Planted

The first shelter for a human body is not a house made of bricks. For our species, like all other mammals, life always begins in another mammal's body, and our first home will always be our mother's womb.

Priyanka Singh Parihar

Building a Home, Shelter, and the Web of Life

Building a Home, Shelter, and the Web of Life | Priyanka Singh Parihar

What makes a home? Is it merely a place that shelters our flimsy animal body, or a habitat where we are meant to learn and practice the rituals of being a part of the world?

For us, shelters are not solely physical spaces but emotional landscapes that create a sense of safety amidst the myriad mayhem. Home is a dwelling place for the spirit; as our breath lingers in our body, the physical flesh becomes a home for the soul, a vessel that holds all our memories. Our second home, thus, becomes our body.

Further along, we become familiar with the walls of our third home, where our desires and needs are constructed, entangled with members of our family. It’s one of the foremost places where connection embodies. Our emotional landscape merges with other emotional landscapes, and our interconnectedness within the family creates meaning for all the homes we are yet to inhabit.

There is a subtle disappointment that often accompanies the phrase “we are a part of society,” as if society is a restrictive cage rather than a larger, transfiguring body representing the decisions made by the majority of its members.

The rituals of the world are set by us, within the very walls of our shelter, our flesh and bone, and our connection is the brick that lays the foundation for society. Society is our fourth home, a collective compass pointing towards the direction we have chosen as one singular force.

While our free will and individuality simultaneously shape society as we are shaped by it, in some more-than-human worlds, coexistence and cooperation become forces that instill each member with potent powers they would lack independently.

Army ants form bridges from their bodies, joining with each other to fill the gap on their path, creating a passage for fellow workers. Termites, collectively, become a superorganism. Individually, they react, but as a group, they exhibit “a kind of cognition and awareness.” The British naturalist and population geneticist W.D. Hamilton proposed that individuals in eusocial species (such as ants, termites, and bees) could pass on genes through cooperation and altruistic behaviour.

The ant colony, the termite mound, and the bee hive are all manifestations of a powerful society, constructing shelters for future generations.

Nest-building birds and primates reveal signs of intelligence. While primates such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans often incorporate mosquito-repelling tree species into their nests, birds are known for building a culture as they create their nests. Nest-building is generational and cultural knowledge passed down across birds and primates. 

Spiders perceive their world through the web they weave. Their shelter is an extension of their mind. Beyond feeding and reproduction, spiders sense and remember the world through their web. 

Shelters in nature are often created so new life can grow in a safe space. 

We have reshaped the entire landscape. We are the only species reaching the skyline with our creative powers. Our shelters endure, standing as symbols of permanence. Yet we are also the only species leaving a footprint that will challenge future generations. The construction industry accounts for 37% of global carbon emissions. Are we truly building a home—a place of belonging?

In an experiment, even birds have shown they adapt and change their nest-making decisions if their previous breeding was unsuccessful.

The mounds of termites, the colonies of ants, the bee hives, and the birds’ nests all offer their lessons only if we look deeper into their wonders.

Well, for me, as an Indian living far from home, I’ve realised from firsthand experience that the cost of climate change is rising for my homeland. The heatwaves, lasting about a month, have become unbearable for the human body, putting children at risk. The hours of educational institutes have changed drastically since I went to school and watched the weaver bird weaving her nest from my classroom window.

This brings me to the fifth and final home: of humankind and more-than-human kind, ground zero, Mother Earth. From her, we will rise and fall, and she will suffice and provide shelter for all. On her ground, homes will be made, and her salty marine water will keep running in the veins and womb of our mammalian blood. 

If we merge our emotional landscape with the Earth, perhaps our shelters would finally become home to the spirit that resides within us. To build, to create, to belong—not just to oneself but to our homes—is, after all, very ‘nature’ of human nature.

 

Words by Priyanka Singh Parihar, Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, written by Founder & Editor-in-Chief Priyanka Singh Parihar.

Planting seeds of thought that invite us to root and bloom despite the climate crisis. Seeds is a multidisciplinary writing practice that borrows its wisdom from spiritual, ecological, anthropological, and scientific sources.

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