Bear with us

​We’ve just returned from some bear health work here in Austria, and I was once again struck by the simultaneous affection and awe that care-takers carry for their charges. In spite of the day-to-day familiarity that they understandably maintain with an animal under their care, they are nonetheless wordlessly compelled to approach with reverence when the animal slumbers under the effects of anaesthesia. There is an almost mystical moment when they lay a hand upon the creature that they have seen/fed/talked to daily but have never been able to touch. A moment of corporeal connection.
 
Be it a bear or a bluebird, an oak or an orange tree, an iceberg or an ocean, most people have a sense of connection to some element of the natural world.  This is the unseen sticky stuff that holds the world together. The invisible tendrils that gently but inexorably fasten us to everything else on the planet.
 
Connectivity is the premise for worldwide webs- both real and virtual. Connectivity refers not only to physical connections, which are obviously crucial for environmental integrity, reproductive success, and evolutionary process, but also to less tangible (yet nonetheless fundamental) connections that persist and blindly bind together global elements.
 
Each of us maintains connections to a person, place, or purpose. We weave ourselves into the world’s web.  What connections stir you… and how do you sustain or cultivate them?

​pk