Observation & 1997.

On a bike/walk just now in the middle of a large field of Barley between the little hamlet of 'Littleworth' and 'Faringdon', in the county of Oxfordshire. The barley is just starting to turn as the gentle, breeze driven rustling sway of the drooping barley heads reveal the merest tinge of the forthcoming golden sheen it will display upon full ripening.

I'm in 'observation' mode on this particular excursion after reading yesterday's Guardian article  'Where have all our insects gone?' (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/17/where-have-insects-gone-climate-change-population-decline?)

This refers to a survey in Germany which clearly showed a 76% drop in insect numbers since 1989 when the survey was last undertaken. On a more personal level I have noticed during my Moho travels this year a significant absence of the messy death toll of squashed insects on my windscreen that used to be a common problem during the first few years of my wandering and nomadic lifestyle.

Back to the barley field and its enormous expanse of weed free even height healthy looking grain. My observation is noting the distinct lack of insect buzzing sounds. I'm seeing no swooping Swallow or Swifts. Today is a blue sky sunny and warm June day. I'm sitting on the narrow footpath smack in the middle of all this healthily growing grain. One fly  has just buzzed by plus I just noticed one small Aphid crawl across my hand. I spotted one dragon fly as I entered the field but as I penetrated deep into the crop the sight and sense of insects, birds and their accompanying summer sounds are eerily absent. Don't get me wrong it is beautiful out here in this warm June sunshine and the view does have an appealing agricultural technicality to it.  I understand this type of agriculture which completely shapes all of our countryside. I can relate to it from my many years of working involvment in the farming community. But this is different  And not how I remember it. I suppose it has been happening gradually but to me it seems as if it has come suddenly over the last 2 or 3 years.

OK; so I read an article and then, because human nature works this way, I see what I want to see. To some extent that must in this case be true as the Guardian article was the trigger to my curious 'observing'. But such concern is not a new phenomenon to me. In fact the whole episode reminded me of an article I wrote in June of 1997. I was noticing things then and the incident and feelings articulated became a strong precursor to my change of career two years later. Here it is, unabridged and unashamedly presented for your perusal.
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Thoughts -  8th June 1997

MOTHER NATURE

I used to sell agricultural machinery and in that capacity I set off a large shiny and new mowing machine. I was left standing amid the exposed underbelly of cut grass, watching as machine and tractor whined away down the field successfully cutting a swathe through a strong and healthy mix of meadow grass and self sown green stalks of corn.

A slight movement and a tiny screeching made me aware of a family of field mice at my feet scuttling in all directions, except for the one doing the screeching who was obviously injured. Their home was gone, their vulnerability exposed, their world irrevocably changed.

The mower wound down after the first circuit of the field and operator and manufacturers representative became deeply involved in technicalities. I, while trying all the time to stay ‘technical’, was totally fascinated by the thousands, of tiny beings, grasshoppers, aphids, greenfly, butterflies, caterpillars, bugs etc that were moving on the shiny green flat metal surface of the mowers safety guards. They were like some huge panicked crowd  trying to escape but only managing to run this way and that and get nowhere. Just like the field mice.

In front of my eyes was a whole population of creatures. A complete swathe of Mother Nature forced from their active conscious life of being insects, into a different state of being. A totally alien state of being. From my vantage point, it seemed all they could do was revert to this instinctive and compulsive behaviour of running this way and  that in the vain hope that what was before, if remembered, would once again return.

Such an abundance of natures life in such a small place and time and just ‘altered’. Altered with not a thought to the consequences, by one fairly ordinary machine built by humans to help ‘improve’ humans lot.

And for now this improving, I am told, seems to work and is beneficial. Bigger, better, always better, and more efficient machines and technology in every direction are, so say, controlling and changing mother nature for my benefit.

Oh! And yes; in the past Mother Nature has been harmed. But not to worry. We are aware of that now and technology and ever increasing knowledge and sophistication will overcome that and give us the very best of Mother Nature.

Which is.?

A Mother Nature that humankind will carry on cherishing and recognising and will carry on being ‘environmentally correct’ with. A nature that humankind will be proficient and efficient with. We will be able to alter and to manipulate it so as to provide all our needs.

A laudable aim indeed which humanity actively pursues and is relatively successful with in some areas, and for short periods of time. A sort of, ‘Look, if I throw enough resources and controls at it I can do it’.

However, Mother earth’s nature is not just a benign system taking in all and meekly subjecting herself to humanity's will and needs.

Over time immemorial, and in guises as obscure as gaseous explosions of unimaginable force in the outer extremities of the galaxy, to, simple breezes rustling leaves on a balmy summers evening Mother Nature continually mutates. Mother Nature is a highly interactive, flexible and powerful system and instrument of change. She proves and shows to us on a daily basis how fast and adept she is at coping and combating and defeating anything that our brains, never mind our feeble machines and as yet prehistoric computers, can devise or challenge her with.

No. This shiny new machine will not assist in famine. It will not stop Global warming or the destruction of ozone. It can do nothing for the changing weather patterns, the increasing floods or the rising sea levels. Or even the saving of field mice.

The great Mystics and sages throughout time have been, and still are, aware of how superior Mother Natures brain is to our own. Our civilisation has now labelled that brain ‘Chaos’ or the ‘Chaos theory’.

Mother Natures brain, Chaos, is not hampered by having to think, or to do. Chaos just ‘is’. Neither does it have morals or values. There is no problem or attempted avoidance of death and of course there is no time limit, only infinity. Chaos has no greed or vanity, jealousy or hate. Only beauty, vastness beyond comprehension, and the spiritual power of continual evolvement and renewal.

Now I, as a human being am simply a part of that chaos, a part of Mother Nature, no more no less. So are the insects and the field mice. I am in no way superior and in no way have I anything that would remotely pass as an equal intelligence to that of Mother Nature. I grow, like nature, am flexible, like nature, and I survive alongside other individual parts of nature as a whole.

Extinction in nature is commonplace and I am not immune. Indeed the planet is not immune to changing its ‘Natural State’ to one that would not support life as I know it. To Mother Nature that is simply of no consequence, just progression, a change of state, a normal and perfectly sane ‘chaotic’ Happening.

I once listened to a radio program about a man who spent most of the latter part of his life planting acorn seeds by the thousands in an area that was remote and uninhabited due to humanity’s despoiling and deforestation. Many years have passed and the old man long gone. But his simple action is now a forest, with rivers, and wildlife, and communities.

He had figured it out as the sages and mystics also had. He just became a part of Mother Nature. He did no more or no less than Mother Nature herself. He gently fed back into Mother Nature that which earlier humanity had removed. Mother Nature sprouted fresh life and offered back to humanity another small chance to learn a little more about being truly immortal and everlasting.
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There we are. The same still applies. Plant trees. Hmm; yes and maybe but will the insects come back? Who knows.

NB - I missed Tanya on my 'observation' bike walk.

NB - photo - For the 1st time in 8 yrs of fultime moho'ing I open my front windscreen blinds & find myself staring up an inflatable yellow ducks arse!