The coherence of nature

Yesterday, I fled from grey-streaked office windows into the deeps of Schneider's woods. There's a marvellous tract of forest and field, not very far from the university. You have to know it's there to find it. It's at the end of a long, dirt road. There are no signs, per se, other than the ones that warn off dirt bikes, joggers, dogs, and hunters. The land is privately owned and purposefully left unspoiled for the pleasure of walkers in the summer and cross-country skiiers in the winter. I've known about these woods for years, but only visited once before. When I leapt away from my computer yesterday, I knew that was where I wanted to go, but wasn't sure I would be able to find it. With nothing more than a rough compass direction in my head, I set off through winding country roads. I was there in less than ten minutes. You'd have to know what a hopeless navigator I am to appreciate how remarkable this is.

I ditched the car at the side of the road and staggered into the woods through grass higher than my head. You could make out the remnants of a trail running beside a small pond, but it's pretty clear that these woods are not visited often in the summer. I was surprised and delighted by how quickly the sounds and sights of civilization melted away, leaving me in the company of an orchestra of natural sounds -- the wind in the trees, the calls of a dozen different birds, a cacophony of insects buzzing around my head. It didn't take long for me to fall back into that wonderful state of unfocused attention in which my awareness went from one stimulus to another with an unmeasured ease. It does seem to be true. Like mindfulness meditation, once experienced, these reflective states are a little easier to find on the next voyage. What struck me this time was how well everything that was happening fit together. With minimal intercession from human beings (the main one here being a continued effort to keep the developers at bay), nature builds perfectly interlocking systems and cycles. But this isn't really the surprising part. What surprised me was that when you stop thinking and just watch, listen, feel and smell, it becomes obvious that this is what is going on. You don't need to read a textbook on ecology to feel it in your bones. A sound draws your attention to a branch of a tree, which points to a contour in a field full of wildflowers, from which your awareness is lifted by a pair of dueling butterflies. Everything fits together, building to a powerful resonance that, for now at least, staves off the worst effects of the encroachment of human development. It encouraged me that, with a little bit of help from us, nature has the power to seize hold of even tiny specks of wilderness like this and make them work as they should.

As I left the woods, I could make out the distant roar of bulldozers. The city fears that our steady influx of knowledge workers will slow unless we find places to put new McMansions into which they can pour their earnings. So the weak zoning laws that have protected this region are being softened, blow by blow, like a thousand tiny kidney punches rained down on a flabby opponent by a skilled boxer. The Schneiders have said that if too many suburbs come to dwell here, they will close access to their woods. They're not willing to watch this beautiful buzzing ecosystem degenerate into yet one more suburban dog poo park.