ABSTRACT
The tree offers its sheltering canopy to human and animal alike. Labourers and shepherds rest against its fissured bark; goats, cows and stray dogs stretch out in its shade. Observing the rest of nature inspires questions of an existential kind. Something about the beingness of plants, minerals and animals can lead one to revisit the self-evident. The familiar can lose its assuredness, seem vulnerable and contingent. This is not because nature is exercised by philosophical concerns but precisely because it is not preoccupied by them. Post-enlightenment thought would treat this as evidence of the non-sentient inertness of the rest of nature. Nature is present in a dual, arguably related, sense: it exists in the temporal now and it is always vibrantly alert. This contrasts with the human tendency to dwell equally in the past and/or future and as a result to be less fully attentive to the present.
