Raison D’Etre and the Missing Link

Why do we do what we do?

Well, here we are in our rainforest and on this website. We bend our brains and our backs to produce the most luminous prints we can of what we think are some of the world’s most beautiful and exciting subjects. But why do we do it? What is our raison d’etre?

Part of the answer is that we love taking our pictures for their own sake and to be intimately involved with nature. But it goes deeper than that. At heart the answer to this wider raison d’etre is very simple. We take close-up pictures by natural light of life’s intricate patterns and processes because they are us. We humans are made of the same substances, structures, colours and combinations as all else in nature. We are nature. We are made by nature. We intuitively respond to her as her harmonies resonate within us. Once this was a self-evident truth to all people; to some it still is. But western societies because of religion, the dominance of capitalism, and yes believe it or not, science, have lost sight of this. Western people over the ages have systematically and deliberately separated themselves from nature. They are no longer in tune with it. They no longer understand it. We know people who cannot sleep at night in the forest where there are no sounds of traffic. They wake in fear at every natural sound. The result of this turning away is visible to everyone. We’ve stuffed up the very processes and life systems that we depend on, that gave birth to us. But how much longer can nature nurture us? That train of thought leads to climate change, peak oil and nature conservation. We want to go down that path only very briefly.

Fear & Punishment

The solutions to the problems we have created are set forth by science. Governments are passing punitive laws to keep us in line. The one advocates what amounts to no more than good housekeeping, the other threatens punishments. Both create fear. So much so that a new generation is growing up in a constant state of anxiety. The nature conservation movement also threatens us with dire consequences unless we stop doing this, that or the other. Rarely does it advocate that we DO something—other than more housekeeping—like exploring nature for ourselves. It spreads fear and advocates control over what people do. In essence, nature conservation is a willing slave of science. It believes science has all the answers. Anxiety paralyses. It does not lead to understanding.
Religion tells us that ultimate reality is somewhere else; so don’t worry what happens on earth. Commerce urges us to consume, consume, consume, but don’t worry how the stuff is made or where it comes from. Politicians threaten us with punishment if we use too much water, if we wander off the trail in a national park. And science urges good housekeeping—using different light globes, sort your rubbish—and fills us with fear.

Now, good housekeeping is essential but it is not an end in itself, nor is it the panacea that will cure all the world’s ills. It does not inspire. It does not move our soul. Quite the contrary for me. I find housekeeping intensely tedious and boring, though necessary. If we are to save ourselves we need to engage our spirit, to think imaginatively, to feel, to become part of nature and her processes. We need to understand. Housekeeping is doing, to become part of nature is being. We do not call ourselves human beings for nothing.

There are a million websites on nature conservation and climate change. We do not want to go down that path any further in this essay.

The Missing Link

We think there is something missing in our considerations and interactions with nature. There is a large gaping hole. Something that should be joyful and that we must celebrate is left out. We think we know what that hole is. And it is the main reason why we take our pictures the way we do.

Have you ever wandered at the absence in our dealings with nature of a major, highly significant part of western culture? Where are the arts? How do they connect us with the natural world? After all, the arts are supposed to express and appeal to our higher feelings, our imagination, our creativity. The sad truth is that the arts do not do this as far as nature is concerned. They have failed us badly; all the arts not just the visual arts. And why does the conservation movement almost exclusively involve science in persuading us to conserve nature? Why do they appeal to our minds and not our souls? If they had employed the arts imaginatively to raise awareness, engage our feelings, stir our souls—how much more effective they would have been. But because of this failure we have become further and further removed from nature, our source. We no longer feel anything when forests are wiped out for wood chips, when river systems are destroyed by mining, when salinity ruins the soil. We may be outraged at the greed and thoughtlessness. What we should feel is that our soul has been diminished and that we as human beings have lost some of our humanity.

How did this come about? It is the result of the separation of the arts and science in western society; the separation of ourselves and nature. It happened right at the start of western science—with Aristotle who invented it about 2300 years ago. It separated our mind from our soul. When we talk of our soul we move into tricky territory, full of semantic pitfalls. This may well be the reason that the arts-science dichotomy is hardly ever debated—especially where it concerns nature and our relationship with it.

Science sucks the Magic out of Nature

Before continuing let me stress, with great emphasis, that we are not anti-science. To the contrary, we are grateful for the astounding and glorious insights science has given into nature’s workings. Nevertheless, today’s science has overwhelmed the arts to such a degree that something is deemed to be true only if it is “scientifically proven”. There is no recognition of the validity of simple experience. The only truth is scientific truth. Which is nonsense of course. The slippery part in discussing the arts is that word “soul” or “spirit” or “psyche”. It has been taken over by religion and that wishy-washy new-ageism. Both have removed it as something separate from ourselves. To us, our soul, our psyche, is that part where our feelings, imagination, and creativity reside—together with a kind of mystery. We do not find it a mystery to be feared, nor to be elevated to some indefinable “spirituality”. It is down to earth, a chord that vibrates in harmony with earth’s life forces. We should not elevate it, nor try to dodge it as some kind of spirit—but as something primordial to be experienced, that gives us an awareness of all life. The arts do not do this for us—as they should. As a result, we are split into two. Something of our humanity has been lost.

Let us give an example of this science-art split, as it has developed over the last 30 years or so.

A scientist studying a Purple-crowned Pigeon would know all about its anatomy, its behaviour, its breeding strategies, its food preferences and so on. In short, the scientist would know all about the pigeon. But would he or she know the pigeon? Its pigeon-ness? Its essence? Maybe, but none of it would appear in the scientific papers he or she would write. It would be considered to be unscientific. It is artists that must realise the magic; what it feels like to hear a pigeon call in an early morning forest, the grace of its movements, the beauty of its colours, the harmony of pigeon, fruit, forest, and life processes. Only when science and art are combined do we get a sense of the whole pigeon. To put it crudely—science sucks the magic and grace out of nature. It is incumbent on artists to ensure that being in nature will always be a magical experience, one that nourishes our soul as well as our intellect. That way we can be whole.

However, the reverse is also true. Science informs art about nature and gives it an underlying integrity. Perhaps it would be possible for someone to be ignorant about a natural place, a rainforest for example, and still produce insightful art about it. But we think this art would be primitive and naive. We could not take the pictures we do without an underlying knowledge of ecosystems and the natural history of plants and animals. For one thing we would have great difficulty simply finding our subjects. You need to know about nature to reach her heart and essence. Therein lie many of the difficulties of 21st century life—the separation of intellect and soul. It should not be either science or arts, intellect or soul. Each one of us is a blend of the two.

The Cosmos in a Lizard’s Eye

We are compulsively drawn to the primordial forms in nature. These structures, be they feather or scale, tree bark or flower, are at their most intricate and revealing in close-up. We come upon shapes with textures and colours that rarely fail to take us by surprise: the eye of a lizard like an eclipse of the sun, the scales on a moth’s wing like a tapestry, a cicada like a Chinese lantern, insect faces that look monstrous, outrageous colour combinations in the fruit of a rainforest tree.

We tightly crop many of our pictures. They become more dynamic for the eye to explore. Lines lead off the edge of the print and are continued in the imagination. The pink stipules of a species of fig, for example, are less recognisable, but more fascinating when closely cropped: are we looking at skin, or plant, or fur? The eye is free to appreciate textures and colours, and is not distracted by the knowledge of a strict representation. We are not stopped by the fact—“oh, that is a lizard”. The crops actually encourage the viewer to look differently.

Because of their high definition and luminosity, our largest prints—which at present are 100 X 70cm—can stand close inspection. As you go closer and closer, your perceptions will shift. You will see pictures within pictures.

We see our close-ups, illuminated solely by natural light, as revealing the very basics of life—its structures, grain, shapes, textures, colours and combinations. In certain of our pictures we think some of the subject’s very essence emerges. Essence, like soul or spirit, is not something easily put into words. But then not everything that exists, that may represent a truth, has to be put into words to be understood. Music can transport us, as can pictures, without words.

In our pictures we invite the viewer to look at nature’s vital structures, their great beauty and mystery. “To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower” according to William Blake (1757-1827). Or the cosmos in a lizard’s eye.

Looking Closely, Feeling Deeply
We firmly believe that we can reconnect with nature through observing and absorbing it closely. Two things make this both exciting and easy. The exciting part is that by entering the micro-world, you cross a threshold and go where people rarely venture. You can make all kinds of discoveries, see unlimited beauty and grace for yourself. In exploring this last frontier in the natural world you can have deeply satisfying experiences on your own—without the drone of a TV narrator or a tour guide looking over your shoulder. You don’t need a trainer or a guru, either. And it is so easy, for this largely unexplored world is right on your doorstep. You don’t have to travel to the ends of the world. In Australia, no matter how dense and how large the city you live in, there is some wild place within reach. Here, by looking closely and feeling deeply, you can discover life and yourself. A feeling for nature is hard-wired in all of us. To reconnect with it, all you have to do is listen to your soul. We all have one.

Should we reconnect, will this save us? By itself, it cannot. But as a first step it will dispel our anxiety and prepare us with understanding rather than fear for the undeniably difficult times ahead. See the cosmos in a wildflower, the bark of a tree, the colour of a rock, the structure of a feather and become a whole human being.