Between War and Tenderness

This afternoon felt unexpectedly reflective.

Whilst watching a historical programme about the events that led to the First World War, I found myself less absorbed by political decisions and military alliances than by a much older question.

How does it all begin?

Not simply historically or politically.

Not with dates, treaties, alliances and declarations.

But humanly.

How do people become divided from one another?

How does fear become stronger than relationship?

How does one group of ordinary people come to see another group as fundamentally different?

The people portrayed in the programme were not monsters.

They were people with families, responsibilities, hopes and plans for the future.

People who, for the most part, could never have imagined where events would eventually lead.

And yet war arrived.

The same question has echoed throughout history countless times since.

As I watched, my thoughts drifted not only towards the past but also towards the present.

Towards conflicts that continue to unfold around the world.

Towards ordinary lives caught up within extraordinary circumstances.

Towards the world future generations will inherit.

And I found myself wondering about the human capacity for both care and destruction.

Which of these is our true nature?

The more I sat with the question, the less certain I became that there is a simple answer.

Because when I look at human beings, I see both.

We create conflict.

We create art.

We wage wars.

We nurture life.

We destroy.

We build.

We divide ourselves into groups and identities.

And yet we also reach for one another in moments of suffering.

Perhaps the mystery is not that human beings are capable of violence.

Perhaps the mystery is that we remain capable of tenderness.

As these thoughts unfolded, my mind drifted somewhere entirely different.

To nature.

Over recent months, I have found myself spending more time outdoors.

Watching the changing seasons.

Growing things.

Walking.

Observing the sky.

Paying attention to the small details that can easily go unnoticed in everyday life.

Some of my strongest memories from these experiences are not memories of activity at all.

They are memories of stillness.

The gradual dimming of the light on a summer evening.

The sound of the world becoming quieter.

The darkness arriving slowly rather than abruptly.

And then the stars.

Hundreds of them.

Sometimes thousands.

Occasionally interrupted by the silent movement of something crossing the night sky.

Standing beneath that vastness, many of my usual concerns seem smaller.

Not unimportant.

Simply placed in context.

Nature seems to do that.

It shifts perspective.

When I spend time outdoors, I become aware of something I can easily forget in daily life.

Relationship.

Everything exists in relationship.

The trees rely on the soil.

The soil is shaped by countless living organisms.

Plants, insects, birds, weather and seasons participate in an intricate web of mutual influence.

Nothing exists entirely for itself.

Everything belongs to something larger.

Which makes me wonder whether conflict sometimes begins with a forgetting.

A forgetting of relationship.

A forgetting that we belong to something larger than our identities, fears, allegiances and differences.

Nature does not seem to organise itself around separation.

It organises itself around connection.

Even competition exists within systems of interdependence.

The forest remains a forest because of relationship.

The ecosystem remains healthy because countless forms of life participate in something larger than themselves.

When we immerse ourselves in nature, perhaps we remember something about ourselves too.

Not intellectually.

Experientially.

We remember that we belong.

That we are part of life rather than separate from it.

Perhaps this is why I often feel different after spending time outdoors.

Not happier necessarily.

Not free from worry.

But more connected.

More aware of being part of something larger than my personal concerns.

Watching a programme about war reminded me how easily human beings can become divided.

Remembering the night sky reminded me how deeply connected we actually are.

The two reflections seemed to sit side by side.

War and tenderness.

Separation and belonging.

Fear and relationship.

As I write this, life continues in its ordinary ways.

The seasons continue to turn.

The garden slowly moves towards autumn.

The everyday rhythms of life carry on.

Yet perhaps it is these ordinary moments that hold part of the answer I was searching for.

Not because they solve the problem of war.

They do not.

But because they remind us of another possibility.

The possibility of care.

The possibility of relationship.

The possibility of belonging.

Perhaps that is what continues to move me about nature.

Not its beauty, though it has plenty of that.

Not its tranquillity, though it offers that too.

But the way it quietly demonstrates, over and over again, that life flourishes through connection.

And perhaps human beings do, too.

Watching a programme about the origins of war left me wondering how human beings become divided. Remembering the stars above a summer sky reminded me of something very different. Nature seems to teach the same lesson repeatedly: nothing exists alone. Everything belongs. Everything participates in something larger than itself. Perhaps the challenge for our species is not learning how wars begin. Perhaps it is remembering what connects us before they do.

🌿

Dr Maliheh (Mali) Taheri
M.A.L.I. Neuro-Somatic Practice
Reflect. Reconnect. Grow.