I believe … that true adulthood is rooted in transpersonal experience — in a mystic affiliation with nature, experienced as a sacred calling — that is then embodied in soul-infused work and mature responsibilities. This mystical affiliation is the very core of maturity, and it is precisely what mainstream Western society has overlooked — or actively suppressed and expelled.
(Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul: A Road Map to Discovering Our Place in the World, Finch Publishing: Lane Cove, 2008, p. 3)
it was, in my view, a sad day when some humans decided to "outsource" divinity from the world all about to some imagined patriarch in the sky, and began the devaluing of the earth. the sense of hierarchy it brought about, the splitting of the material and the physical, the loss of immanence, the extraction of humans from the matrix that holds us all...we created, accepted, and perpetuated (often with violence) a worldview in which humanity is simultaneously perpetually immature/child-like, thus low on the god-humanity hierarchy, and also at the top of an artificial pyramid of life forms. bizarre, and with tragic consequences for all. what plot kin describes above is so much more life-affirming! for all life...
ReplyDeleteIt's puzzling to consider why humans came to devalue the earth. On the one hand, it has a lot to do with agriculture (though many cultures did use sustainable methods of horticulture, so clearly it is a certain kind of agriculture that is the problem). On the other hand it has a lot to do with patriarchy. Also, a clear denial of limits. We need limits on our actions, and these limits need to be strictly enforced within some kind of ethical and spiritual framework, built upon an understanding of the physical limits of the earth. Easier said than done, however.
Delete