environment

Pay close attention to anything. In it you’ll find wonders.

Consider the spider.

We appreciate spiders in our family. A large orb weaver lives just outside the front door. Every night when we take the dogs out before going to bed we pause to appreciate the intricate web she’s rewoven. It has a lot to teach us about strength, symmetry, impermanence and beauty.

I probably shouldn’t admit it, but a spider also hangs out on the ceiling of our pantry. Its continued presence means there are enough insects in the vicinity to keep it fed, which logically means there are that many fewer beasties getting into our potatoes, dry beans, oats and other stored foods. It has a lot to teach us about interdependence. I’m actually cheered to see it up there, a quiet brown chap making a life for itself high above my canning jars.

When we find the occasional spider elsewhere in the house we move it gently outdoors, unless it’s winter in which case we move it to a large potted plant. (I prefer spiders be relocated to basement plants but I suspect my family members free them in more conveniently located houseplants.)

No, our home isn’t teeming with creepy crawlies. It’s the same as your house. We’re all part of an ecosystem beyond our awareness. Our fellow Earth inhabitants proceed with lives of purpose everywhere around us whether we know it or not. As an example, beneficial bacteria reside in your gastrointestinal tract, contributing not only to digestion but overall health. These microbes outnumber the cells in your body 10 to 1, their types varying widely from person to person—perhaps accounting for major differences in weight, energy and wellness.

No amount of clean living sets us apart from the wider ecosystem we’re in.

It’s easier to think of nature as “out there” in the pristine wilderness. But we’re a part of nature every moment. It is air we breathe, plants we eat, birdsong we hear, weather slowing this morning’s traffic, our very cells dividing and yes, that high pitched whine signifying a mosquito is hovering nearby.

Tiny creeping and flying things around us are the creatures we’re most likely to encounter, reminders that we share our ecosystem with others. It’s even possible to notice them with pleasure.

My kids particularly appreciate spiders so we pay closer attention to these creatures. I don’t know much about arachnids, but what I learn through my offspring helps me to see more complexity, beauty and worth that I could have imagined.

I think it’s easier to pay attention when we keep the joyous curiosity we’re born with but it’s possible to recapture it, to expand it into awe at the wonders everywhere around us.

Consider making a nature study of a something nearby. A tree’s lifecycle through the seasons, the activity around a wasp nest in the eaves, the behavior of birds at a feeder. We’ve learned some techniques for the amateur naturalist from Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s wonderful book Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness.

Learn names, proper as well as colloquial. Learn details about habitat, health and interdependence with other life forms.
Have patience. The practice of seeing, really seeing, takes more than time. It also takes cultivated watchfulness.
Respect wildness.
Cultivate an obsession. Let questions unfold into more questions and whenever possible, find a community of fellow enthusiasts.
Keep a notebook. Writing observations and making drawings are wonderfully wider ways to learn.
Maintain a field trip mentality. Keep up your observations wherever you go.
Make time for solitude.
Stand in the lineage. Vital knowledge has been gained by a long history of people no different than you, people who let the world around them teach its wonders to those whose eyes are open.

We live in a time when limited definitions and restrictive boundaries no longer apply.

For example, autism.

People with autism themselves are changing what it means to be “normal.” The wild artist, the radical theorist, the creative scientist have long been held at arm’s length from the rest of us. So have many others who push the boundaries.

Amanda Baggs, who doesn’t speak aloud but does speak through her keyboard, says that autism is a “constant conversation” with one’s surroundings. Ms. Baggs also actively communicates with a network of people around the world through her articles and forum posts. Videos she’s made have been viewed over a million times. Her voice makes a difference.

Which brings me to a powerful new documentary, The Horse Boy (and companion book The Horse Boy: A Memoir of Healing).

It shows the parents of five-year-old Rowan dealing with his tantrums, incontinence and most upsetting to them, their son’s distance. The mother, a psychology professor and the father, a human rights advocate who works with indigenous people around the world, apply diets, therapies, supplements and remarkable patience. Rowan’s screaming outbursts isolate the family. The couple, once world travelers, can barely manage a trip to a nearby park.

Although the father is a life-long equestrian, he keeps his unpredictable son away from horses. But one day Rowan runs to the next door neighbor’s horse. There an old mare reaches her head down and nuzzles the child as if he were her colt. Instinctively the father puts his son on the horse’s back. Rowan relaxes, lies down and talks easily.

A brief experience with a shamanistic healing ceremony that seems to be beneficial stirs Rowan’s parents to wonder where in the world they might find help for their son that pairs horses with shamanism. They end up going all the way to Mongolia.

There they don’t find miracles. But the journey, the horseback riding, the shamanic healing and the wide open landscape precipitates something beyond their understanding. Something happens that has to do with the mystery of autism itself. Although Rowan’s tantrums don’t go away, he also laughs, plays with other children, talks freely and becomes toilet trained. These improvements persist.

Autism is, whatever your perspective, now part of the human experience. According to some studies, the incidence has risen to epidemic proportions of one in every 110 children. That’s a 50% increase from 1994. Other studies say the incidence may be a great deal higher.

This has been linked to heavy metals such as mercury and aluminum exposure, to inflammatory syndrome affecting the gut, to a whole range of interrelated environmental factors which may disproportionately affect people with specific genetic or epigenic factors.

A friend with two sons whose behavior puts them at the low functioning end of the autism spectrum says her boys, with their overt preference for screen-based technology, make her wonder if we’re pushing the envelope of evolution. “This is what more of our next generations will act like,” she tells me. “I’m not saying it’s good or bad. It’s where our choices have led us.”

Rowan’s father said a prayer before a wind-swept shine in Mongolia for all people touched in any way by autism. He asked that it be understood. He asked that the unknown gifts of autism be revealed.

May it be so.

image titled “Autistic” courtesy of Tyora

image titled “People Are Not Puzzles” courtesty of hgmuffin_stuff