Such exploitative relationships to oneself, to other people and to nature were ideologically supported, promoted and practically implemented on a massive scale in Europe early on by the Romans, and later by official Christianity.

Big business and big bureaucracies have spread these 'beat-off' and 'beat-death' practices around the world in this century, and some still support them.

It is not surprising that ecologically minded scientists therefore speak today of "a disease of the living being Earth by parasitic humanity."

In the experience of natural relations it is not presupposed that man is the crown of creation, that he is its master or that he possesses it - and that too naturally - or that the earth and its living beings are subject to him.

From the point of view of natural relations man is one of many forms of life, without being accorded any special position or significance in the world.

Rhe concept of natural relations resembles the way of thinking of the so-called "primitive man": "He", the "primitive man", says for example the African Fondé Diawara, regards all living beings - including himself - as manifestations of one and the same existence. Man, himself is merely an insignificant phenomenon among the infinite expressions of the universe, and as such he is not superior to the other living beings, but is simply different.

Natural relations are non-hierarchical relationships between the most diverse living beings and life forms. All of them possess - in a way that suits them - spirit/soul, intelligence, feelings and possibilities of communication.

To live in natural relations to the environment means to remember, at least occasionally, that we are guests of the biosphere of this planet.

If our hosts, the so often disregarded and underestimated plants, were not so kind as to provide us with really everything we need, we would have zero chance of living at all.

The plant world provides us with breathable air, clothing, materials, heating, remedies and food.

One of the questions of being that presses on many people, namely the question "What am I", is answered by herman de vries in a way that is as simple as it is ingenious. "I am what I eat", he says: flora incorporata. Or in other words: I am the plants that I have absorbed into myself. Because of this conspicuously one-sided dependence of man on plant nature, the biologists of the 19th century saw man as the weakest and most dependent pupil, fosterling and disciple of the plant kingdom. For hundreds of thousands of years, the plant kingdom had allowed man to live in happy leisure in the protection of dense forests, until he finally escaped into the world without actually being ready for it - always with the longing for the 'lost paradise' in his heart.

Less romantically inspired, today's biologists, reflecting on the purpose of man's existence in the cycle of nature, come to the sober conclusion: "Fauna, including man, is nothing more than a parasite of the plant kingdom; its only value lies in the fact that in death it becomes food for the plants."

The experience of natural relations provides the framework if we want to understand ancient magical customs and knowledge from the past and use them again today.

Christian monks and nuns who lived in the tradition of a true primitive Christianity had a different relationship to and understanding of nature. Evidence of this can be found, for example, in the writings of Hildegard of Bingen and in the writings of Albertus Magnus.

For Francis of Assisi, it was natural to refer to foreign people, animals and plants as his and all of our brothers and sisters and to treat them as such. Even in our fairy tales, which often reflect ancient, pre-Christian knowledge, we still find those friendly, natural and happy relationships between the heroes and heroines and animals, plants and even stones and other seemingly inanimate 'things'. The characters in the fairy tales who disregard such natural relationships invariably get into massive trouble.

The two princes in the fairy tale 'The Water of Life', for example, who arrogantly dismiss the dwarf who speaks kindly to them on their quest, were soon (as it then says in the fairy tale) no longer able to 'go forward or backward'. Peter Munk, the hero in a fairy tale by Wilhelm Hauff, loses his heart the moment he gives up his natural relationships with himself and his environment for the sake of supposedly great success. The representative of the materialistic principle, the demonic Dutchman-Michel, with whom the hero enters into service, places a heart of stone in his chest instead. Only when he apprentices with the good spirit of the forest does he regain the richness of natural relationships with himself and with others.

A whole range of 'plant spirits' do indeed seem to communicate with people about issues of natural relations through a variety of (what herman de vries calls) spirit-moving substances inherent in them. In earlier times, such encounters gave rise to descriptions of a nature inhabited and animated by a variety of intelligences. The wayside shrines in fields and meadows, which can sometimes still be found in the countryside today and which usually show an elfishly beautiful woman, still bear witness to such experiences of our ancestors. The garden gnomes in many gardens are also a reminder of this.

The alchemists of the Middle Ages still saw such beings - in the form of elemental spirits - as dwarfs, mermaids, elves and salamanders 'in the flesh' before them. They were only too happy to be instructed by them about the secrets and beauties of our world.

Modern science, with its view of the elements supported by enormous instruments, sees only balderdash there. These quark particles, which are anything but handy for science, seem to play strange tricks with their observers.

The latest research results attribute to these particles a kind of reason, a life of their own and a pronounced will for all kinds of mischief, which, however, can neither be scientifically classified nor explained.

With natural relations we know about the randomness and constricting effect of interpretations and meanings. In terms of natural relations, "a blank sheet of paper means more than a written one." Only when we are "free" do we have "new chances."

Psychological research also confirms that creative moments can only arise at all through the presence of gaps in the processes of consciousness to which we are accustomed. Such creative moments cannot be consciously forced by us. Experience and observation show that the occurrence of creative, original thinking has much to do with the sensual and aimless surrender to the perception of naturally arising patterns.

The experience of natural, randomly arising 'sense structures' such as
birdsong,
of an unusual smell or taste,
the murmur of running water and water ripples,
the buzzing of bumblebees,
the rustling of the wind in the leaves,
the play of colours on old bricks,
of the crooked angles of a half-timbered house that have been created over decades,
of the babbling of a small child,
of the sight of a meadow with flowers,
the croaking of frogs,
the clatter of slates,
the cackling of geese,
the singing of chickens, and
the sound of a drum (etc.)
favour small, everyday trances and establishes brief happy, self-confidence-boosting, benefit-thinking-free moments of nothing-doing and nothing-thinking-needing. In such moments of aimless sense, of undirected reverie, it happens again and again that we receive important impulses for change and reorientation in relation to our own existence. After such an experience, our ancestors spoke happily that a fairy had just touched them with her staff.

If such moments of trance do not occur or occur only rarely in a person's life, then a tendency towards destructive self-perception and interpretation of existence seems to develop.

Natural relations to develop to oneself is to discover that we are capable of experiencing many different states of consciousness.

In the pursuit of happiness, of success, of goals and purposes, it can be good to remember, at least occasionally, that our particular path may also be our particular goal. For a few moments, we can then allow ourselves to just pleasurably be there too, with everyone and everything.

'to be always to be'
is the name of a little magic formula by herman de vries
and
'everything is there in reality'
another..