The planet has finally grown its own nervous system: us.
Daniel Dennett, We Earth Neurons (1999)
After a few months living in the woods, I reflect on what elements of this regenerative lifestyle brought the most joy and balance to my life. In my previous newsletter edition, I shared a few thoughts on how our way of life is possibly our most powerful statement in the face of today’s complexities and injustices.
I’ve been incredibly lucky to spend most of the past three months living in full contact with nature. Literally, immersed in her.
One of the insights that keeps crystallising in my heart is how the closer the connection to the elements and the bounty of the earth, the more simple joy and tranquility shines in our daily lives. For instance, most of the cooking I enjoyed throughout the past months was powered by woodfire. And the wood that went into the cooking stove was either picked and broken by hand in the woods, or cut with an electric chainsaw and axe. The energy stored in the wood, gathered through years of tree growth fueled by sunshine, water and soil nutrients, released by fire in the stove, cooked my food. In a way, I was fed cooked food by the woods.
Granted, this required a significant “investment” of time and energy from my end, but both the picking and cutting of the wood, and feeding it to the fire became an integral part in the act of cooking, one that connected me daily to the reality of food as a process fueled by fire. Cooked food is thanks to fire. As a result, I feel gratitude for being able to touch and enact deeper layers of the everyday act of feeding - joy that was then conferred and shared with anyone gathering around that hearth. And that led me to ponder about the role of food, and cooking, in modern society. A relationship we have largely been untethered from in modern cities. And so, I feel inspired to think about the role of this connection in how we define human life itself - a definition very much at stake in the technological post-truth world we are living, seeing the consequences of radically opposed worldviews feeding on separation, fear and scarcity mindsets. So, is there a right or wrong way to live? How are humans’ biology meant to thrive within modern paradigms? How can we make the invisible and sine qua non processes (like the fire warmly burning in my stove), visible?
The biosphere may be regarded as a region of transformers that convert cosmic radiations into active energy in electrical, chemical, mechanical, thermal, and other forms. Radiations from all stars enter the biosphere, but we catch and perceive only an insignificant part of the total; this comes almost exclusively from the sun . - Vladimir I. Vernadsky -
According to Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third phase of development of the Earth, after the biosphere, i.e. all life on earth, and the geosphere - inanimate matter, minerals, water, gases. While the emergence of life has largely transformed the geosphere already, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere. So much so, we are now living a new geological era - the Anthropocene. And while the biosphere was shaped by natural forces powered mainly by the solar energy captured through photosynthesis by plants and algae through eons, this idea of noosphere suggests that from now on, evolution is up to humans and what we do with that energy.
If we are to take Daniel Dennett’s metaphor a bit further, as individual neurons - disposable yet indispensable - we form networks and patterns that are prone to shape-shifting. Just like a human brain, our human society is malleable, it has plasticity. The way the mind—your mind—works and interacts with the world, be it through your voice, presence, or actions, has an immediate effect on those around you. Touched, they too can shape others around them. With practice, patterns change and evolve to create new, more appropriate ones, as long as they are tuned to the success of the whole and not just the individual neurons, or clusters of neurons. Yet, if our mindset is, say, pessimistic, wasting significant energy and resources for no collective benefit, we may indeed be acting against the collective evolution of all humans, and all life on Earth.
You may be surprised at reading these words, and wondering where I get these ideas - writing about some of the forces that drive life on Earth, isn’t this guy supposed to be a chef? I saw him on Netflix 😳 - well, that is a glimpse of the book I am writing. (YES! Yes, my intention met action over the summer).
As you can read above, there is something so universal to the feeling that inspires the title and form of the book, that I have to write outside of my comfort zone (not that I feel comfortable in any kitchen apart from the one in that treehouse, tbh) in order to grasp the bigger picture I am convinced we are able to paint if we bring food back at the centre of our lives…
The links, invitations and content you see below are the current applied wisdom I am able to share and orient you—curious mind, reading this far—to. An intention to share more mindful ways of eating, consuming, relating to the pleasures of life, and celebrating the gift of being alive. That is the invitation, once again, with the content you can access through this newsletter.
Never underestimate the power of the individual, and coordinated neurons who, in time, can draw better patterns for the whole. Our future depends on what the collective mind makes of the abundance bestowed on our species.
Wishing you a beautiful, consciously delicious, end of year 2021…
CxM.
