Symbiosis and Competition: Nature Plays Both Games with Balance

Chap Three: A Philosophical Conversation Between Two Women, a chapter from Earth Song memoir

This is a chapter of the memoir which I wrote in Chinese. This chapter took place in 2008. Back then I was a scientist working for Merck, a major pharmaceutical company. I felt trapped by the corporate world, disenchanted with the mainstream paradigm which focuses on a capitalistic, extractive relationship with life. I was actively searching for alternative ways to make sense of the world.

This chapter described an important relationship I had with my mentor Monica, an astrologer and tarot reader who opened my eyes to metaphysics and the revival of ancient wisdom traditions. Meeting Monica led me to rekindle my relationship with I Ching, the ancient cosmology indigenous to Chinese culture.

This scene depicted here took place shortly after Monica did my first tarot reading. You may read previous chapters here.

After the first meeting with Monica, I visited her often. We formed a relationship that was both mentor-student and friendship. I rarely sought her divination services. The first experience not only brought intense emotions, but also contradicted all the rigorous training I received as a scientist, especially the attitude toward “random events.”

The education I received for over a decade and the entire social enterprise I was part of drove this principle into my head: random events are meaningless. The yearly salary of one hundred twenty thousand dollars I received from the pharmaceutical company mandated me to find statistically meaningful patterns that would stand out from the chaos of randomness.

Yet Monica’s intuition, guided by a few tarot cards drawn at random, opened the door straight to my inner soul. Perhaps random events are the door to an unknown, new world? A voice inside me whispered that I must go through this door.

There's a teahouse on 85th Street in Seattle. Its owner loves Chinese tea culture. He decorated the teahouse with antique, Chinese-style, mahogany furniture, and various wood sculptures and art scrolls from Eastern Asia. One afternoon, Monica and I were sitting at the tea shop savoring oolong tea.

“How can a random draw of cards tell my destiny? If I take another draw, they will surely be different, right? And yield different results, right? How can I trust a random event that is not repeatable?” I poured my eager questions out to Monica.

Monica smiled. “My dear, are you still the same person you were during the first divination? The questions you ask now are no longer the same as those you asked when you first saw me. Of course, the cards would also be different.”

I took in the perfume of the oolong tea and pondered. “That is true. When I was a teenager, I read about a Greek philosopher who said one cannot step into the same river twice. But I am a trained statistician and a scientist. In science, we would only consider repeatable results as valid. Random results are treated as invalid. How do I reconcile these two ways of thinking?”

Monica’s eyes seemed bluer when she was in deep thought. “Science as defined by the dominant western culture represents a way of knowing that is still in its infancy. The tarot and other divination methods come from ways of knowing and wisdom traditions that have survived the destruction of many ancient civilizations. They address different aspects of reality. Sadly, today many people in the West only recognize science as the sole mode of knowing and forget about these much older and wiser traditions.”

Monica’s words rang deeply in my heart.

"In the tarot reading, you said my true destiny is to be a philosopher. But honestly, I do not like those who call themselves philosophers. To my taste, they are too dry, pedantic, and heady!"

"Darling, you're not that kind of philosopher!" Monica replied with a laugh in her sing-song voice. "You are the kind of philosopher who approaches the big questions in life led by a feminine consciousness. And what I love about you is that you do not shy away from using your masculine strength when you need to!"

I was taken aback. I had never heard these two ideas, "feminine consciousness" and "philosopher", strung together before. Nor had I considered my “masculine strength.”

I took a deep breath and said, "Almost all the philosophers I know are men. But then, I don’t know all the philosophers.”

“Well, feminine consciousness is not limited to just women. While most of us are either born with a penis or a vagina, we all have both feminine AND masculine consciousness. Male philosophers can be guided by their feminine consciousness too. Likewise, women can carry masculine consciousness.”

“What do philosophers guided by feminine consciousness look like?" My voice was a bit stiff, as if it weren’t my own.

Monica smiled and said, "They are good at thinking with their bodies and making judgments through intuitive intelligence."

"Thinking with the body?!" Hearing this, I was at a loss for words. How can one think with the body? All through my years of schooling, I was trained to think with my head! My mind experienced a momentary total blank.

Monica continued, "On Planet Earth, most civilizations have reached the late stage of patriarchy. Feminine wisdom and creativity have been deeply suppressed over the past few thousand years. This suppression affects every person, regardless of their biological gender. A boy can carry the trauma of the suppression his mother experienced.”

This was the first time I encountered these kinds of thoughts. I felt a bit tense. I said to Monica. “In modern China, under the communist regime, women have equal rights with men. They work, play sports, and take social roles as much as men do. In fact, most girls in the schools I went to are more competitive than boys.”

Monica laughed, “And you are one of those girls, right?” She continued, “That is really awesome for those girls, and for you! But don’t forget, many social responsibilities that fall on women such as caring for the young, nursing the old or the sick, and birthing, for that matter, are undervalued, or not even compensated. Nor are they paid adequate respect. Women only received the same education as men, voting rights, and control over their reproductive rights in this century.”

I took a gasp of breath. Monica’s words opened my eyes. “It’s true. My grandmother had bound feet all her life. She gave birth to eleven children, spent her entire life farming and taking care of household chores. She never had the chance to go to school or earn any salary.”

Monica continued: “Raising feminine consciousness is not just about winning in competitions. Believing that life is all about playing games of competition is what perpetuates patriarchy.”

“What other games are there besides competition?” I asked.

“A different game might be something symbiotic, a win-win, mutual relationship. Look at the world of nature around us. It is full of symbiotic relationships. Bees help flowers to pollinate and flowers feed the bees. Bacteria fix nitrogen for soybeans and soybeans provide place for bacteria to live. Algae and fungi work together to create the lichens… ”

“But nature is also full of predators like wolves… ”

“Of course! Nature does not exclude the game of competition. But a healthy ecosystem keeps the numbers between wolves and their prey in a delicate balance. No matter how fierce the wolves are, they do not completely exterminate the populations of their prey.”

“That’s true. Predators are necessary for ecological systems too.” I murmured.

Monica continued, “Do you know about the wolf pack in Yellowstone? When park rangers exterminated the wolf pack, the park soon suffered from an over-population of grazing animals like deer, which led to the soil eroding and riverbanks collapsing. When they re-introduced wolves back into the park, the equilibrium was restored. So, from the perspective of nature, even predator-prey relationships are part of the symbiotic web of relationship.”

Monica’s words illuminated a deep intuition I had for a long time but struggled to find words for. I was excited. My curiosity pressed on.

“But how come the ‘predator’ nature in humans is so destructive to ecosystems?” I asked.

 “Humans haven’t been learning to be responsible for our predatory nature. We got too caught up in the game of competition, oblivious of the larger context, the symbiotic game.”

“But how can humans learn? Competition is so fundamental to the capitalist economic system. The gap between rich and poor is destined to widen. With this trend, the 'wolf packs' will completely devour the wealth of their 'prey.' How will nature balance the 'predator' nature within the human societal system?" I asked.

"When an ecosystem has abundant resources, it can support more aggressive predators like the wolf packs. But when resources become scarce, the self-regulating mechanism is bound to kick in at some point to diminish the wolf population. Those species that are good at symbiosis and win-win games start to gain an advantage."

With these words, I fell into deep thought. My eyes drifted and fell upon a Yin-Yang Tai Chi diagram hanging on the wall of the teahouse. I murmured, "So, the forces of competition and symbiosis wax and wane in nature."

Monica followed my gaze and saw the diagram as well. She nodded and smiled, "Yes, just like the Yin and Yang in the Chinese Tai Chi diagram."

For a moment, the two of us fell silent, each savoring our tea, reflecting on the conversation we had. I let my mind wander and found myself saying, "In Chinese, the word symbiosis 共生 implies not only to live together, but also to die together. Just like the blue-green algae and fungi in lichens, they depend on each other. Without the other, neither can survive independently. Yet, at the same time, they are two completely different species."

Monica responded, "This is like the wisdom of Ubuntu from Africa. I am because you are. I am because we are. To enter this kind of symbiotic relationship, one has to be willing to be very vulnerable, which is challenging for our American culture. We like to be tough and independent. We cling to our individual life and individual property. Eastern cultures have more wisdom regarding symbiosis and win-win games. Moreover, Western civilization has plundered nature and Indigenous peoples, accruing a great deal of karmic debt. If humans are to survive this evolutionary shift, eastern cultures will have to lead the way."

I sat back in my chair and said, "Eastern culture indeed retains more wisdom in this regard. However, my experience living in China is that in our culture, the lack of clear boundaries between people often leads to unhealthy interpersonal relationships, which can be very exhausting and destructive to society too."

Monica pondered for a moment and said, "Hmm, indeed, you are right! Individuals need to have a healthy and strong sense of autonomy in order to form healthy symbiotic relationships. So, this turning point requires mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations."

“Like what we are doing!” I clicked my teacup to hers. “Like what we are doing!” Monica exclaimed back. We both smiled.

Monica continued: “The energy source our current civilization relies on is primarily oil. But oil is finite. In several decades, we are going to exhaust the energy source. This game of competition our capitalistic system is playing, unchecked and unbalanced, is not sustainable. Again and again, in my meditation and dreams, I see that human society will undergo significant challenges in the coming decades. Environmental and climate crises will overwhelm our existing social systems. The turning point will not be easy. Human societies have been engaged in, or even addicted to conflict and warfare for thousands of years. If our consciousness does not awaken, this collapse of the modern civilized world could bring disaster and even more violence to many people.”

Monica's eyes were fixed on a point in the distance ahead. The shadow of deep sorrow appeared on her face. Following her gaze, I seemed to have a glimpse of a future filled with chaos and uncertainty.

Unconsciously, I scooched my chair away from Monica a little as if where she sat was a portal into that future I feared. I looked around at the tea shop. The warm afternoon sunlight shone into the teahouse, casting an orange, golden glow on the mahogany furniture. The soft chatter of tea patrons filled the space with a sense of leisure and peace, showing no signs of an impending ‘collapse of the civilized world’. "

I felt skeptical about Monica’s words. But I could not help leaning in and asked, “How can one navigate such a period of collapse then?”

Monica's gaze seemed still lost in the distant future. “I follow what’s in the Hopi prophecy. Long ago, the elders prophesized this time of Great Change. We are going to be the witness of its unfolding. The prophecy advises us to become aware of our sacred relationships with Mother Earth and her creatures. We need to consider our livelihood, who are we in community with, and whether we are in right relationship with them. And, do not look outside for our leader. ”

She poured the last of the tea from the pot and drank it. Then she said, "Heal yourself. Take care of the people around you. Awaken the feminine within yourself. Form allies between the feminine and masculine. We all carry the psychological traumas inherited from several generations of our ancestors. Healing these wounds will require the effort of many generations."

I fell into silence, considering the traumas I had inherited from my ancestors. I thought of my grandmother and her tortured feet.

My father left the rural village in the Sichuan mountains for college at the age of 18. After college, he worked in the Shanghai astronomy observatory for his entire career. He rarely returned to his village. When I was a young girl, it would take him a 3-day train ride, one-day bus ride, and a 5-hour walk to reach his home village.

When I was one year old, both my parents were working full-time. My grandmother travelled to Shanghai to help take care of me. After I grew up, I only met her once when I was ten. She was a typical rural farmwoman. Her face etched with deep lines, recording the hard work and relentless vicissitudes of her life path. She emitted a repugnant smell, and as a ten-year-old girl, I didn't want to be close to her.

Now, sitting in the teahouse across half of the globe, for the first time in my life, I tried to imagine what was like to be my grandmother. An eight-year-old girl. Having her foot bones broken by her own mother, and then wrapped in a three-meter-long binding cloth. She spent her life walking on bound feet, staggering along the mountain paths of Sichuan. Vague images flashed through my mind: pain, wounds, infections, and pus... I could smell her again in that moment. I began to feel dizzy, suddenly breaking out in a cold sweat.

By then, Monica finished her tea and got up. “My mystic, philosopher friend, I have an astrology client coming up right now. We'll chat more next time." She hugged me, planting a firm kiss on my cheek. Striding out the door, she flowed, her robe swirling around her like a whirlwind.