http://www.gaianstudies.org/articles2.htm

“In earlier times, when nature was perceived as alive, with intelligence and soul, a natural process took place. People bonded with nature much as people bond with their pets or family now. This bonding process – which has decreased in frequency the more the mechanistic worldview has pervaded society – engendered a certain kind of attitude toward nature. It is an aspect of biophilia – the genetically encoded or innate emotional affinity towards all other life forms on Earth that Wilson has described. But it also represents the emergence of a deeper aspect of biophilia, that of biognosis.

The continual immersion in nature where the bonding process is supported and encouraged allows it to deepen into a direct, depth knowledge of nature that cannot be reduced to the assembly of a collection of bits of accumulated information. Knowledge of the complex interactions of natural systems or the contribution of individual members is gained without being able to pinpoint each step in the process.

There may in fact be no steps; it comes in dreams or a flash of understanding. The knowledge, because of immersion in biophilia, is directly communicated from the landscape, plants, or animals themselves. There may be a predicating factor that bursts the knowledge into awareness but the many elements that went before are and remain unconscious – an expression of the ancient interplay between organisms interwoven in the matrix that gave them birth as species – an interplay between species that are, at their core, relations.”

Nature is still perceived as alive by those who know and are intimate with her… here, now…