"Its hard to deny that today we (as a culture) believe ourselves nature's master."
Probably. But that's not necessarily a change of attitude, merely an observation of our apparent success. Trying to harness nature is a very human ambition, that goes right back. Was there an earlier point where there was an Eden where we didn't need to do that? Not in this latitude I'd have thought. If such a situation existed you'd have to go back a lot further than the coming of agriculture to Europe to find it wouldn't you, and look for a climatic zone of ease.
Assuming there was, then the suggestion that many people seem to imply is that there was a corresponding Eden of the mind, where we were at one with Nature? To test it, all I can do is look at my own psyche, to see if it's there, and I don't see in that form. My sense of harmony on the hills relates to a modified landscape. I think I'd be a lot less neurosis free if it was original dense and forbidding forest. That also must come from somewhere, mustn't it?
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