I reject nature. Under the malign banner of ‘nature’ violence has been done. With one anodyne word we have compartmentalized something formidable into a tiny thing that we kick under the table, rather than come to terms with its terrifying truth. We can neither escape nor control nature, so what does it serve to have a word for this all-encompassing, immovable thing? It only allows us the egotistical illusion of independence. Nature allows us to identify something that overwhelms us and imagine it as discreet and external. There is a price to pay for this convenience; the comfort of compartmentalization comes at the cost of limiting our understanding of our true role and obligations. It puts blinders on us, absolves us of respect and fear for it. In this impoverished context ‘nature’ undermines our judgement, our ability to make effective choices about our own survival.

Now there is a knock at the door that won’t be ignored, it is heat, fires, floods, plagues, and poisons of our own naïve making. No, Mr. Wolf, we are sorry, we will fix it! We will tear up the dams, rip out the invasive species, pluck the plastic from the oceans and dig deep holes for the carbon! But we can no more dial back to some mythical virgin state than a seed can crawl back into a fruit that has been eaten. There is no undoing this knot we have tied for it is knot, upon knot, upon knot, in a thread as fine as hair. It is beyond our power to undo, to fix what we have mangled and undermined in our efforts to control it. It is our destiny to complicate and confound as we writhe and squirm to shape nature to our whims. But we can meditate upon our knot and seek to improve, to writhe with grace and squirm with precision.

We nurture, hone and cultivate traits that we believe will help us survive and succeed. We do this not just with ourselves but with other living things, so that we may benefit from them. To increase the likelihood of receiving benefit from our work, we cultivate living things in captivity. The cost of captivity is the added burden of selecting not just for the original desired traits, but also for traits that allow them to survive, or perhaps even thrive, in the extra-natural conditions we confine them to.

Growing a plant in a container, a raised and isolated vessel with sides and bottom, is, on the surface, an act of control over nature. But in effect, it is symbolic of our dependence on nature. The container forces us to channel and mediate the things that nature would otherwise provide directly. A planter places us in the role of destroyer and guardian. It affords us the opportunity to realize that we are agents of nature. We are nature. As cells or as animals, we grab at what we have around us, eat it, burn it, build with it. We create tools, intermediaries, to extend our reach, sometimes those tools are alive. We take pride in our elaboration, our complex actions, and we credit our actions to our conscious choices, and feel ownership over them. What a silly illusion. Our atoms and cells conspire, and we play along like children, dazzled by the things we don’t understand. The agency is not ours, it is a force, like gravity, just one aspect of nature.

We must remind ourselves that we are of nature. What better metaphor than a container designed to support a living plant? A reliquary is a venerated shelter for an icon, it is a symbol alive with hope. A planter is a reliquary for a living thing that is dependent on your adoration and devotion. “Reliquary” invokes an existential confrontation between the illusion we have created about our power, and the reality of our responsibility within nature. Reliquary is a call to our guardian instinct, and a prayer for deliverance from our ignorant self-destruction. Reliquary implores us to reject the construct of “nature”, to save ourselves.

- Damon Crain