enjoyed through renunciation.

 This is very much the way of St. Francis, the truth that following the path of renouncing possessions allows us to belong to God alone; to have only one treasure.  And since all things are of God, this means that we can experience creation as "brother" and "sister," not as "mine" or "yours," because all people and things become what they really are: our fellow children of God, filled with God's spirit, instead of an illusory bit of personal property. Who can actually possess the wind?   Does a title confer real ownership over the abiding desert?  Only through love does the world become real to us.  We don’t need to "own" a friend--or a stream, or the sun, or the mountains, or the trees of the forest--to truly enjoy them, to experience their sacredness. They are naturally ours, not by right of possession, but through the experience of divine kinship.

I Saw That It Was Holy

I looked ahead and saw the mountains there with rocks and forests on them, and from the mountains flashed all colors upward to the heavens. Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.

                                                                                     --Heȟáka Sápa (Black Elk), Black Elk Speaks