Nature as a spiritual teacher: awe from the Amazon to the garden

Time spent close to living nature tends to turn into something that looks a lot like reverence. Three very different people, a writer and gardener, a jungle conservationist and an archaeologist, keep arriving at that same place. What they share is not wilderness as scenery but involvement: all three reject the stance of the spectator.

Michael Pollan found reverence in the garden. The tradition he had absorbed, from Thoreau and Muir, celebrates wilderness and makes us spectators, which does not help a gardener with weeds and pests. Wendell Berry gave him a better frame: people do have to change nature to survive, but the relationship should be "more like a marriage than a domination". Gardening taught him that plants have interests of their own, and his later reading on plant intelligence deepened that respect. He also cites his colleague Dacher Keltner's study in which people drew stick-figure self-portraits before and after an awe experience such as river rafting; afterward they drew themselves at about a third of the size. He lists awe alongside religious experience as moments when we escape the self.

Paul Rosolie has spent 18 years protecting rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon. His jungle is not gentle; he calls it a churning machine of death. Yet his language for snakes, caimans and elephants is full of wonder, and his faith is explicit: he believes in a benevolent creator and that the point is love and compassion. Lost without water with Lex Fridman, he saw how need strips life down: "when you're that thirsty water becomes god". He admits getting lost on purpose was reckless.

Archaeologist Ed Barnhart adds deep time. He believes religion in South America began in the Amazon. Around 1800 BCE the Chavin temple appears, covered in jaguars, snakes and caimans, and he traces a single fanged creator deity from there to the Inca. He calls that idea controversial and notes that archaeology cannot see ideas directly.

They agree that nature is more than a backdrop, that contact with it loosens the self, and that forest plants were tied to visions. They differ on where reverence is found. Rosolie bets on the wild, and Barnhart's evidence points to the jungle; Pollan argues that how we behave on the more than 90 percent of land that is not protected wilderness matters as much. They differ on how literal the sacred is, with Rosolie a believer and Pollan starting from materialism. And none paints nature as kind: the reverence here is awe in its old sense, part wonder and part fear.

The evidence has limits. The only study of awe itself is the stick-figure one; the rest is experience, history and archaeology. Plant medicines are a separate and riskier matter. Pollan stresses real risks, Rosolie says ayahuasca is not recreational, and anyone considering such substances should talk with a qualified medical professional first, especially with a history of mental health problems.

What to do with it: swap spectating for participating, even with a few plants. Ask what the soil and plants need, not only what you want. Seek outings that make you feel small. Learn about the living things near you. Take only what you need and handle it with respect. Support the wild places that remain, and do not copy the risks.