It recently occurred to me that our eyes are both our greatest strength and our biggest weakness.
We take in the world around us predominantly by eye and emotionally attach to things predominantly by sight. We wine drinkers also give great importance to aroma/flavour but there’s no getting around the primacy of sight. Whilst this generally serves us very well and our eyes’ capabilities are amazing, it also means we tend to undervalue or ignore what we can’t see. I can’t help thinking of the kangaroo in the kids’ movie, “Horton Hears a Who!” when she says indignantly “if you can’t see it and you can’t touch it, then it doesn’t exist”.
The reason I was reflecting on this was I got thinking about the importance of the microbes in our soil following some farming presentations I attended recently. It is truly astounding to learn about the intimate relationship between plant roots and the microbes living alongside them and how they co-exist to benefit each other. There is an exchange going on under the ground between the roots of all plants and the soil fungi and bacteria who provide essential nutrients to them in exchange for food. It’s like the perfect bartering system. The soil is alive with life which nurtures our plants. Historically, through ploughing and chemicals, we’ve abused our soils simply because we can’t see what’s happening. Because it’s happening in a scale we can’t perceive with the naked eye.
I’m learning to appreciate what a jungle it is down there and how we can cooperate and work with it better, even though we can’t see it. Because all life on our planet is connected and we work best when we work together.
Photo: A small bee diligently working over the flowering bunches in one of our blocks. Spring 2022.