Ecological Intelligence Read Online Free

relationship with the Earth. But where to look? I would like to recommend that we look in two directions, one to Africa itself and to the image and legend of one of her great trees, the Ziziphus mucronata , and the other to ancient Greece and to the great mythological oracle at Delphi—Apollo. Choose which one you prefer. I will show that they share the same message, that they are urgent, and that their admonitions are the script for an intelligence that is ecological.
    Central to the folklore of the Nguni people of southern Africa is the Ziziphus mucronata . They call it the tree of life. At any time in the year you will find on this tree a combination of green, yellow, and brown leaves—the phases of youth, adulthood, and old age. It is a hardy tree.In times of drought, when grazing and browsing is scarce, the leaves on this tree remain resiliently intact. Its nutritionally rich foliage becomes the emergency food for antelopes and elephants, as well as for humans, who mix the leaf pulp with water as a thirst quencher. In hard times, even lions have been seen browsing upon its leaves.
    A striking feature of the ziziphus is its thorns. Appearing as a double row, they are spaced along the length of every branch in pairs, each thorn directly opposite the other. But it is the shape of the paired thorns that is intriguing. One of the pair points robustly outward and forward while the other curves back and inward in the opposite direction. The Nguni legend says the thorns tell us something about ourselves—that we must look ahead, to the future…but we must never forget where we have come from.
    I n the image of the backward-hooking thorn of the ziziphus is the explanation of the Human-Nature split—we have forgotten our animal past. It is therefore the direction of our healing. By all means look ahead, keep moving, follow your dreams, but never forget your roots. Together the thorns say yes and no. They are poetic. One row points toward the future and to what we might become, the other toward the Earth and our origins. They represent the push of the human spirit on the one hand, the pull of soul on the other; the wings of psychology in one direction, the roots of our biology in the other. They are complementary opposites. They hold the tension between science and non-science, between subject and object, and it is crucial that we hold that tension, for within it is the definition of an ecological intelligence.
    A nd then there is Apollo, the great mythological oracle of ancient Greece. Apollo was the Homeric god of prophecy, medicine, and culture—the embodiment of the poet, the naturalist, and the scientist in all of us. His twin sister was the fabulous goddess of the wild, Artemis. Separate, yet inseparable, they anticipated each other. Apollo proposed three fundamental requirements for rediscovering our place in Nature:
    Know thyself.
    Do no thing in excess.
    Honor the gods.
    “Remember where you have come from,” says the Nguni legend; “Know thyself,” said Apollo.
    “The thorns are paired…keep the balance,” says the African legend; “Do no thing in excess,” said Apollo.
    “Honor the ancestors,” say the Nguni; “Honor the gods,” said Apollo.
    When examined carefully, it will become evident that these admonitions are not as easy to follow as they might look. For a start, there is a definite order to them. To know thyself comes first. It anticipates the other two. It is a prerequisite for a greater awareness of the dynamics of balance and excess and of the nature of the “gods” within oneself.
    The first admonition, to know thyself, is the big one. It is to remember where we have come from. It is to deepen our awareness of human origins, of species interdependence, and of the transient nature of all things. To live this admonition is not going to be easy, and the reason for this is that we will have to confront our own nature first. “To confront human nature is to confront the absurd,” says French