Natural intelligence we desperately need

Saturday, 13 December 2025 00:28 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The devastation caused by Cyclone Ditwah in the Central region of Sri Lanka - Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

This patch of land that we live in, in planet earth which is known as Sri Lanka is now in dire straits. We are faced with the intelligence of nature we have no means to understand, primarily because we have lived away from its consciousness.

Thousands of people are now helplessly awaiting the fate of their homes in areas such as Nuwara Eliya, Badulla and Kandy hit by what we call as landslides and earth quakes. The earth, which our ancient ancestors considered a living being may have its own name to call this phenomena.

Maybe it is a quaking of utter hurt, humiliation and sadness. The earth that gives humanity its food is poisoned and turned into rubbish heaps.

On its sacred nerves and sinews we have built our brick palaces. We burn garbage on its skin. We have neither the respect nor humility that our forefathers had when dealing with our earthmother and her creatures. We kill without thought. Food is now not from earth. It is industry. Our plates hold industrialised crematoriums.

The interconnected network of nature that made food produce a joy and where abundance reaped sharing is no more. We spray the earth sickness. We call it food production. We build more and more cancer hospitals. We call it health.

The little birds that our grandfathers remember as becoming like small mounds of clouds over paddy fields—whom we lovingly called Wee Kurulla (translated as birds that eat paddy seed) are no more. They are not sick. They are dead. The paddy they eat are poison.

They are dead and we are dying. But we think we are healthy. Because the pharmaceutical medical industry is well. Because they are thriving. Because to be a doctor nowadays is not about a dharmic duty to earth to heal its beings like the ancient physicians whose pharmacy was nature did. Parents want their children to be doctors because it is a prestige. Because it is lucrative. Because the more people are sick the more the medical industry thrives.

The birds and the insects that formed the filigree that created the intricate pattern of life are now all dead. They do not go to hospital. They die unidentified beneath the layers of poison that we call agriculture. These deaths are not important.

Universities that represent the universe so little are not interested in these deaths. It is interested in the scientific method. It is now more interested in the artificial than the natural. There are millions of research papers produced by humans who want academic titles. Knowledge is no longer connected to the womb of the earth.

Knowledge is connected now to ego, to grand titles and to an arrogance that considers the earth and all that lives in it as subjects. As the earth quivers in pain and anger this arrogance will be buried as the earth who has no obligation to feed and house thankless humans will reclaim its space.

SV