of change was sweeping the world in a wave of post-war Modernism, and that created a new age of radical experimentation in every major field of human endeavour. By the 1960s the industrialized countries were well on their way to creating what many imagined would be a limitless Age of Convenience. For those who found themselves riding the juggernaut, life became more comfortable, less painful, and lasted longer.
I remember that period in the 1960s only too well and even as a teenager I felt deeply disturbed by what seemed to have become a dangerously short-sighted approach. I could not help feeling that in whichever field these changes were taking hold, with industrialized techniques replacing traditional practices, something very precious was being lost. In many cases it was not so much being lost as wilfully destroyed. I also recall the gleeful, fashionable cries of ‘God is dead’, perhaps the epitome of this short-sightedness. It certainly offered an early clue as to what had happened to our collective view of the natural world.
Such was the dogma of the day that when eventually, in the 1970s, I began to raise these concerns publicly, I had to face an avalanche of criticism that was nearly all based on a very basic misunderstanding. Most critics imagined that I somehow wanted to turn the clock back to some mythical Golden Age when all was a perfect rural idyll. But nothing could be further from the truth.
My concern from the very start was that Western culture was accelerating away from values and a perspective that had, up until then, been embedded in its traditional roots. The industrialization of life was becoming comprehensive and Nature had become ‘secularized’. I could see very clearly that we were growing numb to the sacred presence that all traditional societies still feel very deeply. In the West that sense of the sacred was one of the values that had stood the test of time and had helped to guide countless generations to understand the significance of Nature’s processes and to live by her cyclical economy. But, like the children who followed the Pied Piper, it was as if our beguiling machines, not to say four centuries of increasingly being dependent upon a very narrow form of scientific rationalism, had led us along a new but dangerously unknown road – and a dance that has been so merry that we failed to notice how far we were being taken from our rightful home. The net result was that our culture seemed to be paying less and less heed to what had always been understood about the way Nature worked and the limits of her benevolence, and to how, as a consequence, the subtle balance in many areas of human endeavour was being destroyed. What I could see then was that without those traditional ‘anchors’ our civilization would find itself in an increasingly difficult and exposed position. And, regrettably, that is what has happened.
This is why, ever since those disturbing days, I have expended vast amounts of energy to help save what remains of those traditional approaches. I knew they would be needed for a ‘rainy day’ which I fear is now close by. However, back then I realized that what mattered was to prove their worth. It was no use arguing about the theory or trying to persuade people that so many of these traditional ways are rooted in a deep-seated ancient, philosophical outlook. That would have to come later, when the world was more sensitive to what had so swiftly been consigned to the shadows. No, the point was to emphasize the principles of harmony that we had lost sight of. I wanted to do this in a contemporary way – to find as many ways as possible of reintegrating traditional wisdom with the best of what we can do now so as to demonstrate how we might make this age fit for a sustainable future.
It is probably inevitable that if you challenge the bastions of conventional thinking you will find yourself accused of naivety. And all the more so if you challenge the current world view in all of the important areas of human activity – in agriculture and architecture, education, healthcare, in science, business, and economics. In those early years I was described as old-fashioned, out of touch and anti-science; a dreamer in a modern world that clearly thought itself too sophisticated for ‘obsolete’ ideas and techniques, but I could see the stakes were already far too high in all of these areas. Even back at the end of the ‘swinging sixties’ the damage was showing through, and I felt it my duty to warn of the consequences of ignoring Nature’s intrinsic tendency towards harmony and balance before it was all too late. What spurred me on was an essential fact of life, an undeniable law: that if we ignore Nature, everything starts to unravel. This is why, from the very beginning, I kept pointing out that it is vital we seek ways of putting Nature back in her rightful place – that is, at the centre of things, and that includes in our imagination as well as in the way we do things.
So what are these timeless ‘principles’? Fashions may change, ideologies may come and go, but what remains certain is that Nature works as she has always done, according to principles that we are all familiar with. Nutrients in soils are recycled, rain is generated by forests, and life is sustained by the annual cycles of death and rebirth. Every dead animal becomes food for other organisms. Rotting and decaying twigs and leaves enrich soils and enable plants to grow, while animal waste is processed by microbes and fungi that transform it into yet more vital nutrients. And so Nature replaces and replenishes herself in a completely efficient manner, all without creating great piles of waste.
This entire magical process is achieved through cycles. We all know how the seasons follow one another, but there are many more cycles within those overarching ones and so many of them are interrelated so that the life cycles of many animals and plants dovetail with one another to keep the bigger cycles moving. For instance, in Spring some songbirds time the hatching of their eggs to coincide with a population explosion in the caterpillars that they feed to their chicks. Built into these many cycles are self-correcting checks and balances whereby the relationships between predators and prey, the rate of tree growth, and the replenishment of soil fertility are all subject to factors that facilitate orderly change and progress through the seasons and keep everything in balance. No single aspect of the natural world runs out of proportion with the others – or at least not for long.
What is more, Nature embraces diversity. The health of each element is enhanced by there being great diversity or, as is now commonly called today, ‘biological diversity’ or ‘biodiversity’ for short. The result is a complex web made up of many forms of life. For this web to work best there is a tendency towards variety and away from uniformity and, crucially, no one element can survive for long in isolation. There is a deep mutual interdependence within the system which is active at all levels, sustaining the individual components so that the great diversity of life can flourish within the controlling limits of the whole. In this way, Nature is rooted in wholeness.
There is one other principle or quality I would draw attention to. I will refer to it a lot throughout this book because, in my view, it is extremely important. It is the quality of beauty, which has inspired countless generations of artists and craftsmen. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, it is said, but I have always felt that, because people are as much a part of the whole system of life as every other living thing and because beauty is to be found in the fabric of all that we are, the truth is the other way around. Our ability to see beauty in Nature is entirely consequential on our being a part of Nature Herself. In other words, Nature is the source, not us. In this way, if we do not value beauty then we ignore a vital ingredient in the well-being of the world. This is just as important to recognize as the other elements in my proposition because none of us can survive for very long if the underlying well-being of the planet is destroyed.
Late Spider Orchid. This rare plant flowers in England during June and July.
I find that the world view which prevails today in Western societies, and in an increasing number of others who are following its flawed logic, pursues priorities that are almost diametrically opposite to those I have just described. There is an emphasis on linear thinking rather than seeing the world in terms of cycles, loops and systems, and the intention is to master Nature and control her, rather than act in partnership. Our ambition is to seek ever more specialized knowledge rather than take a broad or ‘whole-istic’ view. Nearly all we do generates masses of waste almost as if it is an automatic consequence of how we have to live. Monocultures of crops, of brands, and ideas have come to dominate and crush diversity in our farming, in our culture –