The Rose of Sharon comes from India, eight thousand miles from where it grows in my back yard. This bush is one of dozens that mark the boundary between my yard and my neighbor's, all planted a foot apart in rows with scarcely 10 inches between them. Is there anything about this arrangement that can be said to be natural?
Surely the bees are natural. Drawn by nectar, they buzz from one flower to another, spreading pollen so that the flowers will yield the next season's generation of seeds.
Alas, the honeybees that pollinate the flower, like the worms that build the soil the roots anchor the bush in, don't belong on this continent either. Apiarists brought the bees and gardeners brought the earthworms because they felt the native species didn't do the job as well.
There's nothing natural about any of this. If this were natural, you'd be looking at an oak hickory forest that would spread inland and up and down the coast for hundreds of miles. Over the past four hundred years, we've felled the forest, introduced invasive new species that drove the natives out, and forced the land to support a vast monoculture grassland.
This isn't natural. It's an environmental jigsaw put together by blind idiots.
And yet for all the damage we've done to Eden, it's still a place of beauty and routine miracles. Plants still run on sunlight, they still grow and build new branches out of thin air. They still keep the earth from washing away when it rains, and provide shelter and food for animals of all shapes and sizes.
The direction of history tells us that Eden is gone and we won't be returning. But with a little planning, a little wisdom. and a lot of grace, we can look forward to a bright future that reflects all the changes we've made, not as bugs in the system but as part of a deliberate design.
And in the final analysis, what ending would be more natural than that?
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