Back to Nature entry # 3

I was born and raised in New York City during the 60’s and 70’s, when new York was a tough place to live despite all of its wonders and miracles. It was the time of the Black Panthers, Motown, and the platform shoe. But like all real new Yorkers I was conflicted, torn between the energy of the hustle and bustle, and the desire for a softer, gentler path. In the 1980’s I read a bunch of books about the ecology of our planet (Helen Calldicott particularly scared me) and I got concerned about how we were living. The hole in the ozone layer was large and growing, global warming was going to result in ever higher sea levels eventually flooding Manhattan, our exaggerated use of energy would bore a wound in our Mother Earth, and her tears would be precursors of our demise as a species. So I grew my hair long, put on sandals and linen clothes, started praying in the Sweat Lodge and shopping at the organic health food store. I wanted to get back to nature.
Being in synch with nature is not an event, it is a series of discoveries and disappointments. We city kids had central park as our main point of reference. I recall my upper west side neighborhood as a green place despite all the sky scraping residential buildings. There were many concrete backyards with dedicated areas for bushes and trees. Between the avenues there was a tree growing out of the side walk every twenty steps or so. My first feelings of being one with nature were at the roots of a city tree in front of the building where I grew up. I found an ant hill there.
Being part of nature is not really such a romantic experience for me. It means feeling cold in the winter and sweating my ass off in the summer. It is the combination of science and magic that propels me into the next project that interests me, believing that I am on the right path because there is a comfortable transition laid out in front of me. I want to learn from nature, see myself as part of it, and grow as a spiritual, emotional and intellectual being from the insights I notice. The Ant hill from my childhood has presented itself to me again as an adult, and it has taught me more about myself. I have held ants in quiet contempt for my entire life. With my adult mind I admire the way they work, their dedication and focus, how they never seem to worry about the results of their labor. They find purpose in the doing, in the process and not the result. But my childish mind acted naturally and reflexively by stomping on any ant hill I came upon. Ants and roaches and water bugs were all fair game even though the ant should most certainly have been placed in a more admirable category of insects.
Today I live in “the green heart of Umbria”, in Italy. The name attracts Italian tourists who are seeking a return to nature, even if for just a long weekend. Italy’s resources have been overexploited for two thousand years, but Umbria has been little touched over the last few hundred,  as it was effectively closed off from the other regions by the Church. My wife and I run a holiday farm where Umbrian ants, their location, their number and their direction, are an ongoing focus in my life. Italian ants are teaching me lessons that I never could have expected to learn from New York roaches.
When I discover ants in my pants, I mean, my house, I have to determine from whence they come so I can kill them at their source. Disturbing their assembly line does nothing to deter their efforts. I have learned to meld with nature in order to see the ants. I intentionally slow down my pace, release other responsibilities and obligations. I soften my focus during the search. When I do this, almost magically, subtle pathways appear in the grass and I can see easily where the little buggers are coming from. My daughter and I call this technique “using our magic eyes”. I use this technique in the forest when hunting truffles too and it is allowing me to better appreciate my surroundings. I am less afraid of getting lost because I can make distinctions among the trees now.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not indiscriminately killing ants like I did as a child. Only those that enter or come too close to entering the house will be killed. The fact is I have been killing ants my entire life just like the rest of you readers have. Something inside me beckons for their ruin. Ants, mosquitos, flies and roaches, not to mention fleas, tics, lice, crabs, wasps and bed bugs all of whom are acceptable targets for this seemingly natural urge, and I have at my disposal ever more potent weapons each of which is frighteningly more powerful and more effective than stomping. I am not intending to effect the overall ant population, this is not a holocaust. I can barely control their numbers and maintain order on the land surrounding my house. But this murderous state of purpose I go into every Spring and don’t resurface from until the winter, is not a bloodthirsty rampage as much as it is a meditative act. I intentionally enter a heightened state of seeing and then calmly use my vantage point to kill ants. Not for food but for comfort. It is not a very enlightened spiritual undertaking, but it is very Natural.
I do a similar thing with truffle dogs on a daily basis. Just, not the killing part. I enter into their world and their minds, understand their environment and way of seeing, and seek to know their motivations. I am a monster to the ants, but with dogs I provide a purpose and meaning to life. I give and get an intimacy that has value and importance in a world where even someone like me (like us), can kill other living creatures for my own comfort and still be a positive influence in the world. I must tread on the grass. But I will do so as lightly as I can, with respect , and without regret. With gentleness and forgiveness for the less than perfect, like myself. There is a sign on my front door “No ants allowed”.