.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Posts tagged Spirituality
An Interview with Jorie Graham III
Nov 2nd
An Interview with Jorie Graham Issue 2 (August 2012)
Earthlines Magazine
“People were clearly not meant to live as they
wished to live on the planet, as I could see it. The mismatch
between this species – with its needs and desires – and this
place was evident everywhere … Native Americans, in their
early history, knew how to live on land. But we took care
of that. Oh it made me and makes me half-crazed at times
with grief, then with rage, then with just total bafflement.
Most of my poetry has spent its time trying to figure out what
‘being’ is – human ‘being’ and non-human ‘being’. How do
they go together. Can they. What on earth is human desire. I
knew even then desire was our illness, as well as our stunning
spark. It has turned out to be more our illness. Our terminal
illness. What can I say. That is what I write from and about.”
An Interview with Jorie Graham II
Nov 2nd
An Interview with Jorie Graham Issue 2 (August 2012)
Earthlines Magazine
“I feel that the en plein air descriptions of Never, a book written to
deeply make myself see, and thereby to bring into others’
vision, the natural world – from its microscopic life to its far
reaches of ‘evolution’ ( a word I still used in that book – a
number of poems are titled by that term) – are still, in spite
of their ‘understanding’ of the eco issues, innocent. I mean by
this that I had not fully downloaded it into my soul – and
also that I had not yet really gone deeply into the science. Sea
Change registers that shock. Place tries to recover a necessary
innocence from which to live and act. A ‘higher innocence’,
to avail myself of Blake’s terms. One that follows ‘experience’.
It is from there that we must act. Or can act. This has nothing
to do with explicability or inexplicability. Nature is not in
the realm of explication. So I do not engage with it on those
terms. I do bring language and mind up against it, into it, I
suffuse us with each other –but that is a matter of awakened
sensation, and its attendant awakened consciousness. From
there too one can, perhaps, act. But surely it is a prerequisite.
Nature cannot become an abstraction. That has been the
whole deficit in our souls which has brought us to this.”
The passage above reminds me of the situation where, to my mind,
we have not developed a language of spirit. Now I don’t mean the
spirituality of sky gods, the spirit of churches. I am trying to bring
to awareness an Earthen Spirituality but am humbled by my inability
to find a satisfying expression. Earthen Spirituality can be explicated,
but not in the accepted ways of knowing or expressing. Almost five
centuries of materialism has dominated the accepted worldview and
imprinted a template of what “is” and what “is not.” Again, I will not
accept that spirit cannot be explicated. As of the moment, it appears
to me that art holds the key. I have said that music is the language of
the soul. the Hsin Hsin Ming says: “Stop thinking and there is nothing
that you will not be able to understand.” One of my limitations is
that I keep thinking about how to stop thinking. I keep thinking about
what it is to not think. So, I am in a cage of my own construction, with
doors and windows yet stuck inside pushing at the door instead of
turning the door knob.
Antarctic warmth not unique
Aug 24th
Antarctica warmth ‘unusual, but not unique’
By Jonathan Ball
BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19348427
“In his Nature paper, Dr Mulvaney did not conclude that the recent changes observed in the peninsula were down to human activity.
However, when asked about this, he said: ‘If I am pressed to say whether I think it’s human-induced, then I would say what we are seeing is human-induced.’”
Antarctic warmth not unique
Interesting that Dr Mulvaney did not publish his personal conclusions. Thankfully, Dr. James Hansen does so.
We didn’t really need to be told that Antarctic ice melting is not unprecedented. Most people are aware that we have had glacial and interglacial periods before. Further, it is well accepted that “Changes in the Earth’s orbit and tilt produce natural fluctuations in climate.” Unfortunately, the key “natural fluctuations” favour cooling rather than the increasing warming we are recording now.
Few climate scientists, except the handful who are paid as detractors, argue about the causes of global warming. To offer “natural fluctuations” as a significant point in the argument as to the effect of human activity on global warming is spurious at the least and downright misleading. Looking at the last interglacial period, for instance, average temperatures in northern latitudes was higher and sea levels significantly higher – this quite in keeping with the expected effect of the natural fluctuations of the time. The next to the last interglacial period had natural fluctuations much more similar than the last one.
The huge significant fact is that in both of these the level of CO2 was much, much lower.
I have made my case for the evidence of anthropogenic causes of global warming below:
http://www.earthenspirituality.com/glogal-warming/
In summary, the press focuses on controversy. Alarmingly, the global warming detractors are just a handful but are given press coverage as if they were a significant number. Sadly, many, as I mentioned above, are paid to amplify ambiguities. If you think about it, most of the scientific data on the behaviour of living beings is ambiguous. We readily [we don’t have a choice, actually] accept ambiguity and uncertainty, for example, from the establishment medical profession. We are often told to try this drug and come back if it doesn’t work. We pay the bill whether the medicine “works” or not.
Climate change science would be so much easier to understand and appreciate if we examined the evidence and came to the conclusion that earth scientists are studying a living being and not a mechanical object. We should not expect certainty in the same way as we do with a machine. We have a whole set of scientific evidence around Gaia theory.
Sadly, some “theories” are favoured by establishment science over others whilst the public has been conditioned to believe in an unbiased scientific community. Sorry, that is just not true. Some scientific “truths” are more popular than others whilst other “truths,” such as that fact that the earth revolves around the sun and that the world is not flat, took centuries to become “popular.”
Sadly for Earthly living beings, we do not have centuries to avoid the consequences of excessive burning of fossil fuel and the continued chopping of forests to build structures for a human population growth that is completely out of control.
I rest my case in my book “Planet as Self” where I suggest an Earthen Spirituality, a spirituality built around the principle that earthly beings “are” the planet and not just “on” a planet. We will not risk the consequences of the sacrifices needed to turn our situation around unless we come to respect and admire Gaia as our, for want of a more developed vocabulary, higher self.
Growing Up, Falling in Love
Apr 20th
Growing Up, Falling in Love
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/growing-up-falling-in-lov_b_1438584.html
“We must fall in love with the Earth — the living, sacred planet, this “dynamic system,” in the words of the Bolivian legislation acknowledging its rights, ‘made up of the undivided community of all living beings, who are all interconnected, interdependent and complementary, sharing a common destiny.’”
This is the future — the only future we have.
Robert Koehler
Syndicated writer
Examining just why we do not love the Earth is a major theme of my book.
A lovely Tribute to my Book
Feb 24th
Its been a couple of years since I’ve come across a book I wish I’d written myself, and interestingly this one is by the husband of the last author /editor I raved about (that was + is GreenSpirit Marian Van Eyk McCain) And this is written better than I could do. Sky has a lovely way with words, easy to read. I can imagine a twinkle in his eyes when he speaks of the Earth, and his love radiates out of the pages. For a very long time I have been looking for ways to convey the sense of I am Earth, her food my body, her water my blood, and I share the molecules from the stars with every other creature and plant. This isn’t just a fanciful worldview, it is a most fundamental fact and such understanding is vital for our survival. Sky takes it further: my mind is Earth’s mind, Earth as perceivable manifestation of God. It has been told in a style of someone speaking to me.
In this book is the first time outside of science fiction I have heard us referred to as “Earthlings.” Yes! And he puts into graspable practicality what Peter Russell (among others) has been helping me to understand since my aha! days in the early 1980s. This read is more to me than preaching to the converted: it is speaking for me, taking me further into life and builds my store of how. It is available as hard copy and e-book.
Cynthia Alves February 2012
“In The Global Brain Awakens Peter Russell shows that humanity has reached a crossroads in its evolutionary path. [Our expanding communications] technology, combined with a the rapidly growing human potential movement, is helping to create a collective consciousness that is humanity’s only hope of saving it from itself. However, Russell warns if we continue on our current path of greed and destruction, humanity will serve only as a planetary cancer.” http://www.lifepower.org.uk/
A Lovely Tribute to my Book
Feb 24th
Its been a couple of years since I’ve come across a book I wish I’d written myself, and interestingly this one is by the husband of the last author /editor I raved about (that was + is GreenSpirit Marian Van Eyk McCain) And this is written better than I could do. Sky has a lovely way with words, easy to read. I can imagine a twinkle in his eyes when he speaks of the Earth, and his love radiates out of the pages. For a very long time I have been looking for ways to convey the sense of I am Earth, her food my body, her water my blood, and I share the molecules from the stars with every other creature and plant. This isn’t just a fanciful worldview, it is a most fundamental fact and such understanding is vital for our survival. Sky takes it further: my mind is Earth’s mind, Earth as perceivable manifestation of God. It has been told in a style of someone speaking to me.
In this book is the first time outside of science fiction I have heard us referred to as “Earthlings.” Yes! And he puts into graspable practicality what Peter Russell (among others) has been helping me to understand since my aha! days in the early 1980s. This read is more to me than preaching to the converted: it is speaking for me, taking me further into life and builds my store of how. It is available as hard copy and e-book.
Cynthia Alves February 2012
“In The Global Brain Awakens Peter Russell shows that humanity has reached a crossroads in its evolutionary path. [Our expanding communications] technology, combined with a the rapidly growing human potential movement, is helping to create a collective consciousness that is humanity’s only hope of saving it from itself. However, Russell warns if we continue on our current path of greed and destruction, humanity will serve only as a planetary cancer.” http://www.lifepower.org.uk/
What is the planet worth to you?
Feb 15th
The Gift of Good Land, Wendell Berry, 1981, Counterpoint,USA
“The forest could not survive because we could not see it; we saw clear fields. The prairies could not survive because in their place we saw cornfields and pastures sowed to the cool-season grasses of the old world. And this habit of assigning a higher value to what might be than to what is has stayed with us, so that we have continued to sacrifice the health of our land and of our own communities to the abstract values of money making and industrialism.” pg 82
I enjoyed bed and breakfast at the Farmhouse B&B in Barwick near Yeovil this last Friday and Saturday nights. The breakfast room contains a fantastic library of literature, history, politics, religion, some fiction and much more. I happened to pick up this book and found the quote above. Barwick is just a hamlet. There I found the peace and quiet I crave more and more as the years grow on me. With the quiet and time to reflect, I let myself become somewhat depressed over the impact and truth of the above.
In my book, Planet as Self, I ask: why do we not love the Earth, Gaia? My answer is that it is because we don’t know who we are. We have lost the connection, the realisation perhaps of our higher self, the self that is the planet. We are taught that we live ON a planet when actually, we are the planet similar to how the leaves are the tree. Think about it, is the tree its roots? Is it its trunk, branches, bark? All these so called parts – as human language labels them – are the tree.
We are taught, as unbelievable as it may appear to some, that the planet is inanimate – dead, with live bits clinging to the surface. Stop and think about it, please. How does life emerge from non-life? There attempts to explain this, for instance, the hot bubbly, chemical soup that just happened to spring forth life. Emergent properties within matter. It may be our dichotomies that obscure our vision, our understanding. Those same people who go with the emergent properties story must agree that science will not and perhaps cannot agree as to just what it is life and what is not life. Without that answer, then to say that life just emerges from within somewhere, somehow doesn’t really help us much to understand existence.
At the present moment in history, there is far more evidence to support the idea of a living planet, a conscious planet than the idea of inanimate matter that just happened to conjure up life from non-life. The Gaia theory suggests that the Earth behaves as if it is a living organism. Many scientists agree on this. “As if.” However, let us be honest with ourselves, if it walks like a turtle, looks like a turtle, eats what turtles like to eat, pulls in its head and feet when threatened, then it is a turtle. Why not? How else do you recognise a turtle?
“We will not fight to save what we do not love.” Stephen Jay Gould. Yes, Stephen has a good point here. As long as the planet is “out there.” As long as we feel the separation and continue to think that Nature is to be somehow overcome and controlled we will remain still. I ask myself, how much sacrifice is the planet worth? I am not happy with my answer, are you happy with yours?
Received the first copy of my book from the printer
Dec 23rd
Thursday, 22 December,
If you stop and think about it, shouldn’t 22 December be the first day of the Year? Surely there is no better beginning than the first day after the shortest day of the year when daylight begins to expand.
I must admit that it really is an ego trip to see your name on a book, especially when it contains just what you would like to tell people. When it contains words about one of your primary concerns of a lifetime.
What is it all about? Can I answer this in a sentence? Perhaps. However, if what I am on about can be condensed to a sentence, then why a 100 page book? No I can’t say it all in a sentence. Of course, most books are far larger than 100 pages. My idea when it comes to writing is that I want to get in, say what I want to say shortly and sweetly and then get out.
Oh well, I must say more about the book in this first post. We desecrate what we think is something outside of ourselves. We have been conditioned by our religious beliefs to see ourselves as having been somehow magically wafted down here from outside somewhere. Then, when we have suffered a lifetime, we – those who are somehow “saved” – are magically wafted off again out there somewhere. So, is it any wonder that many or maybe even most people don’t love the Earth? I wish to challenge others to think a bit more about some facts in physical reality.
We are earthlings. We are thus both physically and spiritually living IN a planet. Appreciating the miracle of life we may just begin to realize that we are the planet. What we are the planet? Of course, are the leaves the tree? Are the roots the tree? Are the limbs the tree? It is all the tree is it not? In the book Planet as Self, I try to justify what I have just said. I try to fully explain it, give examples. I ask only that the reader just consider that my story is really not any more improbable than the generally accepted story. My story appears improbable mainly because we are not taught that Gaia is a living, loving and lovable entity – being so to speak. In the book, I try to explain that also.
My ideas are not at all unique. I didn’t discover these ideas. I just don’t have a reputation to protect and can thus put the ideas out there. I believe I go further than most are willing – perhaps because they worry that they will be thought too far out. All of us can follow our intuitive knowing and develop a life story, a worldview that works for us. We don’t need anyone’s approval. Why should anyone give their intellectual and intuitive power to someone else?
A cat can look at a Queen!
We are NOT the most important beings in this planet
Nov 25th
“I’ve been severely criticized for saying worms are more important than people… I made that statement intentionally. Why? Because it’s true. Worms are more important than people because they can live on the earth without us. We cannot live without them. Bees are more important than we are. We can’t live without them. They can live without us. That’s what we have to realize and understand. That if we’re going to survive on this planet, we have to respect the rights of all of those species to survive. Because we need them more than they need us.”
– Captain Paul Watson
Attributed to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: