the song far from its bird

In the deep regions of the green leafy shades,
 
One listens to the oriole singing ;

The oriole's song is in an even deeper place.

(unknown Tseu chinese poet of the IXth century, translated from a "non-translation" of Armand Robin)

life & death = the adaptive cycle

C.S. Holling described four characteristics phases for the dynamic of  ecological systems :

• growth (r) :  readily available ressource, accumulation of structure, the resilience is high,
•accumulation/conservation (K) : net growth slows, the system becomes increasingly interconnected, less flexible, and more vulnerable to external disturbances,
•following disturbance, the next (Ω)  phase releases resources and the structure collapses,

•reorganization (α) phase,  leading to a new growth phase (r) similar or different to the previous one.

(from Walker & al., 2006)

These four phases are similar to the periods of time, or kalpas,  that describe the four stages in the cycle of formation, continuance, decline, and disintegration of the planets and systems in buddhist cosmology. 

They also describe "the transience of all phenomena"  : everything change continuously until its destruction, life and death are the two phases all living beings must pass through. As a consequence each of us shall not forget the Latin phrase "memento mori".

This promise of death at our personnal level contains also the potential for inner transformation and freedom.

Our lifetime is an accumulation of moments, our body is a symbiotic cooperation of cells.

Each moment of our lives knows life and death, each cell of our body knows momentary life and death.

Each birth and death at a micro level is necessary for the continuation of life at a greater level.

As William Blake reminds us, if we assume them, each moment of our life contains unlimited potentialities.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.

From moment to moment, it is our inner state of life that determines the overall course of our lives.

O land I love you green

O land I love you green


Green


an apple dancing in water and light


Green


your night green, your dawn green


so plant me with the tenderness of a mother’s hand


in a handful of air


I am one of your seeds 


Green …

The Dice Player, Mahmoud Darwish, Mural,  Translated by John Berger and Rema Hammami, Verso, musique by Trio Joubran

command and control

Control is a deeply entrenched aspect of contemporary human societies: we control human behavior through laws, incentives, threats, contracts, and agreements; we control the effects of environmental variation by constructing safe dwellings; we control variation in our food resources by growing and storing agricultural products; we control human parasites and pathogens through good hygiene and medical technologies. All contribute to stable societies and human health and happiness, and within certain arenas this desire to control is undeniably to our individual and collective benefit. This approach to solving problems may be collectively referred to as “command and control”    in which a problem is percived and a solution for its control is developed and implemented. The expectation is that the solution is direct, appropriate, feasible, and effective over most relevant spatial and temporal scales. Most of all, command and control is expected to solve the problem either through control of the processes that lead to the problem (e.g., good hygiene to prevent disease, or laws that direct human behavior) or through amelioration of the problem after it occurs (e.g., pharmaceuticals to kill disease organisms, or prisons or other punishment of lawbreakers). The command-and-control approach implicitly assumes that the problem is well-bounded, clearly defined, relatively simple, and generally linear with respect to cause and effect. But when these same methods of control are applied to a complex, nonlinear, and poorly understood natural world, and when the same predictable outcomes are expected but rarely obtained, severe ecological, social, and economic repercussions result.

Holling, C. S., and G. K. Meffe. 1996. Command and Control and the Pathology of Natural Resource Management. Conservation Biology 10, no. 2: 328-37.