.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Posts tagged earthen spirituality
From the Archives – A New Story
Sep 15th
A New Story
There have been a few “deep feeling” people who have called for a “new story.” There can be no doubt that we desperately need a new story. All major religions advocate “love.” and “Peace.” But unfortunately, they seek “God” to bring peace. Part of the new story, is that Peace and love must come from within each of us. Also, they are not what we can “have” or “obtain” but what we “are.” So, why do we have problems? We are taught that we are helpless and must invoke assistance from “God” out there somewhere. This is “the pollution of the ages.” Further, it is “Earth energy” that nourishes and sustains us yet we are alienated due to basic beliefs that don’t keep their promises. We now have runaway Global warming where the positive feedback is increasing at an increasing rate. We either cooperate, and very soon, or suffer unimaginable consequences. This is not a Henny Penny or chicken licken story either – just do the maths!
Sky: 10 January, 2019
Tragic?
Apr 28th
Beyond belief?
“In Madrid, the father looks up, and then replies to his son: “That’s the Milky Way. Don’t you remember learning about it?” “Yeah…,” the boy answers. “I just didn’t know that you could actually see it.” The father looks back up, then removes his glasses. They both stare and stare.” David Abram – In the Ground of Our Unknowing
Time to Speak out
Apr 23rd
Time to Speak Out
“During those same 50 years, populations of vertebrates (animals with backbones) declined by 60 percent on average. It’s been estimated that humans—along with our cattle, pigs, and other domesticates—now make up 96 percent of all terrestrial vertebrate biomass. The other four percent include all the songbirds, deer, foxes, elephants and on and on—all the world’s remaining wild land animals. We inherited a planet of astounding beauty, which we share with millions of amazing creatures—and, one by one, we’re crowding them out.” Richard Heinberg Post Carbon Institute
<newsletter@postcarbon.org> 22 April, 2020
We don’t actually have a resource shortage. We have a population problem. With other living things, when they eat out their environment, many die until balance is achieved. But no, not homo sapiens sapiens. We have become the most voracious and dangerous predator Earth has ever encountered. We maintain our over population by enslaving other animals, penning them up in miserable conditions and chopping them up for Sunday lunch.
Who gave us the right to breed in such an out-of-control manner? I cannot imagine a deity that would condone our actions. Certainly not a God of love such as many of us have been taught.
For those of us who don’t do sky Gods, we realize that we don’t have the wisdom to manage a planet so must watch, study and learn to work in cooperation with Nature. Why?
Because the Earth is not out there; we ARE the Earth. We live in an Earth provided body. It is not OUR body to do as we choose with which goes for every other living body large or small.
Our hubris has dropped us presently into a cultural and economic decline, albiet one of many in our short history on the planet.
Now, every day must be an Earth day for our days are numbered.
We must “ring the bell that still can ring” and look for the “crack in everything.”
Turtles Among Us
Dec 21st
PUBLISHED IN SPRING 2019 | Kosmos
Turtles Among Us
sweetgrass
The Power of Gratitude
https://www.kosmosjournal.org/kj_article/turtles-among-us/
“If our leaders don’t lead, then we have to. If all our leaders ask is that we are quietly complicit to destruction, we say, “We are a better species than that.” All over Turtle Island, people are rising up to reclaim their roles as caregivers for the Earth, to be more than consumers, to be givers”
Lord give us this night our daily certainty
Mar 31st
“Give us God in whatever form She, He, It, or They consents to assume, so long as that transcendent something supplies us with an answer we can curl up around close enough to breathe ourselves to peace, or anyway to sleep. Lord give us this night our daily certainty.”
“The first step toward creating some way out of our dilemma may involve allowing our sense of certainty itself to unravel.”
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/the-religious-value-of-the-unknown/
George Prochnik
Our modern technology has given us a strong sense of certainty by its “swap the board” or “replace the unit” fix. Unfortunately, main stream science uses a mechanistic model as a basis for “fixing” climate change. Even the measurement devices are designed for machines instead of a living Earth; a living being. Homo Sapiens have never encountered the present level of CO2 and some other green-house gasses. CO2 is now building up in the troposphere at an increasing level and the rate of increase is increasing. Further the rate of increase is variable and unpredictable.
There is no certainty and no meaningful computer models to assist in predictability.
Of course, this is green fodder for those paid to spread fear and doubt thus discrediting 97% of climate scientists who know that humans are accountable for this runaway increase in CO2, warming of the oceans and melting of polar icecaps to name a few climate variables. We accept uncertainty when our physician prescribes a remedy and then tells us that if it doesn’t work we are to return for an alternative. However, there is no loss of profits in that situation whereas keeping fossil fuel in the ground might throw a few people off the billionaire list! Sky 31 March, 2019
Love of the Earth
Jan 27th
“You carry Mother Earth within you,” says Thay. “She is not outside of you.”
Thich Nhat Hanh interview with Jo Confino, an executive editor of the Guardian
http://www.ecobuddhism.org/wisdom/interviews/tnh-be
I am so grateful for the message of Thich Nhat Hanh who gets right to crux; the missing, fundamental principle of why so many humans do not love the Earth and thus will not sacrifice for that which they do not love.
“You carry Mother Earth within you,” says Thay. “She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer. In that kind of relationship you have enough love, strength and awakening in order to change your life. Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.
Fear, separation, hate and anger come from the wrong view that you and the Earth are two separate entities, the Earth is only the environment. You are in the centre and you want to do something for the Earth in order for you to survive. That is a dualistic way of seeing. So to breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it and realise you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth. Not to cut the tree not to pollute the water, that is not enough.”
This lovely Being
Aug 2nd
“The life of a warrior cannot possibly be cold and lonely and without feelings, because it is based on his affection, his devotion, his dedication to his beloved… The Earth knows that he loves it, and it bestows on him its care. That’s why his life is filled to the brim and his state, wherever he’ll be, will be plentiful. He roams on the paths of his love… This Earth… Only if one loves this Earth with unbending passion, can one release one’s sadness. A warrior is always joyful, because his love is unalterable and his beloved, the Earth, embraces him and bestows upon him inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only to those who hate the very thing that gives shelter to their beings. This lovely Being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands every feeling, soothed me, it cured me of my pains, and finally when I had fully understood my love for it, it taught me freedom. Only the love for this splendorous Being can give freedom to a warrior’s spirit; and freedom is joy, efficiency, and abandon in the face of any odds.”
Tales of Power Carlos Castenada
This is the fourth book in the series and was published in 1974. Carlos Castaneda was a mystic and the content and style of his descriptions of Don Juan’s teachings in no way detract from the value of his ideas. We tend to like those ideas that fall in line with our present beliefs. His stories about Don Juan and the experiences he describes hold great value to me. After all, who decides what truth
I also think it is safe to say that Carlos was not influenced by Lovelock and Margulis. At the time of Castaneda’s 4th book preparation, the Gaia Hypothesis had not been published. Even if it had, Lovelock and Margulis did not describe Gaia as “a living Being” They spoke of the Earth as, I paraphrase, acting as if it was a living organism. I suspect they were not game to venture that far from mainstream science. I do respect their desire to publish within the confines of what would be interpreted as “sound science”.
Looking for Consciousness
Jun 21st
“Looking for consciousness in the world is a bit like studying a movie, looking for the source of its light. Nowhere would we find it. The light is not in the movie. The movie is made of light.”
The Reality of Consciousness by Peter Russell http://www.peterrussell.com/Odds/RealityConsc.pdf
Similarly, one cannot find “the self” because what we are is not a thing “out there” to be found. We are what we are looking for. Also, there is nobody doing the looking for again there is only “the seeing, the hearing, the sensing, etc.” and nobody doing it. Many call this unity consciousness. I call it being lived by Earth or Gaia. All we can detect is the consciousness of Gaia. Cosmic consciousness is too far removed and may be set aside as pure speculation and most probably unknowable. Gaia consciousness can be known and realised because it is we; there is no other.
Earth Matters
Nov 21st
Excerpt from Greenspirit Chair’s Report 2014
In the midst of so much activity it is useful to remind ourselves of what we are which gives us our special identity. As Ian’s report points out our primary attraction is our spirituality. We come from many traditions and none but what unites us is that we find spiritual nourishment in our connection with creation, which is as Berry says ‘our primary revelation’. He word ‘God’ has been too often hijacked by narrow religion which has restricted and diminished the divine presence that surrounds us and gives everything life. In Greenspirit our vision encompasses all that is, from the tiniest particle to the greatest galaxy and we glimpse the truth that even the least blade of grass is a presence of inexpressible love. And these glimpses are enough to make us fall in love with creation.
This beautifully expressed in an extract from the book, ‘Epiphany in the Beans’ in our last magazine. As she felt the happiness that made her ‘ ‘laugh out loud’ working in her garden, Robin Kimmerer writes, ‘I knew with a certainty as warm and clear as the September sunshine, the land loves us back’.
In Greenspirit, we have moved on from trying to save the Earth just by campaigning and action, though of course these matter. Our greatest strength is in our spiritual journey, finding the awareness that ‘the land loves us back’. Every time we make this loving connection with creation, we bless it, healing begins and what is more we raise this connection with everyone, [on the hundredth monkey principle]. As long as our green convictions remain ideas in our heads they alone will not change the world. But when enough of us reclaim our identity with and immersion in creation, it becomes our sacred community. Then it is impossible to harm it and profound healing happens.
June Raymond
November, 2014
Are We Guardians of the Planet?
Jan 18th
Are we Guardians of the Planet?
guardian
n
1. one who looks after, protects, or defends: the guardian of public morals.
Darkening of the Light
Witnessing the End of an Era
by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
In the Introduction to Darkening of the Light by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, we find:
“But this gift of light was also a test for humanity…and has forgotten our ancient purpose as guardians of the planet.”
Not only do I have no idea who or what religion, spirituality or movement decided that we have this ancient purpose. It certainly was not Jewish or Christian. According to Genesis, God has given us the planet to have dominion over. I am aware of my ignorance and will try to find out.
We just cannot have it both ways. Either we see the oneness, the non-dual in our beingness as the Earth, or we see the duality as we, creatures of the Earth protecting the other that we choose to call Earth. The bark is the tree, there is not the bark and the tree as a duality. Yes, our language allows us to split and divide, carve up things so that we can speak of the tree roots, the tree bark, tree limbs, tree leaves, but still without these what we call parts, what we observe wouldn’t be a tree. It is our thinking function that gets hung up on dichotomys. Our science rips living things apart and then pronounces on what “it is.”
Guardianship may have ancient beginnings, but our science supports a non-dual understanding of how we are in the world. Even to see ourselves as IN a world out there is to err.
There is no duality, no “out there” and “in here.” As Vadim Zeland has said, the world is a mirror of your attitude towards it. The Gnostic text The Gospel of St. Thomas that didn’t make the cut by the early “holy” fathers of the church, remarks something like: When the inner becomes as the outer, there is the Kingdom of God. Another biblical source says that the Kingdom of God is within you. [Luke 17:21] So, we may see that actually, the world is also within you, not “out there.” So, if there is no “out there” and “out there” is really within us and we are “within” the planet both physically and spirituality, then what we have is oneness, true oneness. From the perspective of planets, stars and galaxies, they are not “out there” either, so they are a oneness. From here it is not too far out for those who speak of oneness with the Universe.
Now this is my thinking function rattling on. How do I feel? Can I sense oneness in my everyday interaction with what I think of as out there? Well, since I cannot and do not want to part with my mate and buddy, the thinking function, I’ll just call it a both/and and leave it for now as I set forth for my daily bread walking among the birds, insects, grass, trees, bushes, clouds and feeling joyful knowing that I know and I am known.