Oikos: The Sign of Nature

Abstract

This chapter examines humankind’s relationships to nature and the natural, their symbolic meanings for humankind’s quality of life, and the impacts these have on our lives today and as a future legacy in an evolving world picture. The intent is to question and develop an understanding of the complexities and contradictions in the physical and psychological realm for a way forward that supports a healthy and balanced relationship between humankind, landscape, park and nature. The evolution of these relationships and influences has created an oscillation in our somatic and psychic equilibrium. In humankind’s desire to live well, our honouring of earth as oikos, the house of being, is examined.

The human spirit’s symbiotic relationship with the nature and our unconscious drive for balance can sit in opposition with the symbolic value and commodification of nature. Nature is the essence of life and survival, and the contradictions in our relationships with nature sublimate the challenges of moving forward on a healthy earth with healthy inhabitants in health and wellness. For the balance of nature, the sign of nature looks at the shift or reappropriation of nature as a noneconomic entity in our thoughts and actions, particularly as technology, urban growth and increased density apply stress and imbalance to humankind, nature, ecosystems and the dynamic flows of the natural world. Oikos: Sign of nature is a look at nature and its essence to life and being, and living in harmony with the land.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. (went David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods)