The nature of karma, as we humans understand it, keeps score. We imagine some cosmic ledger balancing good and bad, fair and unfair, right and wrong.

But step into the woods and we see that the karma of nature speaks such a different language that it almost doesn't translate to human terms.

The karma of nature is really just a never-ending flow of action and reaction, of cause and effect.

It's not transactional in the way that we see our behaviors and those of our fellow humans for in nature, there is no separation.

There's no beginning and no end; no judgment of good or bad.

It's just a perfect tapestry being woven by the collective of animal, amoeba, fungi and flora that have never lived an illusion of separation from the greater whole. The wave is the entire ocean, and the ocean is the wave.  

The wolf doesn't accumulate bad karma for taking the fawn. The tornado doesn't receive eternal punishment for destroying the eagle's nest. The mountain doesn't collect gold stars for providing shelter to the weary fox.

I'm reminded of a story Dr. Zach Bush, a triple-board certified physician, shares about a man who spent years watching eagles hunt fish. Day after day, he witnessed what he thought was a savage dance of predator and prey. Until one day, after countless hours of observation, his perception shifted dramatically. He saw- truly saw- for the first time – the fish wasn't resisting the hunt - it was leaping into the eagle's talons. A willing participant in nature's grand exchange of energy and form.

Nature's truth is wilder, rawer, more honest than our human notions of justice. She operates in perfect chaos – birth tangled with death, creation wrapped in destruction, beauty emerging from devastation. The forest floor feeds on fallen trees. New streams carve through ancient stone. Yesterday's predator becomes tomorrow's prey.

There are patterns of behavior-absolutely- which imply specific roles of creatures as part of the great design.

But from the higher perspective of nature, it's all just participation in the dance: each creature willingly surrendering its current form so another can express its purpose and pattern.

The fish becomes eagle becomes earth becomes fish again, an endless cycle of joyful transformation. 

Though we bear the gift of the glorious prefrontal cortex which enables the independently designed meaning of each and every human experience, it has in many ways assisted in the forgetting of our true nature as nature.

There's no doubt karma for that forgetting.