But first — ask yourself where that instinct to grab it came from.
It wasn’t born in you. It was built. 🪲 Decades of television commercials, a billion-dollar industry selling us the story that nature is something to be corrected. That the garden is a problem to be solved. 📺
We absorbed it so completely we mistake it for instinct.
But the real instinct? The ancient one? It’s the opposite.
Our primal human impulse is to observe. To watch closely. To understand the relationships between living things and support the conditions for life to thrive. That is what we did for most of human history. What we must return to — to continue. That is what made us good stewards of this planet — what put us at the top of the food chain, and what makes us humane.
So when you slow down and watch aphids on a thistle stem — really watch — you’re not being passive. You’re remembering something.
The thistle is already doing its part. Nectar for pollinators, seeds for finches, and now a table set for every ladybeetle, lacewing, and parasitic wasp in the neighborhood. The songbirds will find them too. And they will pay us back with a song. 🎶
The pesticide doesn’t just kill the aphid. It severs the whole conversation.
Watch first. It’s the most human thing you can do. 🌿
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