The power of nature is immense. It challenges the human belief that we are in charge and control the destiny of creation. It challenges the basic tenets that have emerged in the last 500 years that places humanity at the center of all creation. It challenges the idea that all was created for our benefit and happiness. In fact, it challenges the notion that we are somehow outside of nature because of our “divine likeness.” In the face of all of these pretensions is the fact of the Dungeness Spit!
The Dungeness Spit is a narrow strip of sand that extends nearly seven miles into the Juan de Fuca Strait on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. The spit encloses Dungeness Bay which gave its name to the Pacific crab of the same name. A British Explorer, George Vancouver, gave the Spit its name because it reminded him of the Dungeness Headland on the English Channel. What you see in the image is the sand that has washed away from a tall headland to the left. The years have allowed this sand to extend further and further. The Spit has been destroyed many times, but the natural currents (wind, beach, and water) keep rebuilding it. The waves from the Pacific currents continue to undercut the headland and move the sand onto the Spit where the wind blows across the existing sand depositing it on the leeward side. It grows wider and lengthens, extending until the forces that create it finally play out. It is not only beautiful to behold (even when the sky is filled with smoke from Northwest forest fires}, but more importantly, for the purposes of this blog, it is resilient and life-giving to the creatures that live on and behind it in the bay that it creates and sustains.
We have no power over the forces that created the Dungeness Spit. It was shaped by forces far beyond our control. It will linger along the coast of the Juan de Fuca as long as the wind blows, the headlands exist, and the waves wash ashore. This Spit reveals just how shallow our beliefs and pretensions are regarding our place in creation. We cannot destroy the Spit. We can destroy ourselves. But the Spit and the rest of created order is safe from our foolish beliefs and ways.
Humanity can alter the natural world. We can work with it or against it. We can cause it to adapt to our polluted lifestyles. We can force it to find new ways to live with our greedy consumption of its resources. We can kill off species and alter the terrain in a localized area. We can even unleash deadly toxins that can sweep around the earth, wreaking havoc of life everywhere. But we cannot destroy nature. It will find a way, with or without us.
We are not central to the natural forces that operate in the Universe. We are a peripheral power that grasps for influence over our little space. There are far greater powers at work, and we would do well to recognize and respect them.
Balance – In mathematics, balancing values makes the natural order possible. If something moves, something else must make way for it both in front, behind, above and below. Since nature is a closed system (as far as we know) matter and energy are not created ex nihilo, out of nothing. They come from something and decompose into something. It is this change that creates the dynamism that we call life. Unfortunately, by claiming sentience, we have come to believe that we are the sole conservators of life. But in fact, we are just part of the flow of matter and energy through creation. Nothing more than a little trickle in the grand landscape of the universe.
Time – While many folks see time as a human creation because we cleverly started measuring it with the sun, time exists far beyond the reach of human capacities. We cannot make time stand still. We cannot speed it up or slow it down. Time is the flow of change that is governed by its own powers. Time is like a wave. We can ride it for a while and feel have some control. But then, that wave slips away, and the next wave washes over us. Time and the changes that it brings, moves through our present moment. It forces us to face new circumstances and situations in the tangle of causes and effects that exist like seaweed in a tidal surf. We cannot master time. We cannot control time. We can only respect it and find ways to adapt our lives to making the best of it.
Love – Unfortunately, too many humans believe that they create love. They believe that love is the exclusive realm of the human spirit. Nature, in many of our minds, is incapable of love. Nature, for too many, is a place where self-interest is primary. Love, concern for and acting on behalf of the other, is only possible for enlightened beings. But nature knows far more about concern for the others than many humans. If the wolf pack lingers too long in a valley, the food will decline, and the pack will starve. It is likely true that the wolf does not make these calculations with reason. Rather, time has helped the wolf learn the lessons of love, the inextricable link between self-interest and concern for the other.
Love recognizes that we are all bound together in something far greater than ourselves. It allows us to celebrate and find joy by participating in that “greater living.” Love is a function of nature at work through the forces of balance and time. It is not our creation and we are as subject to it as the wolves hunting in a valley. We deny it to our peril. Further, our reason will not help us to grow in love. We will grow only when we experience and grow through the lessons that balance and time have for us. The lessons of interconnectedness and interdependence.
I find great comfort in knowing that the Dungeness Spit will likely be there long after we have left the scene. Eternity only exists in nature. But even this does not guarantee that what we see in this age will exit in the next. But something will exist. It is beyond our imagining and control. All we can do is accept out place in this moment and do the best we can to cooperate with a natural world that is controlled by balance, time, and love. We have no greater calling than to be a health-giving part of the natural order of things in our time and place.
Bob