Since all qualia, ultimately, comes to us from ecosystems, informs all matter, gives all matter its shape, and helping all matter to endure, we may think of ecosystems as the Center of all things. Ecosystems are like god, in the words of Voltaire, “a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.”
The center, then, is not always where we think it is. It depends upon how we measure it. The center between the Sun and the Earth, for instance, is not necessarily halfway between them, at 46,500,000 miles. The gravitational center between the Earth and the Sun is very near the center of the Sun.
Another way to measure the Center is musical. Every piece of music has a key center. Every individual is the key center of his or her own landscape. We can always feel our key center drawing us. Chords and scales are landmarks which lead us down pathways either toward or away from the key center. When the musician takes us outside of familiar musical neighborhoods, we feel lost and wish we could go back home. It feels good when the key center reappears, but an open mind is interested and participates in new landscapes.
The human landscape has taken us quite a way outside the key center of ecosystems. Ideas triangulate, constellate, and formulate centers – arts, religions, nations. We are blessed to be able to contemplate ecosystems from these perspectives.
The key rests upon making ecosystems the center, and living accordingly. We will feel the tension of having moved out of the healthiest landscapes resolve. The noise of human depredation will resolve into harmony at last.