A Lexicon for the Ecologically Curious (part 1)

Over the last few years, I’ve found that certain words and ideas are vital bridges into exploring ecologicalness as I’ve travelled it, either journeying me into lands brand new or revealing well-trodden ground to host previously unseen tones and layers.

I was recently inspired to keep both a commonplace book and a lexicon as part of my self-directed study. Keeping these has me revisiting many of these words and ideas, so I thought I’d share some of them here as a new series: a lexicon for the ecologically curious.

With no particular order to the entries - and, when useful, with supporting quotes or a concise overview - here is part 1:

Kincentricity: an Indigenous worldview viewing all beings as interconnected relatives with inherent personhood and shared origins. Utilised by Enrique Salmon, an ethnobotanist, to describe community organiser and conservationist Dennis Martinez’s indigenous knowledge-based approach to resilient ecosystems and ecological restoration.

Interstitial: Occurring within, or being, an interval or space in between. (With interstices being intervening spaces, especially small ones.)

Later in the same chapter, ‘Every living thing has emerged and persevered (or not) bathed and swaddled in bacteria and archaea. Truly nothing is sterile; and that reality is a terrific danger, basic fact of life, and critter-making opportunity’.

From the introduction, ‘We become-with each other or not at all.’

Holon and holonic: simultaneously a whole and a part of a larger whole. Coined by Arthur Koestler, holons are beings/systems that are complete and nestled within other complete beings/systems.

Exploring organisations and social systems as holons, Adam Kahane writes, ‘a person is a whole in himself or herself; which is part of a team, which is a whole in itself; which is part of an organization, which is a whole; which is part of a sector; and so on. Each of these wholes has its own needs, interests, and ambitions. Each whole can be part of multiple wholes. There is therefore no such thing as “the whole”, so to claim to be focusing on achieving “the good of the whole” is misleading if not manipulative: it really means “the good of the whole that matters most to me.” (From Collaborating with the Enemy).

Another example would be human cells, which are whole and are part of larger wholes that are part of larger wholes, cells ➜ organs ➜ the entire human body.

Another example would be a tree, which is whole and often part of the larger whole of woods, forest, or other regional ecosystems, which are themselves whole and also often part of a larger ecosystem.

Thermophiles: Heat-loving organisms that have adapted to thrive at high temperatures and have become key members of the ecosystems they inhabit.

Cosmovision: an embodied, collective, sociocultural framework/unified ideology, encompassing every aspect of being human, including the communal, the economic, the sociopolitical, the ideological, the scientific, the ecological, the medical, and the sacred. Cosmovisions are lived and shared through story, language, community expectations, rituals, and rhythms, and relationship to each other, other communities, the more-than-human, the Earth, and the cosmos.

As expressed by Max, a Tasmania Aboriginal man, and shared by Tyson Yunkaporta in Sand Talk, ‘I can’t discern parts that are indigenous and parts that are not because all of my actions are indigenous - the way I move through the world, my social interactions, my way of thinking about anything. It bleeds through you no matter what.’

In The Spirit of the Rainforest, Dr Rosa Vasquez Espinoza shares about the cosmology of her people: ‘[Amazonian and Andean cultures] see nature as an integral part of human coexistence, not as a separate entity, and their worldview involves living interconnectedly with the rivers, lands, forests, animals, and plants, taking only what is needed - just like my grandmother taught me. It is a way of living that means reciprocating with the Earth, constantly maintaining balance throughout time. It also means honouring the invisible spiritual bond we have with the natural world. Beautiful living, living beautifully, is not an individual pursuit, but rather a collective endeavor, embodying the essence of the Pachamama.’

Interbeing: a Zen Buddhist perspective recognising that nothing exists in isolation and therefore there is a shared-becoming and an interrelatedness of all things. An ‘inter-are’ of all things. Authored by Thich Nhat Hanh and approached as both a philosophical concept and an active practice.

One of Thich Nhat Hanh’s examples of interbeing highlights how a piece of paper exists because of the cloud that brings the rain that helps the tree grow, so the cloud and the paper ‘inter-are’, or ‘inter-be’. The piece of paper also exists because of all of the other elements that are needed: the sunshine that helped the tree grow, the logger that cut down the tree, the wheat the logger eats, the logger’s parents, (and so on until we trace our way into everything). All of these elements ‘inter-are’ with the piece of paper; none of them can be removed from the piece of paper and returned to its source; and, if they could, the piece of paper would stop being a piece of paper.

The Imaginal (Mundus Imaginalis): coined by Henry Corbin to give name to a world of images that existed alongside this world (distinguished from illusory imagination) that featured in the works of Islamic mystics ibn Arabi and Suhrawardi. Corbin wrote that he hadn’t travelled there himself but noted that entering The Imaginal was not to be taken lightly.

Buttress flares (or root flares or trunk flares): The outwardly widening area, where a trunk meets the Earth and transitions into primary roots. A crucial part of the tree, providing support and nutrient uptake. Serves well as a sit spot.

More words and ideas are tugging at my attention like squirrels looking for new nuts but I think that’s enough for today. I’ve reassured them they’ll be included in part 2, but, let’s face it, there’s no telling a word or idea (or squirrel) to chill out and be patient. In the meantime, if you’re familiar with the creatures in this first part, or are meeting them in the wild for the first time, I’d love to know if they accompany you to lands new or reveal familiar ground anew.