We’re in this Life Together

Like so much of the choreographed biological relational dance that defines our own being – this place in the cosmos that we have only just begun to capture in our meager abstract net of words – the monarch butterfly lives a life of connectivity to itself and nature that steps far beyond it’s own capacity to grasp. When we witness this spectacle of the monarch life cycles, we can only marvel on the sidelines and partly describe the processes as one of nature’s mundane acts of profound expression unfolds before us. Like us, the monarch butterfly cannot sufficiently explain the intricate depths of its own being, and yet it is somehow aware at some level how to navigate the environment that would swallow it if it did not press back proportionally with an effective strategy to negotiate the perils. The monarch cannot explain why it eats what it eats, why it is equipped the way it is, or breeds successive generations, each with specialized roles and specialized understanding, geared to migrate a partial leg of a journey that spans a number of monarch lifetimes and thousands of miles through a myriad of environmental variables and challenges. It cannot explain the depths of its own genius – to act as a singular cohesive unit in the face of variable challenges with a collective body that spans lifetimes and acts in unison to preserve the species as a whole.

The Monarch butterfly carves out its cycle of life in part through a 2500 mile journey every year over four specialized generations of travelers, each lifespan lasting 2 to 6 weeks, except for those that wait through the winter to make the journey again. Like the monarch, we also temporarily carry the torch for a larger body of life that continues beyond our individual lifespan; we play roles in this larger scheme that we may not completely understand. The degree to which we can make sense of this journey we are on is perhaps rooted in the theme that is expressed through all biological forms; that the mark we make, like ripples in this common pond in which we all swim, get carried forward in time depending on how much value they contribute to this common body of live from which we all spring and the extended journey we’re all on. While the significance of our lives exists mostly beyond our field of vision, we can see that what we are is seated on the continuing nourishment and protection of this delicate economy of mutually nourishing and protective relationships that define us as a coherent and continuing form.

An Incredible Journey: The Monarch Butterfly Migration

https://www.isfoundation.com/news/incredible-journey-monarch-butterfly-migration

Balance is the Key to Sustainable Systems

 

Balance is the key to sustainable systems. Even vital substances like water can become harmful when they are out of balance. Too much, or too little water, T too high or too low a temperature and so on is harmful. The correct range is key, and this range is determined by the environmental context. When it comes to complex biological systems like ourselves, many forms of balance come into play. How many and which type of cells, proteins and so on are part of the biological economy that has different players with different attributes, but all operate under the unified purpose of nourishing and defending the integrity of the whole system. This principle is echoed on many scales, for instance; we must seek our nourishment, but we must also defend against antagonists as a social community, as a species, and we must nourish and defend the planet if we are to continue. The point is, this nourish and defend in the context of the community principle is what defines a stable and sustainable system. But even these “nourish and defend” traits also must be in balance; proportional to the context of the environment, otherwise they too become harmful.

The same way we go into a highly reactive mode when stressed or faced with a perceived mortal threat – this fight or flight mode, where we try out behaviors that we would never consider in any other context goes into effect. It’s part of the innate systems embedded in our biological systems that go into effect as a means of defending against the loss of the integrity we depend on to remain coherent.

Our individual cells are equipped with these same defensive mechanisms on a smaller scale. When our cells are faced with stressors or mortal threats they also try out radical strategies in an attempt to hold on to integrity as well. These radical adaptive expressions that attempt to stem the tide of destruction can sometimes result in cancer, which produces a radical class of “survivalist” cells, highly focused on, and able to rapidly, adapt. Once they gain a foothold of fiercely adaptive cells in the context of our body, which requires a certain cooperative mutually nourishing relationship climate in order to function, it threatens the integrity we depend on at that larger biological community scale.

In other words, the cancer begins to exercise this highly adaptive “try any and everything adaptive strategy” as the cancerous cells begin to multiply. The cells begin operating as an adaptive agent in its own right, with dynamic adaptive aims that separate from the unified purpose of the body which spawned the cells. It is like a speciation within a single body. Rogue maundering raider cells pillaging the body to continue to exist, not recognizing that this tax will destroy the foundation on which they depend.

Because the hyper active highly adaptive capacity operates without regard to the integrity of the larger system in which the cells reside is why cancer cells, once they develop a communal relationship with one another, are so destructive, and why they are so difficult to eradicate once gain enough ground. Their capacity to adapt by developing radical strategies on the fly makes them a particularly foe to eradicate. In this case, lung cancer develops a digestive system.

Scientists Discover a Tiny Stomach Hidden Inside Lung Tumours, Because Cancer Is Changing

Cancer cells will do whatever it takes to survive.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-a-tiny-stomach-hidden-inside-lung-tumours-because-cancer-is-changing