It would be difficult to fashion a definition of what it has meant to be human ever since the beginnings of our genus, without seeing humanity in relation to Nature. We as humans still need to experience the timeless, the mysterious, the primordial. This is found in Nature. Not because we can understand the mysteries of the Universe, but perhaps because we CANNOT comprehend its timelessness and vastness. As Trappist monk Thomas Merton said,
"We are exiles in the far end of solitude, living as listeners
With hearts attending to the skies we cannot understand."
I would say that our interior journey of understanding/not understanding is a mirror of our outer journey of understanding/not understanding. Nature, then, functions as both metaphor and sacrament of our Soul.
It's okay that we can understand so little of the interior/exterior wildernesses. But, the journey must be undertaken. Then, and only then, will we be helped along the way.
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