The World We Inhabit Inhabits Us

I am not searching for evidence of a loving god or extraterrestrial influence on ancient civilizations when there are so many overlapping complexities that ripple through one human moment that every occurrence, movement or mindful action has repercussions that reverberate from the atomic to the astronomic. How can anyone parse who or what is responsible for all this collision and symbiosis that produces the organized mayhem that is this miraculous messy world?

“Even when we are alone, we are never alone. We exist in symbiosis – a wonderful term that refers to different organisms living together. Some animals are colonised by microbes while they are still unfertilized eggs; others pick up their first partners at the moment of birth. We then proceed through our lives in their presence. When we eat, so do they. When we travel, they come along. When we die, they consume us. Every one of us is a zoo in our own right – a colony enclosed within a single body. A mutli-species collective. An entire world.”

― Ed Yong,  I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life