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We presently focus on the individual (literally in-divid-ual[1] , or undivided), and as such identity is a cultural norm. But the "natural" resting place of identity also contains substantial elements of collective identity, and identity in relation to/within the living landscape.
This pervasive symbiosis (and the necessary permeability of boundaries that enables it) raises profound questions as to the definition of identity. Considering the symbiotic nature of self, identity – biological, psychological, social, cultural, spiritual – may be thought of more as a home that we are constantly returning to. Just like home, even if we have been away travelling for a whole lifetime, when we arrive, we recognise it as if we had never left. This recognition and the returning are one and the same, and Health as an intrinsic aspect of that "home".
21st Century Western culture has made a religion out of self-identity but failed to clearly define what it actually is other than a febrile me me me. Symbiosis means that identity is not defined by DNA. For example, the cauliflower-shaped mass of organisms that is "Kefir" is in fact a symbiotic colony of about 20 different species of bacteria and yeasts in a matrix of proteins, lipids, and sugars. Although Kefir looks like a single organism, it is really an ecosystem. So the ability to come together is not dependent on species – but is instead dependent on each cells relationality to its neighbour. If this combination of bacteria (etc.) is placed in the correct proportion as individual cells in a jar with suitable nutrients, it will notturn into a Kefir-organism. Exactly like the mix of life-forms in Kefir, your body contains about 45% human plus mitochondrial DNA and (ignoring chimaerism) the other 55% is the biome ecology that keeps you alive. It seems that health is also strongly dependent on bacteriophages, making up about 8% of your genetic content. If one also considers there is an average of about 200 mitochondria (small symbiotic bacteria) per "human" cell - that supply energy in the form of ATP – then "human" DNA is probably less than 25% (maybe even less than 5%) of the total DNA in your body. Mitochondria, like the cell you grew out of, are passed strictly down the female line [2] and are part of an unbroken continuity right back to the very beginnings of Life itself.
Your whole body replaces itself, some cells over days, others weeks, others might take years, but eventually not one molecule exists in its original form, and most atoms have been replaced during the continuous influx and excretion of matter. Yet the "I am" appears from both the inside self and to an external observer to be "the same", like a river is seen to be "the same" even though the water is constantly being replaced and the path of the river is continually re-working itself according to the climate, the influence of life [3] and the geology and morphology of the landscape – all of which are also evolving in time.
A baby is so biologically enmeshed with its mother that – not only cannot it exist without and is completely dependent on its maternal life-support system, but – it takes about six months for a baby to begin to realise it is not an intrinsic part of its mother. Nevertheless, babies are born with a recognisable personality that does not appear to originate (though it may suffer imprints from) the gestation period. During the first months a healthy baby is totally aware of its mothers emotions and body as if it is still living inside it and those feelings and sensations are also its own. Then comes a period of increasing separation, and the "terrible two’s" are a landmark in which the emerging human being starts to realise it may have an identity of its own, and flex its id-entity muscles.
Meanwhile the mother and rest of the family themselves would not exist if they were not connected through the social network of family, food supply, employment, friends, domesticated farm animals and crops, gut microbiome, and so on… The number of (symbiotic) dependencies in our global economy that combine to support a single person is utterly vast. It is still possible to travel to some places where family networks are still so enmeshed that the self-identity of one person only exists at all within the collective self-identity of the family, which itself may be enmeshed almost to the same degree with parts of the local community. In a few places that also still extends equally into the landscape and animals and plants that share it with humans. Just as a shoal of fish or a hive of bees also has a collective identity and global combined intelligence that is "greater than the sum of its parts".
The last few hundred thousand years of human evolution saw us moving round in extended family groups of between a handful and twenty or thirty in-dividuals, who would have had a collective id-entity. Their creation myths were also deeply interfused with elements of the living landscape they moved through and animals they interacted with. These collective identities tend not to have such hard boundaries, because the underlying model for bounded-ness is more flexible. Each of its identifiable elements (people) is, a result, far more supported and held within the whole. "Home" for a hunter-gatherer exists perhaps almost equally within the self, the collective family self, the Living landscape (including the sun, moon, stars) and the companion creatures that shared that landscape. This is the milieu within which our modern nervous system evolved. What babies have been thrown out with the bathwater of civilisation and progress?
My mother and I were walking on a stretch of land…known locally as ‘the moors.’ As the sun declined and the slight chill of evening came on, a pearly mist formed over the ground…Here and there just the very tallest harebells appeared above the mist. I had a great love of these exquisitely formed flowers, and stood lost in wonder at the sight. Suddenly I seemed to see the mist as a shimmering gossamer tissue and the harebells, appearing here and there, seemed to shine with a brilliant fire. Somehow I understood that this was the living tissue of life itself, in which that which we call consciousness was embedded, appearing here and there as a shining focus of energy in the more diffused whole. In that moment I knew that I had my own special place, as had all other things, animate and so-called inanimate, and that we were all part of this universal tissue which was both fragile yet immensely strong, and utterly good and beneficent. The vision has never left me. It is as clear today as fifty years ago, and with it the same intense feeling of love of the world and the certainty of ultimate good. It gave me then a strong, clear sense of identity which has withstood many vicissitudes, and an affinity with plants, birds, animals, even insects, and people too, which has often been commented upon.
RERC [4] Reference: 003039, Female, 1922
References & Notes
1 From Medieval Latin indīviduālis, from Latin indīviduum ("an indivisible thing"), neuter of indīviduus ("indivisible, undivided"), from in + dīviduus ("divisible"), from dīvidō ("divide"). The English language continually emphasises separation (the "Not Two-ness") over the Not-One-ness, and this exerts a constant pull on English-speakers to see the world as a set of separate entities – just like the bricks and beams and stones that make up the British Natural History Museum.
2 Jonathan Jarry (30 Sep 2022) Mitochondria: A Story of Mothers, Teenagers, and Energy: Our cells are full of mitochondria. The way in which their DNA behaves is nothing short of an act of rebellion. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/general-science/mitochondria-story-mothers-teenagers-and-energy
3 The precipitation phase of the hydrologic cycle is heavily affected by airborne microorganisms – see https://www.wired.com/2008/02/airborne-bacteria-make-it-rain-researchers-find/ Continental evapotranspiration and precipitation is controlled by large areas of vegetation. Trees are capable of inducing rainfall by releasing vast clouds of pollen, fungal spores and other micron-scale particles, which act as condensation nuclei https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-876/egusphere-2024-876.pdf . The Function of a river is to move water downhill from the place of rainfall to the oceans (or wherever else the water is evaporated – such as vegetation). This downhill movement can be seen in the ripples, currents, eddies, vortices and streamlines that arise as the water optimises its energy distribution over space and time. It is these internal movements of water within the broader expanse of the river that scour the river bed and banks - so the Function of flow feeds back into the Form of meanders, waterfalls and wetlands.
4 The archives of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre (RERC), housed at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David in Lampeter
