On my way to Plum Village, I stay at a hotel in Bordeaux. My room is sparsely furnished and decorated; instead there hang on the walls a few drawings of ordinary objects. This makes me think of Becoming Animal, where David Abrams writes about how most humans tend to conceptualize and represent nature instead of perceiving and experiencing it. I ponder the relationship between we humans and nature, reflecting on how many of us barely speak or think about nature with reverence, or cultivate our possibilities for interbeing. We often forget that verbal communication is just one form of expression among many, and that other organisms detect in us nonverbal manifestations such as our chemical emanations and waves of energy.
Many human cultures teach their children to view nature as something to objectify, own, and master; a stock of resources waiting to be utilized. Children are rarely provided with vital information for the health of our planet, or taught to appreciate that “no one is too small to make a difference,” as suggested in the title of Greta Thunberg’s book. Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that the earth is not just a space we occupy.
