The Chaos of Nature
do you wrestle with or dance with unpredictability?
The world is a place that will continually surprise you, a place that will continue to humble you. The best we can do is to learn to move through it with awe, even when things are falling apart….What if the world isn’t a puzzle to be solved, but a mystery to be lived in?
~Lulu Miller
Where I come from, people will tell you, with enormous pride, that they are conservative. When I asked my dad what that means, he said it means “we follow well-tread traditions that come directly from God.”
According to recent academic research by Jeremy D. W. Clifton and Nicholas Kerry, social scientists have historically believed that the primary distinction between conservative and liberal individuals lay in their perception of the world's danger. However, Clifton and Kerry argue that more comprehensive research now suggests the key difference lies in whether people view the world as inherently hierarchical. Conservatives are more inclined to emphasize the importance of boundaries and distinctions between categories, whereas liberals tend to view these boundaries as less rigid or significant.
In other words, the desire to dictate order and certainty can be driven by the fear of chaos and unpredictability.
When I think of categories and concepts in nature, I recall one of my favorite books, Why Fish Don’t Exist, by Lulu Miller, which tells the story of David Starr Jordan, a 19th-century ichthyologist who was one of the first to attempt to classify and name every species of fish. The book delves into his obsession with this project and his larger reflections on the inherent chaos of nature.
Of course, the book isn’t just about fish or the history of taxonomy, it’s about how people wrestle with life’s unpredictability and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of a chaotic world. Lulu challenges the belief that everything can be neatly categorized, suggesting instead that nature is inherently disordered and that the human desire for control over it is lopsided.
Maybe the reason we need compartments and categories is because they make us feel less helpless in the face of a messy world. But that doesn’t mean the world itself can be neatly organized to fit our labels, or that rigid compartments can encompass the complexity of nature and our interconnected place within it.
What do you compartmentalize and does it help you feel safe in a chaotic world?
Last opportunity to win a stay in the tiny cottage!
If you’d like to gift a subscription to Forager Fridays to someone you love for Christmas, click below! A Substack subscription is a ticket to our upcoming artist’s way series.
Thank you for reading Forager Fridays — your support allows me to keep doing this work.
Thank you for being on this journey with me. I am grateful for the gift of your presence. Walking this path, knowing so many of you are walking it too, gives me hope. May we recognize our interbeing, with one another and the anima mundi, supporting each other in growth and recovery, like a mycelial network.
Current Offerings
If you’re in southern California, you’re invited to join me at Storyscapes: A Nature-Inspired Writing Retreat on Sunday, January 5th from 9:30-4. Reconnect with your writing in nature. Storyscapes offers guided inspiration, an intimate community, an art journal, and a colorful, nourishing lunch. Early bird discount ends on December 14. Click here to register.
Artist’s Way group - The Artists’ Way is Julia Cameron’s seminal book on cultivating creativity. There are two main components in her 12-week program: daily Morning Pages (three sheets of unfiltered, anything-goes journaling, written by hand) and weekly Artist’s Dates (solo adventures during which you spend time with your inner artist). Our cohort will convene on Zoom on Saturday, January 4th at 1:00 PT for 12 weeks of self-directed study and guided support. Before the end of December, all paid subscribers will receive a note on how to prepare for our first meeting, as well as the Zoom link for our chats.
Self-care workshop at Claremont Yoga. Deepen your practice with meditation, breath work self-reflection and self-care techniques. Workshop counts for the philosophy and meditation portion of your 200 or 500 hour teacher training program or 25 hours of continuing education for teachers through Yoga Alliance. Or, it’s just a great way to create a personal lifelong toolkit to ground you when your life feels like a mess. Sundays from 1:30-4:00 pm on:
January 12 & 26, February 9 & 23, March 9 & 23 and April 13
Cost: $350 for series. Open to all levels. Attending to our needs is often at the end of our ‘to do’ list. Attention, awareness and action are body intelligences we can learn. This yoga alliance program will incorporate yoga philosophy, pranayama and meditation to help you check in with yourself and develop practices to support you, on and off the mat. Our time together, and the time you commit to yourself between sessions, will help you cultivate your personal wellness and wisdom. For more information about this workshop or Claremont YOGA’s 200 Hour Teacher Training Program, email studio@claremontyoga.com or click here to register for the workshop.Become an annual subscriber by December 14 for an opportunity to schedule a stay in the tiny cottage, yourself, or gift to a friend on a date of your/their choice. Book for any time in 2025.
This was brilliant. Thank you!
My time spent doing Sudoko has increased tenfold since the election. I devour all three levels of the NYT Sudokus as soon as they come available and then head to those in the LA Times. I often chide myself. What a waste of time, but alas, it is soothing.