Beyond the linear

    "Western man firmly believed nature to be an entity with an objective reality independent of human consciousness, an entity that man can know through observation, reductive analysis, and reconstruction... In his efforts to learn about nature, man has cut it up in little pieces. `He has certainly ;earned many things in this way, but what he has examined has not been nature itself. 
                             MASANOBU FUKUOKA

How often I find myself renewing that process that Ivan Illich first inspired in me to "de-school" myself! So many ideas and theories imposed on us during our years of education, need to be re-evaluated and often rejected in the light of experience. Ivan Illich had a talent not just for lateral thinking but going beyond the thinking brain to bring in the feeling heart. Theodore Roszak had a similar skill- his book Beyond the Wasteland I recall making a very deep impact on me.
But now, many years on I find myself peeling more layers off the onion to reveal even more fascinating perspectives. Having seen the film of the life of Rudolf Steiner, whom I had admired for a long time, but from a distance, led me to discover Goethe's perspective on science. Goethe considered science to have become preoccupied and limited by linear thinking. And as our society has become increasingly materialistic,  this highly mentalised,  logical way of looking at the world has become consolidated.
Goethe was not anti-science, far from it. In fact he saw himself very much as a scientist, but one who stressed the importance of seeing the world, and nature around us, from as many perspectives as possible. The logical, brain-derived, linear view of the world is one perspective, but for Goethe, there was another, direct way of "seeing" reality through our intuitive senses.  Goethe , amongst his many other attributes, was a poet and as such would have recognised that poetry was able to express certain realities more clearly and precisely than other mediums could.  Similarly, the intuitive, heart-based mode reveals aspects of reality inaccessible to the thinking brain.
There is evidence, as many researchers such as Jeremy Naydler, Robert Bly, Stephen Buhner have indicated, that earlier cultures, such as the ancient Egyptians saw their world from a radically different perspective  to us. Naydler, for instance suggests that the Egyptians and other cultures could have lived in a different state of consciousness, which in turn would have radically altered their perception of reality. That many of these cultures lasted for thousands of years may suggest that their understanding of reality was more in tune with their environment than our, very recent modern culture perhaps is.
There is certainly plenty of evidence that natural healers, shamans, learn directly from nature- they consider plants for instance to be their "teachers". Stephen Buhner is one writer having spent many years developing this very ability, in the mode of Goethe and Steiner before him. Buhner has also investigated how cells, organs and organisms communicate and he describes how a vast network of electromagnetic fields interconnect all living life. But more than being inert physical forces, these fields actually carry information between all levels of life. Hiumans interact within this information environment and Buhner has indicated for instance that our heart is vastly more than a muscular pump, that it is a highly evolved organ of perception and communication.
So, I find it fascinating to see how, after all these centuries of scientific progress we are finding ever more "material" evidence supporting an understanding of nature that was probably shared by some of the most ancient of human cultures. What goes round comes round..eh..!