Knowing in Nature
by Rachel Shields
I. Systems Within Systems
There are systems within systems.
Can you imagine your body?
Within it, many systems
interconnected, one in relation to the other.
Nothing existing in isolation.
From the outer skin
to the smallest cells,
all are in relation.
It’s the same with our Planet Earth
a symphony of systems:
landscapes shaped by ecological variation.
Land, fresh waters, salt waters, and air
all interacting.
Within a leaf, photosynthesis unfolds
a quiet conversation
between light and chlorophyll,
carbon drawn in, oxygen released,
a breath trees offer
to the world.
II. The Mirror in Us
Ocean currents carry warmth and memory,
guiding migrations, stirring nutrients
a hidden lifeblood beneath the surface.
And in the soil,
fungal threads form ancient networks,
whispering between roots,
trading nourishment,
warning of harm,
teaching cooperation.
Each motion, each breath,
each cell and stone
part of something larger.
From microbe to mountain,
all is connected.
Systems within systems,
echoing the patterns within us:
breath to blood,
thought to nerve,
cell to spirit.
To understand the world,
we must not look only at the parts
but the spaces between them.
III. Bridging the Human and the Wild
Rivers shaped the valleys.
Now, highways mirror their paths.
Roads pulse like veins,
cities rise like coral reefs
built layer by layer,
full of life, full of hunger.
Our economies mimic ecosystems:
resources exchanged like nutrients,
markets shifting like seasons.
Technology, too,
follows nature’s logic
networks like neural pathways,
data flowing like sap,
connecting minds as forests connect trees.
But when we forget the balance,
the body of Earth grows ill.
Fevered skies.
Wounded waters.
Forests gasping in smoke.
Still — we can remember.
Design with nature, not against it.
Live not above the Earth,
but within it.
IV. Toward a Harmonious Future
There was a time
when light was guided by flame,
and life moved to the rhythm of the sun.
When darkness was honored,
and in its quiet,
we listened
to the wind,
to the pulse within,
to the stars.
Food came from soil we knew by name.
Water from springs we trusted.
People walked the land
not to take from it,
but to live with it.
Though we cannot return entirely,
we can remember.
We can build forward
with the old wisdom
woven into the new.
A future in balance is not regression,
but integration.
Technology in tune with trees.
Cities that breathe.
Power drawn not from extraction
but from ancient gifts
sun, wind, water.
A future where education teaches relationship,
and economy means regeneration.
Where we are not noise,
but harmony.
V. Ancestral Knowing
And let us not forget
what we seek to rediscover
was never lost.
It lives in Indigenous teachings
carried through time
in story, in ceremony, in care.
Science not of machines,
but of memory.
Of watching the land long enough to understand it.
Of living in reciprocity.
The Earth is not a resource,
but a relative.
Water has spirit.
Language holds ecology.
And every being has a place.
Ancient civilizations, too,
measured stars to plant seeds,
built temples in alignment with the cosmos,
read plants like scripture.
This is not knowledge behind us
it walks beside us.
Waiting to be honored,
not harvested.
Respected, not renamed.
Let the future be shaped
by this convergence
of ancient and emerging,
heart and intellect,
human and more-than-human knowing.
Let us walk forward,
not as masters,
but as kin.
Humble enough to learn again.
Wise enough to remember.
Rachel Shields
The knowing In Nature 2025
