Priscilla Frake

Though much is made of Darwin’s thesis that competition is what fuels evolution and selection, it is not the only strategy that operates in the complex systems of the natural world. Many plants thrive and develop through cooperation— with each other and with insects and animals, including humans. Through this cooperation, which in the human world we would label as generosity, plants give us everything: food, building materials, fuel, even the oxygen we breathe and the beauty that refreshes us. I believe we have forgotten that this relationship is mutually interdependent, and that we have a vital part in maintaining it. At least we should cultivate a feeling of gratitude for all we have been given.

We’ve brought ourselves to the brink of disaster through the assumption we are somehow separate from and superior to nature and can use or exploit it as we wish. Though we sometimes admit we’ve made mistakes, we assume we can correct them without pain or sacrifice and with relatively simple solutions. We seldom admit how little we know. Perhaps the best tool to rectify our current attitude of alienation and entitlement is to reimagine how we connect with plants and animals, including a recognition of the ways they are our benefactors and teachers. What if we talked to the things we ignore and despise— the dirt beneath our feet, the weeds that sprout so exuberantly every spring? What would we learn?