Natural Science as Metaphor

The more I learn about the world around me, the more I learn about myself.
It is empowering to have and share knowledge about our surroundings and really, an understanding of earth science can help us survive, live more comfortably and find creative solutions to any of the problems we are faced with on a physical level.
But what can deepening our understanding of the natural sciences do for us spiritually or emotionally?
Transferring our knowledge of earth science into metaphor can help us understand ourselves better. For instance, when I first learned about the Walking Palm tree (Socratea exorrhiza) its story immediately resonated with me. The Walking Palm is able to send out new roots and let older ones die off, allowing the tree to move across the forest floor- A Rooted Nomad!
Learning about this adaptation of the Walking Palm immediately put me at ease. I had always felt that I had to choose between sinking down roots and wandering nomadic, but now understood what perhaps I had always suspected, I was in fact a rooted nomad and I was not alone!
My friend tells me that learning about the mineral Azurite's sensitivity to sunlight helped him understand his own delicate balance. Azurite is a beautiful blue stone with many healing properties. However, if it is left in the sun too long it's color will fade and it will no longer have a deep rich cerulean hue to share with us. Removing the stone from the ground where it was created does have benefit to us but if we overexpose the fragile stone, it can lose this beauty. My friend shared with me this metaphor of being gentle with himself, sharing his gifts at the right moments and not overexposing himself to the very elements that make him shine.
These are just two examples, neither necessarily sought out as knowledge to help us understand ourselves, but simple curiosity about the world around us that led to deeper, metaphoric, personal meaning. For this reason I really advocate teaching our knowledge of the natural sciences, at any age. You never know what seeds will be planted by sharing what we know!

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Haiku

Haiku can be a wonderful tool to explore our relationship with the natural world. These short, simple poems are a form of meditation that helps focus our senses. I like to take a moment every day to compose a haiku. This practice helps keep me in touch with my level of engagement with the natural world and ensures that I do get out and connect with the web of life in some way every day. Haiku also helps to deepen my experiences by engaging all my senses and allowing me to slow down and really notice and appreciate small details in my surroundings. This is an especially wonderful practice to help create a deep, meaningful connection to nature when we are short on time!

Sometimes I will write my haiku first thing in the morning and it really sets the tone for the day, tuning all my senses in to exploring the day outside of me, and my human bubble. I usually compose the haiku in one spot, walking until I get a feeling or something catches my eye and I just stop and observe that place for a while and come up with language to describe the moment. The format for Haiku in English is usually three lines, the first and last having five syllables and the middle line containing seven syllables. Because haiku are so short and structured, they allow us the freedom to express great meaning in a small package, children and adults with short attention spans can benefit from this meditation with a definitive end.

Although I don't always have the chance to, I like to write them down because rereading a haiku will bring back so much sensory detail for me that it I can recall other events from the day in addition the the feeling of being there in that moment. An important part of my haiku meditation is non-judgement. I just try to describe the moment as accurately as possible within the haiku format, sometimes writing several haiku, sometime struggling to finish just one. When I reread them, some hold so much meaning for me even if I did not realize they would when I wrote them down. Still, there are others that I am not incredibly moved by when I reread them months later, but it was important for the day it was written, in this case the emphasis is on process, not product.

Please share if you are inspired by haiku! the tiny droplet of water that reflects the world!