The Eight Master Lessons of Nature
What Nature Teaches Us About Living Well in the World
By Gary Ferguson
Category: Motivation & Inspiration | Reading Duration: 24 min | Rating: 4.4/5 (194 ratings)
About the Book
The Eight Master Lessons of Nature (2019) is a reflective treatise on what nature can teach us about living well. Carefully observing many forms of life, from forest mushrooms to mighty elephants, the guide reveals valuable lessons they may hold for us. In doing so, it invites us to look again at the wild world around us with a renewed sense of awe and wonder.
Who Should Read This?
- City slickers seeking a greener life
- Nature lovers looking for a deeper connection
- Those searching for a more mellow approach to living
What’s in it for me? A guide to a more natural life.
When you picture the place you spend your days, what do you see? The sterile vistas of an open office, the fluorescent-lit landscape of a grocery store, the air-conditioned cabin of a car, bus, or train? These spaces are hardly a human’s natural habitat. Clearly, we live our lives far removed from the natural world.
Luckily, this summary can help you reorient yourself toward a less artificial existence. With this gentle guide, you’ll learn to reconnect with your more earthly essence by carefully observing the wonders of the wild. Taking inspiration from the plants, animals, and ecosystems around us, the lessons presented here show that there’s wisdom to be found outside of civilization.
In this summary, you’ll discover - how trees communicate with each other;
- why dolphins play with sponges; and
- what sloths can teach us about efficiency.
Chapter 1: Approach the world afresh by embracing its mysteries.
When Albert Einstein faced a difficult problem, he had a small ritual to help break down his mental blocks. No, he didn’t hit the books or spend hours untangling equations on a chalkboard. He just stepped outside. That’s right.
When the great physicist reached his wit's end, he would wander out into the gardens around the university campus. There, he would quietly contemplate the scene around him. But, he wasn’t looking for any specific answers. He was merely observing the majesty of nature and letting the complexity of the earth’s ecosystems overwhelm him with awe. For Einstein, understanding nature wasn’t the point. His goal was to clear his mind by accepting that the world would always remain somewhere beyond knowable.
Here’s the key message: Approach the world afresh by embracing its mysteries. Einstein wasn’t the only scientist who felt inspired by the unknowable. Astronomer Carl Sagan, physicist Edward Witten, and primate behavioral scientist Jane Goodall have all spoken eloquently about the importance of mystery to their work. While these renowned scholars dedicated their careers to the study of the natural world, each has been quick to admit that some aspects of life will remain beyond our comprehension. Accepting the awe-inspiring complexity of the natural world allows us to approach each day with a sense of wonder. Consider the curious nature of atoms.
Each element is made up almost entirely of the empty space between the nucleus and its electrons. In fact, 99. 9999 percent of anything is, at its core, almost nothing at all. Given this reality, it’s incredible that we can walk on the ground, pick up objects, or even exist. Children are excellent at embracing this sense of wonder, which gives them a special affinity for the natural world. Just think of all the time kids spend playing with bugs, digging in dirt, or talking about animals.
Nurturing this innate enthusiasm is the best way to encourage learning. A study from the American Institutes for Research even found that outdoor classrooms improve kids’ science test scores by 27 percent. You, too, can tap into this power. Simply find a moment to experience nature.
Step outside and turn off your analytical brain. Instead, focus on your senses; see the patterns in leaves, smell the pollen in the air, feel the sunlight on your skin. If it’s dark, gaze up and take in the marvel of the stars. You may not understand how it all fits together, but knowing that it does should fill you with renewed astonishment.
Chapter 2: All things are interrelated and interdependent.
The renowned Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh likes to play a game with his new students. It’s a simple one, in which he holds up a blank piece of paper and asks his pupils to describe what they see. Some say they see purity or peace or a calm cloudy sky. But Nhat Hanh sees something different – he sees the whole world.
As the master explains, the paper is made of trees, and trees in turn are made of air and soil and sunlight. Furthermore, transforming the tree into paper requires the work and skill of lumberjacks and artisans. And, of course, these workers rely on food that farmers have nurtured from the soil. So, really, the blank piece of paper isn’t empty – it contains a little bit of all life on Earth. This is the key message: All things are interrelated and interdependent. The lesson of Nhat Hanh’s paper game may seem obvious, but for a long time, science resisted learning it.
During the Enlightenment, when thinkers like Descartes, Newton, and Galileo were beginning to study the natural world empirically, there was a tendency to see everything as discrete and independent. For instance, a biologist would examine how one animal worked with little consideration of its wider context. However, this impulse has faded as science has adopted a more ecological mindset. This approach means acknowledging the complex web of interactions that underlie the natural world. Imagine a mighty oak tree – how does it survive? Yes, it relies on soil and sunlight, but also on other organisms.
Deep underground, its roots are entangled with mycorrhizal fungi. The tree provides the fungi nutrients and in return, it receives essential elements like nitrogen and phosphorus. But the connections don’t end there. Through the rhizomatic network of fungi underground, a whole forest of trees can actually communicate with each other. Trees struggling to grow can send chemical signals asking for help and, through the fungi, thriving oaks can deliver needed nourishment. Humans aren’t separate from this web of life, either.
Trees emit antimicrobial compounds called phytoncides. Walk through the forest and you’ll inhale these beneficial compounds which can boost your immune system. This rich system of mutual support recalls the concept of ubuntu. This notion, from the Nguni people of southern Africa, describes how humans can only flourish through sharing. No one is truly a “rugged individual,” we only survive when we all work together.
Chapter 3: Diversity makes any system stronger.
Let’s take a trip to the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. Hike through this unspoiled wilderness in the springtime and you’ll come upon an amazing sight. In the fertile valleys between the peaks are meadows brimming with wildflowers. Importantly, there’s not just one species.
The colorful display includes geraniums, buttercups, paintbrushes, bluebells, and dozens of other blossoms. Why such a wide array? Well, each has its own strength. If there’s a drought, those with deep roots will endure. If there's a blight, those with immunity will pull through. The surviving species will in turn keep the ecosystem going until the others have a chance to recover when conditions change.
Essentially, variety is nature’s safety net. The key message here is: Diversity makes any system stronger. Over countless generations, every life form has developed different strategies to interact and cooperate. This endless ebb and flow of evolution has seeded our planet with billions of unique species, each with its own specialty. All this variety makes nature extremely resilient to changing conditions. It also means there are endless ways that species can benefit each other.
Just take a look at your local pharmacy. Nature’s diverse bounty of plant and animal species provides us with thousands of different lifesaving medicines. Coumadin, a compound used to treat heart attacks and strokes, comes from fermented sweet clover. AZT, a chemical used in HIV-AIDS therapies, comes from marine sponges. Your everyday aspirin is derived from white willow trees. We can even use silk from spiders to create strong artificial tendons.
Of course, diversity is essential for society too. Consider the work of pioneering urbanist Jane Jacobs. In the 1950s, many cities bulldozed neighborhoods to build sterile, monolithic districts devoid of architectural and human variety. Jacobs argued that these plans were bound to fail and that cities should instead embrace the messy, mixed, and diverse communities that spring up organically on city streets.
And she was right – today, the neighborhoods she fought to save in lower Manhattan are some of the most lively and beloved areas in the city. Diversity also helps us see the world more acutely. Problem-solving, scientific reasoning, and creativity all flourish when many different minds come together. In fact, when researchers examined one million scholarly papers, they found that the most important and influential works came from research teams with high levels of cultural and ethnic diversity.
Chapter 4: Value both masculine and feminine energy to live in harmony.
The Tsavo National Park in Kenya contains some of the most impressive species in the animal kingdom. If you take a close look at the communities of mammals roaming this wilderness, you’ll notice a striking pattern: the animal kingdom is a matriarchy. The elephants on this savannah are led by the eldest females of the herd. They protect the young with their large tusks and tap their impressive memories to locate hidden watering holes.
Lions, too, rely on female leadership. Lionesses do the bulk of hunting and train young cubs to be self-sufficient. Throughout nature, females are always as essential to the survival of a species as males. So a balanced ecosystem relies on both males and females. Here’s the key message: Value both masculine and feminine energy to live in harmony. What do we mean when we speak of masculine and feminine energy?
In many ways, these concepts have little to do with gender or sex. Instead, they are two distinct sets of qualities, or ways of approaching the world. Masculine energy denotes elements of action, independence, and disruption, while feminine energy denotes nurturing, cooperation, and sustainability. Anything can embody these energies regardless of gender. In fact, the two energies complement each other. Throughout history, humans have recognized this essential interdependence in the natural world around them.
Many ancient creation myths describe the union of these two energies as the source of all life on Earth. In Ancient Sumeria, people told tales of Ki, the earth goddess, embracing An, the sky god, to give birth to the flourishing and fertile world of plants in which we live. Similar stories are found in ancient texts from Asia, Europe, and North Africa. However, as time went on, these stories changed. According to folklorist Joseph Campbell, some 3,000 years ago, religions began exalting gods and abasing goddesses. By the age of classical Greece, supreme ruler gods like Zeus were in vogue and their archetypal masculine energy was favored.
This change coincided with a new order in society that oppressed women and suppressed women’s rights. Unfortunately, this change is still felt in the Western world today. For hundreds of years, women have been barred from participating in all aspects of society, from education to owning property. Additionally, quintessential feminine traits like cooperation and care have been minimized. If we want to restore harmony with nature, we need to restore the balance.
Chapter 5: Respect the agency and autonomy of all animals.
It’s the early 1500s, and the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne is procrastinating. Instead of writing a new treatise on education or literature, he’s having fun with his cat. Yet as he teases and toys with his feline companion, he’s struck with a thought. “When I play with my cat,” he wonders, “how do I know that she is not passing time with me as well?
” Essentially, Montaigne is curious if the cat is having fun too. It doesn’t seem radical now. But at the time, scientists didn’t think animals had any interior lives. Some didn’t even think they felt pain. More recently, Western science has come to acknowledge what many cultures knew long ago: many animals are capable of complex thought and emotion. This is the key message: Respect the agency and autonomy of all animals.
With its origins in the Renaissance, a strain of thought known as Humanism placed humanity outside the rest of nature. This ideology rightfully recognized that humans had wondrous intellectual, artistic, and creative abilities, but overlooked that elements of our genius are present throughout the natural world. Careful examination of animal behavior reveals nature to be full of intelligence. For instance, bees broadcast the direction and distance of food sources to others with intricate patterns performed in dance. Wolves, coyotes, and other canines communicate through delicate facial expressions and nuanced body postures. Whales and dolphins even have names – scientists have observed these creatures using unique whoops and whistles to identify themselves and others.
So yes, animals are very clever. But do they have emotions like those of humans? There’s evidence for this, too. When fellow mammals like rabbits or wolves select a mate, their brains release oxytocin. This hormone is also present in humans and is associated with feelings of happiness, bonding, and love. In larger groups of elephants, when one dies, its herd gathers together, gently touching trunks in what appears to be a grieving ritual.
Of course, anthropomorphizing – assigning human motivations to animal behavior – is also problematic. Many scientists caution against it. Yet when we recognize that animals and humans share some very important qualities, it encourages us to treat the natural world with more respect. Acknowledging that animals can suffer and feel pain should motivate us to curb animal testing and end inhuman practices like factory farming. It should also encourage individuals and governments to take conservation efforts more seriously as a moral imperative.
Chapter 6: Conserve your energy for what’s most important in life.
What, you might think, could we possibly learn from the humble sloth? This unusual animal spends its days hanging serenely in the trees of the Amazon rainforest. Living up to its name, it moves very slowly – so slowly that moss and algae grow in its matted fur. So is the lesson to be as lazy as possible?
Not exactly. While the sloth certainly looks lethargic, in reality, it’s super efficient. Every aspect of its anatomy and behavior, from its slow metabolism to its sluggish movements, is optimized to conserve calories. It only uses energy on what’s most important. Throughout nature, every living thing follows this basic principle. Rather than wasting effort, nature prefers to direct its energy where it makes the most impact.
Here’s the key message: Conserve your energy for what’s most important in life. Every second, an unimaginable amount of energy falls to Earth in the form of sunlight. In just one hour, the sun sends our planet more energy than all of humanity uses in six months. However, in nature, harvesting and using that power is an arduous process. First, plants must convert that light into sugars to grow leaves, and herbivores must eat that foliage. Then carnivores must eat the herbivores, and so on.
So energy is actually quite hard to come by. As a result, animals have evolved to use their strength and stamina wisely. Hummingbirds evolved ultra-light bodies, lions only hunt when necessary, and migrating geese travel in an aerodynamic flying-V formation. Even the architecture of a beehive is about efficiency. Mathematicians have found that the hexagonal structure of honeycombs allows for the greatest storage area for the least amount of wax. Unfortunately, modern humans waste a lot of effort.
We spend a great deal of energy ruminating on negative thoughts and unnecessary anxieties. We worry about our looks, fret about our social status, or get worked up about gossip and petty grievances. None of these exertions are actually necessary. Wouldn’t it be better to direct our precious energy toward positive intentions?
Taking a stroll outside can clear away artificial distractions and refocus your mind on what’s important. Scientists call this phenomenon attention restoration. It’s so strong that researchers at Stanford University found that even a short nature walk can significantly reduce negative emotions. So when you’re feeling down, step into the woods and remind yourself of the simple pleasures of sharing with others, building a strong community, and being grateful.
Chapter 7: Nature shows us that disasters are an opportunity to come back stronger.
August 20, 1988. Thundering storms roil above Cooke City, Montana. Scattered flashes of lightning strike down to Earth. It’s been an especially dry summer and the wheatgrasses of the prairie are dry as kindling.
The foliage catches alight, and soon the whole steppe is on fire. The flames grow through the night, into towering conflagrations more than 100 feet high. The storm's heavy winds spread the blaze too fast for firefighters to keep up. By the time the heat subsides, hundreds of thousands of acres have been reduced to ashes. If you looked out over the landscape, you’d see nothing but black husks. It would seem that all has been lost.
Yet in just nine months, the area will spring back to life, with thicker and lusher vegetation than ever before. The key message is: Nature shows us that disasters are an opportunity to come back stronger. To humankind, wildfires seem like an unmitigated disaster. Yet in truth, these periodic mass burnings are an essential part of many ecosystems. When forests or grasslands thrive for many years, they build up a thick layer of dead plant matter on the ground. This is known as a “fuel load,” and every so often, a natural wildfire comes along to clean it up.
While human fire suppression and climate change have amplified wildfires beyond their natural intensity, moderate fires are actually not a problem. Most species have evolved to withstand and even benefit from small blazes. Ponderosa pines grow extra thick bark to insulate themselves from flames. Meanwhile, the cones of the Lodgepole pine need a short burn to pop and spread their seeds. Fires play a crucial role in keeping habitats fertile, too. By combusting dead matter, they release huge amounts of nutrients back into the ecosystem.
After a periodic burn, vegetation flourishes up to 30 percent more in the freshly fortified soil. Animals benefit too, as they get to dine on the healthier, more robust greenery. So what looks like the end is really a new beginning. You, too, can learn from the cycle.
Like the forests, your life will surely be touched by setbacks and adversity. You may lose a job or a loved one, or get caught in a toxic relationship. But rather than treating these moments as tragedies, you can see them as opportunities to grow. You can learn to grow a thicker skin, concentrate on nurturing your better qualities, and, in the end, emerge stronger than ever.
Chapter 8: We have much to learn from those that came before us.
Imagine yourself diving below the warm waters off the coast of Australia. There, you see a strange sight – a mature bottlenose dolphin is conducting a strange ritual. To begin with, she bites off a large chunk of a basket sponge. Then, balancing the sponge on her beak, she begins sweeping the ocean floor.
At first, you can’t make out what’s happening. But within a few minutes, it’s obvious. She’s using the sponge to flush a sand perch out of its hiding place below the sand. After uncovering the fish, she snatches it up for a healthy snack. You’re not the only one watching this scene. Nearby, a young dolphin – her daughter – is also keenly observing this practice.
You’ve just witnessed the dolphins’ sponge-hunting technique being passed down from one generation to the next. This is the key message: We have much to learn from those that came before us. Out in the wild, there’s no better source of information than older, more experienced organisms. In many species, the eldest creatures in a community are responsible for showing younger members crucial skills for survival. Mature meerkats teach youngsters how to safely hunt scorpions, aged wolves lead their packs through hidden passes within their rugged mountain habitat, and wise old orangutans help their offspring build their first sleeping nests. These intergenerational links are so important that disrupting them can cause serious problems.
In Africa, poachers hunting mature elephants leave many herds without any elder leadership. Scientists have observed that these grandparentless packs are often less cohesive, more aggressive, and generally less able to thrive. In one disturbing case, a pack of orphaned youths went on a rampage, killing dozens of rhinos for no apparent reason. The importance of elders is evident for plants as well. Consider the coastal redwood. These gorgeous trees grow hundreds of feet tall.
But reaching such heights is hard for young saplings. Luckily, older, more established trees lend a hand. Do you remember the connective network of underground fungi we talked about earlier? Well, the older trees distribute resources to younger plants to help them thrive. Sometimes, they even retract their roots to leave room for the next generation. In traditional societies, older generations have been revered as great sources of wisdom.
And rightfully so. Making it to old age bestows us with a lifetime of experience and can yield a hard-won sense of perspective about life’s ups and downs. Why not try making more time to speak with a parent, grandparent, older colleague, or another senior member of your community? You may find that the advice and stories they can offer are timeless. The key message in this summary: We often live our lives as if we’re separate from the natural world. Yet humans are part of nature and nature is part of us.
Final summary
If we look to the outdoors, we can discover many valuable lessons about how to approach life in a more harmonious, balanced way. We can embrace the idea of mystery, see the interconnectedness of all things, and learn to spring back after disasters and disruptions. Actionable Advice: Take a walk. When your daily struggles seem too daunting, a short walk in the wilderness can help reset your perspective.
Head out to the woods for a long hike, or take a stroll through a nearby park. Either way, getting away from the mundane pressures of life will help you reconnect with the wider world and reignite your childlike sense of wonder.
About the Author
Gary Ferguson is an award-winning author, naturalist, and public speaker specializing in the intersection of ecology and psychology. He’s authored more than 25 books including The Carry Home, Shouting at the Sky, and Hawks Rest, which was the first ever to be named Book of the Year by both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers and the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Associations.