Picasso Jasper Necklace
Eco Sterling Silver
*Titled inspired by Merlin Sheldrake book of the same name

The more we learn about the natural world, the more we discover its complex, sentient and unified nature. Mycelium networks connecting the entire forest floor, sending information and nutrients between communities of trees, plants and fungal life. Rich ecosystems of symbiotic relationships between species, and in the case of lichen, within one single organism.

We once believed the natural world to be full of unconscious individual entities, but instead, we continue to discover an interconnected web of aid and mutual assistance, a lesson for all of us who grew up in a post-Thatcher world.

We’re not so different either. Although we experience the world through the frame of the individual self, we can’t really be understood to exist as a single organism. We are deeply reliant on the bacteria in our gut, the nutrition we receive from our food, the vitamins we absorb from sunlight and from the oxygen produced by trees. Furthermore, our nervous systems are relaxed by the phytoncides given off by trees, which have been shown to reduce stress and lower blood pressure. Our bodies give us clues as to the kind of environments we need to exist in to nourish our health.

It seems to me that our illnesses, both physiologically and philosophically, come from a disconnection from the natural world we’re enmeshed with. When we understand how truly interconnected we are, then we recognise that our neglect of nature is also a neglect of the self. Contained within our isolated boxes, rabidly consuming the latest technology, we distance ourselves from our ancestral lineage, one in which we walked amongst trees, laid our heads upon the grass and gathered round fires, connecting and sharing with our communities. We are disconnected from nature, our bodies, our instincts and ourselves.

We can’t be guilt-tripped into caring for our environment, shame is never a long-term motivation for change. If we really want to alter our relationship with the natural world, we need to induce experiences of awe, ones in which we directly comprehend our place within the magnitude of Mother Nature. It is only through these experiences that we become incapable of destruction. Understanding our mutual dependence not in an abstract intellectual way, but in a deep and felt knowing of our underlying unity.