BIOPHILIA 

OPENING 1 JUNE for SUBMISSIONS

 

So, simply to look on anything, such as a mountain, with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being. Man has no other reason for his existence.”

― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

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Biophilia is a human’s intrinsic nature. We know it in our blood and deepest wildernesses. As a species it is widely thought that we evolved from the other apes as we distinguished a passion for stories. We once wild mammals lived with the ‘ears of a bear’ but they have gone unheard in thousands of years wide erosion.  We have forgotten that we are beings-in-the world as opposed to beings-apart.

 

Children inherently understand and seek out nature and the wildness in every environment - not just the countryside, but the playgrounds, the backyards, and the edgelands. They are innately aware of the sentience and sensibilities of all living things. Like little druids they use the imaginal realm to call down a cloud, unfold the story of a tree in the shadow it leaves on a winter window.  

 

Tribal cultures often carry a blueprint of how a human in resonance with our biophilic inheritance could look like. They see the natural world in a wholly enjoined way, un-mapped yet not distanced from who they are. They do not disavow their plangent grief towards the ecological crisis nor do they forget what it means when they cross paths with a particular animal species or plant and the medicine inherent in the relationship. 

 

What if we could unhitch ourselves from the false dichotomies of human and animal, nature and culture and recognise that we are not possessors of, or even custodians of, nature - but a deeply interwoven part of it?? Tuning into deep ecology allows us to feel the interconnectedness and self-determination of everything that lives, and ourselves as part of that. This in turn allows us to Un-Self: to step outside of our own mental models and to be purely present and aware of the world around us, its living fabric. 

 

We invite writing that sprouts and roars. Heard from the microbiome rooted in our very souls. Resonant with its own animal embodiments. Go outside, write wildly and widely.  Stravaig your mental continents. Include yourself in your nature writing, however that shows up. We welcome work addressing the ecological crisis but we want to know how you feel about it. Show us your most daring writing, your most experimental, your most intimate. An ancient reunion, fruiting in each seeded word. 

 

​written by Jai Michelle Louissen & Victoria Spires
 

DEFINITIONS

 

love of living things and nature, which some people believe humans are born with: biophilia, the inborn affinity human beings have for other forms of life https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/biophilia

 

biophilia hypothesis idea that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. The term biophilia was used by German-born American psychoanalyst Erich Fromm in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), which described biophilia as “the passionate love of life and of all that is alive.” The term was later used by American biologist Edward O. Wilson in his work Biophilia (1984), which proposed that the tendency of humans to focus on and to affiliate with nature and other life-forms has, in part, a genetic basis. (Britannica.com https://www.britannica.com/science/biophilia-hypothesis ) 

 

Proponents of deep ecology oppose the narrative that man is separate from nature, is in charge of nature, or is the steward of nature,[9] or that nature exists as a resource to be freely exploited. They cite the fact that indigenous peoples under-exploited their environment and retained a sustainable society for thousands of years, as evidence that human societies are not necessarily destructive by nature. 

 

READING

 

Erich Fromm https://niche-canada.org/2023/07/06/erich-fromms-biophilia/ 

 

Deep ecology - Arne Naess (Norwegian philosopher) Arne Næss - Wikipedia 

 

Kenneth White and geopoetics - https://www.geopoetics.org.uk/kenneth-white/

 

Limbic resonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_resonance 

 

Dr Iain McGilchrist https://channelmcgilchrist.com/matter-with-things/

 

Bruno Latour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93network_theory

 

Dr Martin Shaw  Earth Talk - Tatterhood, a story told by Martin Shaw

 

Braiding Sweetgrass https://www.amazon.com/Braiding-Sweetgrass-Indigenous-Scientific-Knowledge/dp/1571313567

 

Emergence Magazine https://emergencemagazine.org/

 

Charlotte Du Caan https://charlotteducann.substack.com/about & Dark Mountain Project

 

Richard Powers - The Overstory https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40180098-the-overstory

 

The Bees - Laline Paul https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18652002-the-bees 

Nan Shepherd - The Living Mountain https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25773742-the-living-mountain