Despite José Martí‘s constant and exhausting revolutionary activity in the preparations to continue the wars for Cuba’s independence, it is impressive how he found time to talk about the relationship between man and nature.
For him nature is composed of an infinite diversity of manifestations. He foresaw that the only path open to constant and easy prosperity is to know, cultivate and take advantage of the inexhaustible and infallible elements of nature. He distinguished himself because his eyes saw everything in the world: its past, its present, and even more, its future.
José Martí stated that “nature is the wild pine tree, the old oak, the brave sea, the rivers that go to the sea as to eternity, we go to men: nature is a ray of light that penetrates the clouds and becomes a rainbow; the human spirit that rises with the clouds of the soul and becomes blessed.
Nature is all that exists, in every form – spirits and bodies, slave streams in their channel, slave roots in the earth, slave feet like roots, souls, less slave than feet. The mysterious intimate world, the marvelous external world, whatever it is, deformed or luminous or dark, near or distant, vast or stunted, liquefied or earthy, regular everything, measured everything, except the sky and the soul of men, is nature.”
According to Mart’s vision, nature is the wild pine, the old oak, the brave sea, the rivers that go to the sea as to eternity we go to men: nature is the ray of light that penetrates the clouds and becomes a rainbow; the human spirit that rises with the clouds of the soul and becomes blessed.
Nature is all that exists, in every form – spirits and bodies, slave streams in its channel, slave roots in the earth, slave feet like roots, souls, less slave than feet.
“Shire without trees, is poor. City without trees is unhealthy. Land without trees, calls for little rain and bears violent fruits” […]”…care must be taken to replace the wood that is cut down…”
Saving nature
In many of his writings Martí emphasized on the true and genuine cult that should be prophesied to Mother Nature for being the inexhaustible and original source of all material and spiritual wealth where man can live only in close relationship with nature. Thus, in May 1882 Martí wrote a moving article in “La Opinión Nacional de Caracas”, on the occasion of the death of the great American philosopher Emerson in which he developed important ideas about life, science, the human, the superhuman and the teachings of nature and enunciated that:
“…The forest returns man to reason and faith, and is perpetual youth. The forest cheers, like a good deed. Nature inspires, heals, consoles, strengthens and prepares man for virtue. And man is not complete, nor does he elevate himself, nor see the invisible, but in his intimate relationship with nature. Oh! There is no nurture like that of this direct life, this genuine lesson, these naive and profound relations of nature with man”.
Today his ideas are gaining strength at a time when humanity has begun to perceive more consciously the damage it has caused to nature, of which it has made use since its origins, despite the fact that there is still no unity of criteria in taking measures to guarantee its care and protection and thus its existence.
The profound capacity of observation that our national hero possessed led him to warn us of one of the most serious errors committed by the human race throughout the twentieth century and the twenty-first century: to have considered separately the destinies of man on the planet itself.
Today, the whole of humanity is moving towards the salvation of the diversity of humanity, all the damage caused by the same human beings who do not see nature as Martí saw it, with his future and convenient ethicism, faithfully followed by Fidel Castro, who warned much further ahead of the evils that could end life on earth.
