A long time ago there was a mystic named Tauler. His mysticism was devoted
to a language describing the unity of nature and living entities in nature.
Since Tauler was writing before the advent of modern ecology, and western
science, in an era exclusively Christian, it is remarkable how much alike
are some of his writings to modern writers like John Muir.
For Tauler, thinking is situated in a high place, the "mount of inward
contemplation" and to arrive there requires a guide. Thinking is like a
mountain when thought thinks about the intrinsic qualities that make
an object unique, or separate from another object. Universal qualities
arising from many similar objects results in purely conceptual works. In
contrast, thinking which is not about the intrinsic in the object, is
instrumental. Much as money has only instrumental value, thinking which is
one and same as the object is intrinsic, and 'divine', or the best part.
Divine
perception, best indications, are reached through perrenial
inspiration/indwelling. Aristotle commented in Metaphysics, book Lambda:
"The intrinsic object of thought is what is intrinsically best, and the
intrinsic object of absolute thought is the absolutely best. And in
apprehending its object of absolute thought is the absolutely best. And in
apprehending its object thought thinks itself. For it too becomes an object
for itself by its contact with, and thinking of, its object, so that the
thought and its object are one and the same."
Absolute is immediate and indeterminant, which unlike science is solely
the act of the subject.
John Muir whose nature mysticism embedded the self within nature,
experienced 'impressions' resembling Leopold's. Muir was trained as a
botanist (but had eclectic interests) not as a cleric.
Muir apparently called mountains 'love temples'. The central definition
regarding mysticism is fairly constant; however mysticism varies in it's
meaning
content, depending on the context of where, when and who is experiencing the
'unitive' life...Mysticism is essentially the philosophy of love (sophia),
or the wisdom of love. The anonymous author of "The Cloud of Unknowing"
wrote that there are two desires: one is to know (noetic), and the other is
to love (eros).
"We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making
every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone
tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an
inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks,
in the waves of the sun, -- a part of all nature, neither old nor young,
sick nor well, but immortal. Just now I can hardly conceive of any bodily
condition dependent on food or breath any more than the ground or the sky.
How glorious a conversion, so complete and wholesome it is."
http://www.portalproductions.com/spiritnature/Muir.htm
Perhaps this citation expresses closely the meaning of 'indwelling' or
'habitation'.
The difficulty with the science of ecology is that it is not possible to
intuit an ecosystem as defined by science. The sensibility required to
intuit (or see) an object which corresponds to an ecosystem is beyond and
above the same intellectual, logical, thinking which is required to uncover
ecological laws, or interpret facts. Ecology is a syncretic science, and it
is regarded as a body of knowledge regarding the 'whole'.
Instrumental measurement of the whole is always an 'indirect' approach
toward definition of the whole. Once the whole is measured and quantified,
it is still incomplete for the subject, and the whole remains one
dimensional.
It is also difficult - if not impossible -to conceptualize an ecosystem...
therefore a simple metaphor is required to
'sense', communicatively what an ecosystem consists of beyond what
can be seen, heard, or touched. The ecosystem concept requires a
representation
derived from 'outside' of itself....
Moses whose admonition to "touch (not) the mountain" perhaps reflects the
preliminary nature of the senses in reaching knowledge regarding an ultimate
truth....
Touching a mountain or touching a tree will only provide the most sensuous
contact possible between an ecosystem and a tree, but touch does not
correspond to any 'thing' a scientist or artist would claim is an
ecosystem, unless there is some sympathy or affinity. The best which science
can achieve
is an approximation, highly symbolic, and general. The specific 'autecology'
of a tree species is a synthesis of many discplines in science (genetics,
evolution, tree physiology, biochemistry, pedology, etc.). Nevertheless the
pantheist senses 'implicitly' some element of the whole which unites all the
separate and inseparable spheres (if you will) together, even though science
looks at the components, separating each according to departmental
pre-requisites. Ecology is therefore a synthesis of scientific accounts of
the separate components, but not an intuition of the object in itself (en
soi), it's intrinsic (look) and total quality. The subjective account is
lacking in the scientific account, therefore the 'mystical' and
'existential' account which is highly subjective in it's account of the
personal unitive experience with Nature as ultimate fact and reference. Roy
Rappaport would term this 'look' the eco-logos, a sort of 'gathering lay' or
that which appears as the dialectical exercise of reasoning. Here reason is
miraculous, because reason re-creates. If for instance the moon is observed
by some to have some psychological power, in that the moon as symbol, as a
material force, is effective in influencing the emotions of primates and the
physiology of trees (which it certainly does), then there is a basis in
ecology to support lunar influences. Human ecology is no different than the
ecology of a tree in principle....in fact a tree is not a single species at
all, but a community. Each of the separate accounts are incomplete accounts
but essential to the description and experience of the whole relationship:
moon/night/wind/tree/wanderer. An island is never an entire representation
of the whole landscape, it is but a fragment, or portion, dependent in part
on other islands and even dependent on continent. The island must receive
it's ecosystem after it's creation from somewhere else. Either it breaks
away with an ecosystem intact or it comes into contact with some portions of
an ecosystem from elsewhere with the assistance of waves, currents, and
winds. The first tree like plant was an island. A tree possesses many types
of symbiotic mychorrizal species. For instance in the boreal forests there
are an estimated 1000 species of mychorrizal symbionts. Trees cannot live
without these symbionts under most conditions (hydroponics excepted), and
trees also require other species, especially the angiosperms whic depend,
obligately on insects and birds and mammal for reproduction. Muir certainly
knew this, as did Leopold...so the category which A. N. Whitehead termed the
category of community (his nascent pantheistic beliefs) was integral to his
interpretation of metaphysics (the science of sciences). It was Aristotle,
the natural philosopher, that worked out the 12 (or so) categories of the
understanding. One of those categories was a triadic reality in all that
exists in creation: "the unity of identity and difference."
For Cartesians, ideas alone are real, and no "thing", not one object can be
proved, apart from it's idea and apart from some authority. In part this is
true, but experience as subjectivity (knowledge through acquaintance for
instance), is alone the most real even if ideas which are not eternal (some
are not eternal)....appear in the stream of consciousness. Dreams do not
appear 'unreal' during their occasioning....Even without an external world,
there would be some reality even it was only associated with the
'presentational immediacy' contained in the dream.
To restate if there was no western, modern account of ecology, then in a
prescientific world view (paleolithic and neolithic) there would still be
the intuition of an object corresponding to the same object that science of
ecology is interested in.
Facts tend to be observeable because of objectification (differentiae), but
to make that which is beyond the simple object of study an object is not
possible except through a different sensibility or understanding. A science
of the Amazons for instance would be a pretty impressive body of knowlege
and require a budget which would be several orders of magnitude greater than
all the money that was spent on both military and space travel combined. And
no one who is a neolithic person living in the Amazon would be any the wiser
or better off....because these people have lived there already for thousands
of years....
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