REBIRTH
Most of us could use a rebirth. Not the kind sold by TV evangelists, but more like the kind that John Muir urged people to strive for. Most of us in the “developed” world have become more or less out of touch with nature. Many of our political leaders, and the corporate barons who work the strings from off-stage, live and operate in a mindset that is almost totally divorced from the things that mattered most to John Muir.
One way to begin thinking about these issues of estrangement from nature and how we might begin to reconnect with nature would be to read the new book Overstory by the gifted author Richard Powers. The writing is highly creative. It is not a page-turner, but rather a book to be slowly savored for what good writing can accomplish. It is not a how-to book, but it certainly gets one thinking about nature, life, humans and their interactions.
Let’s face it: currently the human species is not on a good path. Something is desperately needed to awaken us from koyaanisquatsi (life out of balance; a state of life that calls for another way of living). Overstory may help us to see things from a different perspective than the one we are bombarded with in our daily lives. Reading one book is not going to suddenly enlighten us or change the world, but it is a reasonable start.