The artisphere is natural

"Artisphere" is a term that came to me when I was compiling images of the earth from many ground perspectives, from space, etc. and noticed the variations in how visible human influence is in different places. By artisphere I mean the sphere of human influence, i.e., something that is artificial and/or art. It has often struck me what a big shift it is for human beings as more and more of us spend more of our time in environments that are nearly 100% human-made. (Just as an experiment, look around you right now and notice how much is.)

art (indo-european ar-, put together [antonym furcate, split]; Latin ars, skill) - Dictionary of Word Origins

artifact

artificial

One of the deep assumptions of power-over culture (see Assumptions of power-with culture) is that we are separate from nature. Obviously there are some interesting differences between us and most/all other animals (and their spheres of influence), and even more differences from other life and non-life. At the same time, we and all our creations/manipulations (even our cars and plastic and nuclear reactors) are just as natural as volcanoes, beaver dams, galaxies and bacteria.

"Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world." --biologist E.O. Wilson

Communing with the trees reminded me of Ecosystemology (article) and Ecopsychology. I know almost nothing of the field Ecopsychology applies to, but my experience is very much the kind of thing i imagine it's about, and i'm interested again now because the booklet i'm writing will cover deep assumptions such as humankind's separateness (or lack thereof) from the rest of nature.