The difficulty with nature-based spirituality is that nature isn’t always nice. It’s not all beautiful sunsets and pretty flowers. I blogged recently about how the otters have eaten the ducks locally.

It’s all too easy to tip into a survival of the fittest, nature red in tooth and claw kind of take and end up feeling that might is right, along with all the horrors that brings.

Nature of course is complicated and nuanced and vastly diverse. Existence is messy. Nature doesn’t reliably condense down into simple messages, but it does encourage us to accept complexity and avoid simplistic takes on things.

Nature can be especially challenging when we’re thinking about our own bodies. To what degree do we want to accept or resist natural processes? It is perfectly natural to want to stay alive, but at some point, the pursuit of life at all costs will result in something hideous, where death would be a blessing.

To what degree do we see overcoming nature in our own bodies as important? Suppressing natural human-ness is often seen as more civilized and professional. But, keep holding those farts in and you can damage your appendix. There’s a story about a gentleman who actually exploded… 

We ignore nature in our own bodies at our peril. We can’t triumph over body-nature forever – there’s only so hard you can push, only so much you can do without. Our minds and bodies break, sooner or later. We’re better off if we’re allowed to live in gentler ways. We’re better off if we are allowed to respect nature as it manifests in our bodies rather than constantly fighting to suppress it and overcome it.

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