Life is a mess.
I feel as if I am constantly cleaning, tidying and organising - trying to bring order to chaos when chaos may actually be the nature of things. Having a teen daughter living with me simply helps to emphasise that. Being single, I do everything of course. Work, hobbies like writing this and then cleaning, washing, cooking, everything except ironing - I refuse to iron and that is that. I try to tackle things a little at a time so I will clean the bathroom one weekday morning, the toilet the next, change bedding another morning and so on. But it does seem to me that the natural order of things is chaos and mess.
This made me think a bit that nature seems to have it down pat right? Barring human involvement, the planet self-regulates. The natural order is well, equilibrium or balance. I would even argue that humanity plays a role in this equilibrium - or should do anyway. Forest fires destroy old and dried up materials and leave a landscape open to starting anew even with ash nutrients to help it along. Pretty soon, the landscape is restored to a green, fresh and vibrant state. Living and dying is a natural cycle that reinvigorates and restores balance. Have you noticed that each season has its own balance and that over the cycle of a year there is a bigger balance?
It’s no wonder that our ancestors worshipped aspects of nature personified as the gods. They saw the miracle of life, natural law and cycles to attain balance in action. They adapted to and worked within those natural cycles often harnessing the very forces of nature to help them live better lives. They watched, learned and adapted to the cycles and harmonies of the planet. They understood the forces at work - knew that there too was a balance in that the very forces that threatened life also sustained them - balance was on a knife’s edge and could work against them at any time so best to try to placate those forces with worship and even sacrifice.
Most of humanity has largely forgotten those gods - those natural forces and how they work. Most of humanity has even forgotten how dangerous those forces can be. We are increasingly isolated from nature by technology and ideas that somehow we are larger and more powerful than nature herself. The connection with our planet is increasingly being lost - deliberately - and in the process we are dabbling and interfering in things like weather, genetics, the basic order of things - we are bringing chaos to a natural order. For me, I think there are consequences to be had for this. Natural order will have its way and I believe that humanity will discover that nature is more powerful than humanity despite humanity’s cleverness.
When I walk through the forests alone with my dowsing rod in hand, I enter a magical world with forces at play that despite all of our intellect and supposed knowledge, we know little about. Some will deny the existence of these forces at all and feel themselves superior and clever. For me, they are simply smug idiots creating chaos in a system dedicated to establishing order. And when you become the chaotic in a system dedicated to order, you become the problem for the system to resolve. Natural law will have its way.
I sometimes feel as if I am a sort of microcosm of nature herself with my systems and approaches to bringing order to the chaos of my apartment. My cycles that are designed to restore balance. And when my daughter creates too much chaos and mess or doesn’t play her role in those cycles, she gets punished. Restrictions are placed on her activities or her pocket money is docked.
You get my drift?