Biophilia: A Beautiful Way to Greet Election Week
We love life and living things, even when we think we don't!
Dear Beautiful Friends,
I learned a new word last week, and I think it’s perfect for today, Election Day in the U.S., and whatever happens in the coming days.
BIOPHILIA
“Biophilia” means a love of life and living things. It describes the human instinct to relate to nature; our desire to connect to another living thing.
It’s a great quality, a love for living things, don’t you think? I’m going all-in on my biophilic nature today, and this week. OK, why not: forever! Anyone want to commune with me?
On a walk the other day, I encountered a goat staring at me from a neighbor’s front yard.
The "biophilia effect" describes all the good feelings and sensory exaltations we experience when nature is evoked through sight, sound, smell, or feel.
We know this, right? It’s why we get ourselves outside for a walk even when we “don’t feel like it,” and why we take those deep thrilling breaths of fresh air after emerging from our inside spaces.
Today is a great day to take a lot of deep thrilling breaths of fresh air.
“Biophilia” is what nudges us to look up from our computers and rest our eyes on a tree outside our window, or the person working one desk over, or witness another life entity in process of doing its thing.
On this election day, and week, in the U.S., let’s tend to our biophilic nature.
In high school, I used to skip class with Beauty Hunter friend, Marianne, to go to lakeside parks and “relate to fall.” Even as teenagers, we felt something intrinsic pulling at us. The air was crisp, the trees were draped in reds and yellows, and we had to be OUT IN IT.
Seeing, smelling, touching, listening as the season crackled with death, beauty, aliveness just had to happen. We found our way to a little park, sat in the swing set and stared at everything. Or, more likely “we” didn’t, our animal nature did. The “law” might name us “truants” but something more important was going on: a call to connect to, commune with, and witness aliveness.
If you’re interested to know more about biophilia—it’s a very cool rabbit hole!—check out psychoanalyst and social theorist Erich Fromm, and sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, a.k.a. “Father of Biodiversity.” Both men brought the word to the populous. Biophilia architecture - examples of and how to bring more of it into your life.
Here are some examples of biophilia architecture. For friends living in the Seattle area, the Spheres qualifies.
Any of you who bring plants into your living spaces, that’s biophilic design.
REMINDER: Just as you have the capacity to love and connect with living things, you can also be with the uninvited tumults.
At least, that’s what I remind myself.
Here we go! I’m with you today, quaking knee caps, shimmering hope, and biophilia on high!
And now, off to meet a friend for a walk.
What are you doing today? Tell us what you’ll be doing this week to keep your shit together, I mean commune with aliveness. XOXO