The Biosphere is Process, Place, Community, and Spirit.
When humans have opportunity to be immersed in nature, over time, and become intimate with the processes of other lives, as we watch a falcon break out of the egg, or watch the exuberance of adult horses playing in snow, our intuition and awareness wakes again to a shared life Spirit.
Our science demands that we ignore such intangibles as spirit. Spirit can't be quantified; its evidence cannot be tested. We are told to leave such things to the artists. Just as well.
In a sense, we humans are the part of the biosphere that can perceive the biosphere; we are the part of Earth that is able to look at itself, as in a mirror. This brings us back to the arts, which are traditionally defined as mirroring or imitating nature. Art is Earth expressing its spirit, through its portion called human.
We are the Earth made conscious; as we observe the natural world, we observe our larger selves.
Art has been a vehicle to carry Spirit through time. Over the centuries people of all cultures have shown in their arts the sense that there is a wholeness to Earth, a unity of Life, known but not directly seen.
Here is an essay exploring Art in relation to Ecology, and four directions artists have taken, through time and across cultures, to express this Spirit aspect of the biosphere.
Explore Further in the Biosphere
