Biophilia, by Des Fitzgerald

“Modern Man” is a recent construct. The Human species has spent the vast majority of its evolutionary existence living as a wild or nearly wild animal in the outdoors. For millennia we lived afraid of nature’s darkness and its predators, in reverence to its power and magnitude and sustained by its bounty and sheer beauty. We have lived away from the tree tops, caves and our nomadic hovels for only a very brief recent period. By some estimates only the last 1% of our evolutionary existence. It is no wonder that there is this cellular and behavioral memory of life outdoors that we cannot let go of and would do so only at our own peril.

This innate and cellular connection with nature, imprinted over thousands of years living in it, still resides within us. E.O. Wilson, the famous Harvard entomologist and originator of the term Biodiversity, calls this timeless and boundary-less human connection to the outdoors, “Biophilia.” For many people, moments in nature are relaxing, restorative, even healing. For others, they’re dramatic entertainment and escape. All together, they’re humbling reminders of a world and a rhythm that’s bigger and older than us.

Biophilia helps to explain why we suburbanites expend so much energy recreating the best of the protective viewscapes that once surrounded us as a savannah and now stretch to the perimeter of our yard as a lawn. Why many of us keep pets, bring flowers to the sick and vacation in the country. The elements of nature that restored and replenished us are what we still seek out even in the midst of this rapidly technological urbanized world.

I remember a college application essay that my oldest son wrote when asked the proverbial transformative life experience question. My son recalled a moment at night on solo on a small Bahamian beach when an electric storm raged overhead and he cowered alone wet and terrified under its force. I realized that was why we, as parents, asked him to go there. It was our hope that in the simplification of nature’s presence he could learn life lessons. To be humble, to witness the majesty of life and to endure past the point of challenge.

Richard Louv in his groundbreaking book entitled, “Last Child in the Woods” very clearly argues that a disconnection from the outdoors for our children is rapidly resulting in a generation limited in its ability to be imaginative and experience the restorative pace of the outdoors. His subtitle for the book says it all, “Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder”. In the midst of all this dazzling technology of today the need grows even greater for our children and for us to maintain connection to nature and the intimacy of its lessons.

Wilson’s “Biophila Hypothesis” book begins with a poem called “Prayer” written by Joseph Bruchac a wonderful American amalgam of part Abenaki and part Czech.

Let my words
be bright with animals
images the flash of a gull’s wing.
If we pretend
that we are at the center,
that moles and kingfishers,
eels and coyotes
are at the edge of grace,
then we circle, dead moons
about a cold sun.

-- Des Fitzgerald