We are living in a time of deep uncertainty. The guardrails are off the federal government and we have no idea what will happen next to our wild places, our universities, our economy, our healthcare, our food systems, global pandemics, international allies and our day-to-day lives. On March 18th, 2020, a friend and I awaited word of a statewide shutdown due to COVID-19 at his home in Sebastopol. I looked out at his overgrown backyard and pointed out, "Almost everything in your yard is edible. Just in case." It was an overgrown, mineral-rich salad bowl of Miner's lettuce and stinging nettles, sorrel and chickweed, milk thistle and fennel. When people feared going to the grocery store to avoid the dreaded virus, I found comfort in the fact that I could head into the hills or to the shoreline for my food. However, more valuable than the edibles was to spend time in nature.
Creative destruction in nature is expressed through fires and storms. While they may cause immense devastation in their aftermath, they eventually bring renewal. Nature also brings the constants of seasons and cycles of tides and moons, sun and rain, and growth and decline that set the rhythms of our lives. We are on diurnal cycles - our days match the 24 hour rotation of the earth. Our circadian rhythms sync with the rising of the sun and gathering of stars and planets after it sets. Our deeper truths are connected to nature, not politics. One perspective that might help quell despair and stress at on what is happening right now is that creative destruction is inherent in capitalism. "Creative Destruction" was coined by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. He described it as “the perennial gale of creative destruction.” Lost jobs, destroyed businesses and vanishing industries are part of this cycle. Technology has changed us at a bionic pace. One goal of Musk and DOGE is to replace the human workforce with AI and robots. And then move to Mars when the earth is destroyed.
Which is underway as the current administration accelerates climate change and opens federal lands to drilling and logging. However, in this time of disruption and crisis, we can start to envision and plan a better world to rise up from the ashes. One that protects and enhances our ecosystems. The earth teaches us how to do this.
When I was hiking at the beautiful Camp Earnest, I found leaves intricately cut with designs, as if a vector design executed with a laser cutter. I learned these were from cutter beetles. I had once been told that these selectively chewed on leaves signaled to beavers which trees are weakest and should be felled for their dams. Beaver dams raise water levels and keep water flowing in drought times. They engineer rivers to the benefit of so many species, including wild salmon. Juvenile salmon rest and feed in the cool, protected ponds made by beavers. Salmon provide food for over 500 other species on their migrations from fry to fully grown, fresh water to the ocean. Their bodies decompose after they die and fertilize the river bottom. When bears, osprey, eagles and racoons carry them off into the woods, the salmon carcasses fertilize the trees with minerals from the sea. These trees shade the streams and provide fodder for beaver dams. This is only one small story that makes up the brilliance of nature. So let's not only protect our natural world, but learn from it how to build a new, better world that benefits all creatures on planet earth. And you can start with foraging wild foods.
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