Dan Botkin has an important message for all of us this Christmas season – get back to Nature.
AN ECOLOGY OF CHRISTMAS. As our nation, and most of the world, continues on this strange angry, divisive, and dangerous path, I would like to consider what I call an ecology of Christmas, with the hope that it might help us understand what forces ‐‐ human motivation and beliefs, and modern technology and science — may be playing a role in creating ‐‐or at least acting as one ‐‐ of the primary moving forces in creating this odd and difficult time.
My primary theme is that our modern civilizations move us away from nature, away from our contact with and dependence on our natural living surroundings in ways that are leading us astray. Nature contact and nature knowledge were guides to life, which modern technology, in addition to its great advantages, can easily allow us to follow divisive paths that may be one of the reasons this is such a contentious time.
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Just this morning, I learned that Amazon now delivers groceries right to your doorstep, offering great time-savings from standing in those ulcer-forming checkout lines. For the longest time, the modern grocery experience has increasingly separated us from our food supply – resulting in a fundamental ignorance of where our food comes from – but perhaps now with the convenience and time-savings from AmazonFresh, we’ll make more time for those nature walks and get back in touch with nature contact and nature knowledge.