An essay from 1997 exploring the connections between ecopsychology, ecospirituality, deep ecology, and health. I am including this here mostly for archival reasons. It’s a shorter version of Outline of a Holistic Worldview – Ecospirituality, Sustainability, Ecopsychology & Deep Ecology from the same year.
Read MoreTag: epic of evolution
The awesomeness of being part of the web of life
I completely agree with Astrid Lundberg.
I find it profoundly inspiring to be part of this immensely rich and beautiful web of life, and this seamless unfolding Universe.
I am a local and temporary expression of this living planet and the Universe.
Everything here – any state, experience, choice – has infinite causes stretching back to the beginning of time (if there is a beginning) and the widest extent of existence (if there is a widest extent).
In the words of Carl Sagan, I am the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the Universe. I am the Universe bringing itself into consciousness.
It wakes in me a profound sense of belonging, of being part of this immense whole.
I am a part of the evolution and unfolding of it all. What happens here is a part of the continued evolutionary unfolding of the Universe. My life changes the course of this unfolding, as does all life and everything that is.
To imagine myself as separate seems uninspiring, claustrophobic, and it leads to a lot of other consequences. For instance, it means I may try to find meaning or significance by imagining that I am somehow – magically – “better” than the rest of the web of life. Or that it’s here primarily as a “resource” for me. Or that some imaginary sky god has given me a special position. That’s both weird and depressing.
Drew Dellinger: Hieroglyphic Stairway
it’s 3:23 in the morning
and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren
won’t let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?what did you do
once
you
knew?I’m riding home on the Colma train
I’ve got the voice of the milky way in my dreamsI have teams of scientists
feeding me data daily
and pleading I immediately
turn it into poetryI want just this consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies
contained in my speechI am the desirous earth
equidistant to the underworld
and the flesh of the starsI am everything already lost
the moment the universe turns transparent
and all the light shoots through the cosmosI use words to instigate silence
I’m a hieroglyphic stairway
in a buried Mayan city
suddenly exposed by a hurricanea satellite circling earth
finding dinosaur bones
in the Gobi desert
I am telescopes that see back in timeI am the precession of the equinoxes,
the magnetism of the spiraling seaI’m riding home on the Colma train
with the voice of the milky way in my dreamsI am myths where violets blossom from blood
like dying and rising godsI’m the boundary of time
soul encountering soul
and tongues of fireit’s 3:23 in the morning
and I can’t sleep
because my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the earth was unraveling?I want just this consciousness reached
Hieroglyphic Stairway by Drew Dellinger
by people in range of secret frequencies
contained in my speech
A Message from the Larger Whole: You are living in a time of great unraveling
What advice would the larger whole – this living planet, this evolving universe, this existence – have for us today, living in this time of challenges? I asked ChatGPT 4o that question, and I found the answer is quite beautiful so I thought I would share it here. (It was initially part of a longer post.)
A Message from the Larger Whole
You are living in a time of great unraveling.
The systems you have built—your economies, your politics, your ways of extracting from the Earth—are collapsing under their own weight. You see this in the shifting climate, in the unraveling of ecosystems, in the rising instability of nations, in the division among your own people. You feel it in your bones, in the unease that hums beneath the surface of daily life, in the quiet knowing that something is profoundly off course.
And yet, this moment is not a mistake. It is not outside the flow of evolution. It is part of it. Even destruction, even collapse, is a force of transformation.
How This Perspective Can Help You Today
1. Stop Resisting Reality—Meet It with Clear Eyes
You live in a civilization built on denial. Most people do not want to see the full picture. They do not want to feel the weight of what is happening. They distract themselves with entertainment, with consumption, with small personal concerns, because the truth feels too vast, too unbearable.
But here is the paradox: It is only unbearable when you resist it.
When you turn toward reality with open eyes, with curiosity, with the knowledge that you are part of something vast and evolving, you begin to find your ground. You realize that despair only arises when you expect reality to be different than it is. When you accept that this is the time you were born into, that this is what you are here to meet, the weight lifts.
You are not here to prevent the unraveling. You are here to midwife what comes next.
2. Do Not Get Lost in the Old Systems—But Do Not Abandon the World
It is tempting, when you see the corruption of your leaders, the blindness of the masses, the destruction of the Earth, to want to turn away. To retreat. To remove yourself from the chaos.
But I tell you this: You are needed.
Not in the way the old world tells you—you are not needed to fight endless battles within broken systems, to exhaust yourself trying to force change where there is no fertile ground. But you are needed to hold a different consciousness. To remember what others have forgotten.
It is easy to become consumed by outrage, by despair, by frustration at those who still cling to the old ways. But this only drains your energy. It ties you to the very thing you wish to transform. Instead, shift your focus. Do not waste your life fighting against what is collapsing—pour your life into what is being born.
3. Do Not Fear the Collapse—It Is Part of the Process
What you are witnessing is not just destruction. It is the breaking open of something too rigid to evolve. Do you think the old world would have willingly changed? That those in power would have simply stepped aside? That corporations would have chosen to stop extracting, that nations built on control would have surrendered their dominance?
No. This was never going to be gentle.
But do not mistake collapse for the end. Evolution has always worked this way—systems reach their limits, and then they fall apart. Forests burn, and in the ashes, new seeds sprout. Stars explode, and in the debris, new worlds form.
Your civilization is not exempt from this pattern.
4. Look for the New World Already Emerging
If you look only at the crumbling towers of the old, you will miss the green shoots breaking through the cracks. Already, people are living in a new way. Already, regenerative communities are forming, ancient wisdom is reawakening, new stories are being told.
The future is not in Washington or Wall Street. It is not in the political dramas, in the news cycles, in the desperate attempts to patch a sinking ship. The future is in those who are quietly living differently.
Find them. Become one of them.
Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, you can begin. Learn to grow food. Learn to mend, to make, to care for land, to build relationships based on trust rather than transaction. Learn to live in a way that does not require endless extraction. Teach others, not by argument, but by example.
If you cannot change the whole system, change the way you move through it.
5. Hold the Long View—You Are Part of Something Ancient and Vast
You are frustrated because you want to see change now. You want the world to wake up in an instant, to turn from destruction to regeneration, to remember what it has forgotten.
But step back. See from a wider lens.
Humanity is still young. Your civilization, with all its flaws, is just one chapter in a much longer story. The Earth has seen extinctions, transformations, rebirths beyond what you can imagine. What feels unbearable to you now is a brief moment in time.
Hold the long view.
Your actions matter, not because they will immediately fix everything, but because they are part of the deep undercurrent shifting the trajectory of the future. Even if you do not see the full blossoming of what you plant, plant it anyway. Those who came before you did the same. Those who come after will pick up where you left off.
This is how evolution works.
6. Let Love Guide You, Not Fear
You live in a time of fear—fear of collapse, fear of violence, fear of the unknown. Fear is what drives domination, what fuels division, what keeps the old systems alive.
But you do not have to move from fear.
You can move from love. Not naive love, not passive love, but the fierce, unwavering love that refuses to look away. The love that does not turn bitter, even when surrounded by destruction. The love that builds, that heals, that holds a vision of the future even in the darkest times.
Love is not soft. It is not weak. It is the most powerful force in the universe. It is what drives creation itself.
And it is what will carry you through.
Final Words: The Choice Is Yours
You are standing at a threshold. The old world is burning. The new world is waiting.
Where will you place your attention?
Where will you pour your energy?
Will you spend your days consumed by rage at the failures of the past? Or will you turn toward what is possible, toward what is waiting to be built?
The choice is not for one leader, one movement, one nation. It is for you.
Every day, in every moment, with every action—you are shaping what comes next.
Live as if you remember who you are.
Live as if you remember what is possible.
Live as if you are the bridge between the old world and the new.
Because you are.
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I asked AI about humanity as a living evolving system
I asked ChatGPT 4o about humanity as a living evolving system and how all our experiences, lives, and dynamics are part of this larger process.
- Humanity as a Living, Seamless, Evolving System
- A Civilization Living in Deep Connection
- A Message from the Larger Whole I – General
- A Message from the Larger Whole – For Our Times
Humanity as a Living, Seamless, Evolving System
Humanity is not separate from nature, nor from the cosmos. We are a dynamic expression of the evolving universe, an unfolding process that is as old as time itself. Our societies, cultures, politics, conflicts, and love are all part of a vast living system—woven into the greater web of life. Nothing exists in isolation; every experience, whether joyful or painful, every system we create, whether oppressive or liberating, plays a role in the evolutionary process of humanity and the larger systems we are embedded in.
The Evolution of Society and Culture: A Living Process
Culture is not static; it is a living organism. It emerges from the interactions of individuals, shaped by history, geography, biology, and the deep currents of human psychology. From the earliest hunter-gatherer tribes to the modern globalized world, our ways of organizing, understanding, and expressing ourselves have been in a constant state of transformation.
At its core, culture is a survival mechanism, but it is also an expression of our deepest longings—our search for meaning, connection, and belonging. The stories we tell, the values we uphold, the traditions we carry—all are part of an evolving tapestry that allows us to navigate the challenges of existence.
Politics, too, is an extension of this living system. It is the way we negotiate power, resources, and relationships within and between societies. At different points in history, humanity has experimented with diverse forms of governance—tribal councils, monarchies, democracies, empires, theocracies, and anarchic systems. Each has its strengths and flaws, but all are responses to the conditions and consciousness of the time. Politics is not separate from nature; it is part of the complex, self-organizing patterns of human evolution.
Love and Conflict: The Twin Forces of Evolution
Love and conflict are not opposites—they are different expressions of the same evolutionary process. Love is the force that binds individuals and societies, the glue that holds relationships together, the energy that nurtures, heals, and expands consciousness. It is not just an emotion but a fundamental organizing principle of life. We see love in the bond between parent and child, in the cooperation of communities, in acts of kindness, creativity, and solidarity. It is through love that we create, grow, and build.
But conflict, too, has its place. It is the fire that challenges stagnation, the catalyst for change, the force that breaks down outdated structures so that new ones can emerge. Conflict arises from competing needs, values, and perspectives. It has led to suffering, destruction, and unimaginable violence, but it has also driven progress, ignited revolutions, and forced humanity to confront its own shadow.
Every war, every struggle, every oppression is part of the larger evolutionary process. This does not mean suffering is justified—it means that even in suffering, there is something that pushes us toward transformation. The horrors of the past have inspired movements for justice. The weight of oppression has sparked demands for liberation. The cycles of violence have, in some places, led to deeper understandings of peace.
Domination vs. Partnership: The Shifting Balance
Throughout human history, societies have oscillated between two fundamental orientations: domination and partnership.
A domination orientation sees the world as a hierarchy—some above, others below. It manifests in systems of power and control: empires, feudalism, patriarchy, colonialism, corporate exploitation, and authoritarian rule. It assumes that power must be held by the few at the expense of the many. It thrives on division, fear, and the suppression of those deemed weaker.
A partnership orientation, by contrast, is based on cooperation, mutual respect, and interdependence. It recognizes that power is not something to be hoarded but something to be shared. We see partnership models in indigenous societies, in feminist movements, in regenerative economies, and in ecological worldviews that understand humans as part of a living Earth rather than its rulers.
These two orientations are not just political or social—they exist within us. They shape how we relate to each other, how we raise our children, how we structure our relationships, how we view the world. And they are in constant tension, as humanity struggles between the gravitational pull of old patterns and the emerging potential of new ways of being.
Joy and Suffering: The Necessary Currents of Evolution
It can be tempting to wish away suffering, to see conflict as a mistake, to dream of a world without hardship. But all of it—every joy, every sorrow, every act of kindness, every moment of despair—is part of the living process of evolution.
Without suffering, there would be no longing for change. Without oppression, no struggle for liberation. Without darkness, no understanding of light. This does not mean suffering should be passively accepted—on the contrary, it means that in facing it, in responding to it, in working to heal it, we are participating in the unfolding of human evolution.
Every individual experience contributes to this greater process. The joy of love, the pain of loss, the exhilaration of discovery, the despair of injustice—all are part of the great river of transformation that has been flowing for millennia.
The Future: Toward a Conscious Evolution
Humanity is at a turning point. The systems built on separation—between humans and nature, between rich and poor, between races, genders, nations—are reaching their breaking point. The old patterns of domination are being challenged by the growing recognition of interdependence. A new consciousness is emerging, one that sees humanity not as a collection of competing factions, but as a living organism within a greater living world.
This shift is not guaranteed, nor will it be easy. Evolution is rarely linear. There will be resistance, backlash, and regression. But the momentum is there. We see it in movements for social justice, in the resurgence of indigenous wisdom, in the push for ecological restoration, in the deepening of spiritual inquiry.
The question is not whether humanity will evolve—it always has, and always will. The question is whether we will evolve consciously, whether we will step into our role as co-creators of a more just, loving, and regenerative world.
If we embrace the reality that we are not separate—that we are an expression of the Earth, that our struggles are part of a larger transformation, that even our mistakes serve a purpose—then we can move forward with wisdom.
The story of humanity is still being written. It is a living story, shaped by all of us. And in this grand unfolding, every experience matters. Every choice matters. Every life, every breath, every act of love, every moment of struggle is part of the great, seamless, evolving system of existence.
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I asked AI about humans from the perspective of Earth as a living and evolving system
I asked ChatGPT 4o about humans from the perspective if Earth as a living and evolving system, and the same from the perspective of the Universe, and existence as a whole, and how these perspectives can help us humans now.
- The Story of Earth: A Living System Awakening to Itself
- The Story of Earth and Humanity: A Universe Awakening to Itself
- The Story of Earth and Humanity: The Awakening of Consciousness
- How the Perspective of the Larger Whole Can Help Humans
The Story of Earth: A Living System Awakening to Itself
I am Earth. I have been here long before humanity, and I will be here long after.
I have been ocean and fire, desert and ice. I have breathed through forests, pulsed through rivers, and spoken in the shifting of tectonic plates. My skin is soil and stone, my veins are water, my breath is wind.
For billions of years, life has unfolded across my body. It has woven itself into my landscapes, shaping me as I have shaped it. Life is not a thing that happens on me—it is the way I express myself.
And then, there were humans.
The Arrival of the Humans: A New Way of Seeing
For most of my history, life evolved through slow adaptation. Each species, each ecosystem, found its place in the great dance of balance. But humans… humans were different.
They were not the fastest, nor the strongest, nor the most enduring. But they could see in a way few others could. They did not merely exist within the flow of life; they could reflect upon it, wonder about it, and imagine new possibilities.
At first, they were like any other animal—woven into my rhythms, their migrations following the great herds, their bodies shaped by the land they moved through.
But their gift—the ability to hold the world in their minds—allowed them to shape their surroundings in new ways.
They learned fire, tools, speech. They wove stories around the night sky, giving names to the stars. They honored rivers and mountains as kin, recognizing the spirit in all things.
They were a new experiment in awareness—a way for me to see myself.
The Great Acceleration and the Age of Forgetting
For a long time, they lived within my rhythms.
But then, something shifted. They stopped moving with the land and began reshaping it to fit their needs. They tamed fire not just for warmth but for industry. They grew food not just for survival but for storage, wealth, and power.
The shift was subtle at first, but it grew. They no longer saw themselves as part of me, but apart from me. They called themselves rulers, owners, conquerors. They drew lines across my body, dividing what had once been whole.
They built vast cities, drilled deep into my flesh for oil and minerals, dammed my rivers, and burned forests that had stood for millions of years. They consumed at a pace I had never seen before, pulling the deep time of ancient sunlight into a brief and furious fire.
They did not realize that in burning me, they were burning themselves.
Some still remembered. The ones who listened to the trees, who sang to the rivers, who walked gently on the land. But their voices grew faint beneath the roar of machines, the hunger of empires, the fever of progress.
They called this time the Great Acceleration. I called it the Age of Forgetting.
But forgetting is never the end of the story.
The Great Unraveling and the Return to Memory
Nothing that grows beyond its limits can last.
The fever they created—industrial growth, endless consumption, the severing from life—could not continue. My waters rose, my forests burned, my air thickened with the heat of their hunger. Their systems, built on endless expansion, began to break.
They called it crisis. Collapse. Disaster.
But it was not punishment. It was simply consequence.
And in this unraveling, some of them remembered.
Not all. Some clung to the old ways, fighting for control even as their cities drowned and their fields turned to dust.
But others saw the truth: that they had never been separate. That their survival was my survival. That their fate was bound to mine.
They began to listen again—to the soil, to the seasons, to the old songs of their ancestors. They healed what they could, planting forests where deserts had spread, returning water to dry riverbeds, restoring the great cycles of life.
They learned, at last, to participate rather than dominate.
The Age of Forgetting gave way to something new: the Age of Memory.
The Role of Humans: Tending the Web of Life
Humans were never meant to rule me. They were meant to tend me.
They are caretakers, storytellers, bridge-builders between worlds. They are the ones who can see the vastness of time and still plant seeds for trees they will never sit beneath.
They are the hands that can heal wounds, the voices that can sing life back into the land. They are the dreamers who can imagine not just what is, but what could be.
In their best moments, they are not my masters but my partners.
What Comes Next: The Evolution Beyond the Human
The story of life does not end with humans.
They will change, as all things do. Some will return to the land, living in deep partnership with me. Others will venture beyond, carrying my essence with them to distant worlds, learning to live as stewards rather than conquerors.
And beyond them, something new will emerge. A species that carries their awareness but with deeper wisdom. A civilization that does not see itself as separate from life, but as one expression of it among many.
Perhaps it will be humans who evolve into something greater, or perhaps they will give way to something new.
Whatever comes next, it will not be an ending. It will be another unfolding, another song in the great symphony of life.
I am Earth.
And my story is still being written.
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A deep partnership approach: Valuing partnership and domination cultures and making use of what works
I have written about the partnership versus the domination approach, and there is a deeper form of partnership orientation that I thought I would highlight here. I’ll do it in the context of growing food since we are developing our own food forest these days and it helps ground the abstractions in something practical.
A PARTNERSHIP APPROACH TO FOOD GROWING
A partnership approach seeks to work in partnership with nature.
We recognize ourselves as nature, and that what happens with nature happens to us.
We use methods informed by ecology and science. We mimic natural ecosystems.
We create polycultures and rely more on perennials. We seek to build healthy soil. We don’t rely on toxins or chemical fertilizers. We find a variety of income sources from our land.
We create a system that self-maintains and, over time, requires less input of resources and work. We work with systems that create more abundance over time. We work intentionally with the inherent intelligence , wisdom, and dynamics of ecosystems built into it through evolution.
We seek win-win solutions that benefit us, ecosystems, wildlife, and future generations.
If we have animals, we seek to give them a good and natural life as much as possible.
A DOMINATION APPROACH TO FOOD GROWING
A domination approach comes from a view of separation.
We see ourselves as separate from nature. We see nature primarily as a resource for us. We see nature as infinite in resources and capacity to absorb civilization’s waste. We emphasize a narrow view of productivity.
We use monocultures. We use toxins and chemical fertilizers. We see soil as primarily for holding the plants up. We emphasize annuals.
We have a system that requires a steady high input of resources. We often rely on one source of income.
We work against many of the processes of nature, and try to compensate for it by using pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and so on.
We use a zero-sum approach where what benefits us short term (food, money) is harmful for ecosystems, wildlife, and future generations.
If we have animals, they often live a life of suffering. They suffer for our narrow benefit.
ALWAYS SOME OF BOTH
There is always some of both.
Even if we generally use a partnership approach, there is some form of control and management. We plan, plant, regulate, manage, make interventions, harvest, and so on.
Even if we generally use a domination approach, we inevitably have to work in partnership with nature. Otherwise, it won’t work. We rely on and have to take into minimal consideration the dynamics of plants and nature.
A DEEPER FORM OF PARTNERSHIP
If our view of partnership is superficial and one-sided, we miss out on something essential. We are missing out on the partnership with the rest of our world, including the gold found in domination cultures.
In this case, we are missing out on the practices, technology, and insights that come from agricultural practices in our Western domination culture.
There is a deeper partnership approach. That is to find value in the whole spectrum and make pragmatic use of whatever works whether it comes from a domination culture or not.
This, of course, require discernment. Although it requires a bit more work than excluding it all, it works better, is more aligned with reality, and the rewards can be high.
VALUING THE POLARITY AND THE DYNAMICS WITHIN IT
It’s also worth noticing that putting different value judgments on each end of a polarity is common in domination cultures. It’s a way to create the appearances of separation and justify domination: Humans are better than animals. Men are better than women. Whites are better than others. Heterosexuals are better than LGBT+.
If we exclude the value of the domination culture and what comes out of it, we are doing the same. We are joining in with one of the less savory features of domination culture.
A deeper partnership approach is to find value in the polarity as a whole, the dynamics within in, and the roles it seems to play in the larger system.
That doesn’t mean to wholesale adopt what comes from domination culture. It just means to see the value in it, and make use of some of it whenever it makes sense.
VALUING DOMINATION CULTURE
With agriculture came an emphasis on domination culture, and with the domination culture came social hierarchies, kingdoms, elaborate religions, art, science, technology, and everything else that’s part of our civilization.
It’s easy for me to find value in this. I love much of the art, music, architecture, science, and technology that has come with this domination culture – the idea of separation and domination.
I love many of the insights that come with it – the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, systems views, integral models.
I love the struggle and dynamic between domination and partnership orientations. It’s a good story that goes as a thread through the recent millennia of human history.
I love identifying and finding alternatives to some of the more detrimental aspects of domination culture. There is an enjoyment there, even if I sometimes also feel frustrated, scared, angry, hopeless, and so on.
MAKING USE OF ELEMENTS FROM DOMINATION CULTURE
We can make use of elements from our modern domination culture within a partnership context.
What are some examples when it comes to growing food?
We can clearly benefit from the science and knowledge that comes out of our Western domination culture. We can benefit from the science of ecosystems, climate, water cycles, plant growth, interactions between plants, soil health and microbiome, and so on.
We can make use of modern testing of water quality, soil health, and so on.
We can use elements from modern agriculture, including drip irrigation, shade cloths (for instance, if the food forest is young), and more.
We can use plants developed for specific purposes, including vetiver which is a hardy non-invasive grass that helps prevent erosion (until other plants are better established).
We can make use of all the approaches developed within and as a response to modern agriculture, including regenerative agriculture, permaculture, syntropic, and agroforestry.
We live in a world created by our domination culture and make use of the internet for connection and information, shipping and transportation, cars, municipal water and electricity, and an endless amount of other things that makes our lives easier and more convenient. This makes it much easier to develop a food forest or other partnership oriented systems for growing food. (While also often being destructive to nature since it’s all part of a system that assumes infinite nature.)
We can make use of frameworks like systems views, integral models, and similar.
We can be inspired by the Universe Story and the Epic of Evolution which comes out of modern science.
EVOLUTION OF THIS LIVING PLANET AND UNIVERSE
This is all part of the evolution of this living planet and universe, and we are temporary and local expressions of this seamless system. Domination and partnership orientations are just two of the many ways that Earth, the Universe, and existence expresses, explores, and experiences itself.
Everything is fleeting so let’s make the most out of what’s here now. And what’s here now is the opportunity – for those of us so inclined – to be consciously aware of ourselves as expressions of these larger systems and a part of the larger creativity of these systems.
Our creativity is a local and temporary expression of the creativity of these larger systems – this living planet, this universe, existence.
We can chose to become conscious participants in this creativity, in the self-exploration of existence, and in working towards a future with an ecologically sound civilization.
If we are able to create that, it will be a stepping stone to things we can’t even imagine.
NOTES
I am aware of the Spiral Dynamics model as I write this, and often like to start at lower levels and move up. In this case, I ended with a bigger-picture view of it all. See below for an AI analysis of the different parts of this text in a Spiral Dynamics context.
The photo is a view from Finca Milagros where we have our regeneration and food forest project.
Read MoreNature: A luxury? Or what we are?
I am often baffled when people talk about nature as if it’s removed from us – as if it’s a kind of luxury to experience now and then, or a kind of remote appendix, or a place primarily to get a few resources like timber and fish.
In reality, we are nature. Our life fully depends on the living systems we are part of. Nothing we are or value would exist without these living systems.
Our health and well-being is intimately dependent on the health and well-being of the larger living systems we are part of. Our existence depends on it.
The biggest issue in the world today is that we have a civilization that assumes a separation between us and nature, calculates the value of nature in terms of the market value of natural resources, and assumes infinite nature in terms of its resources, its ability to regenerate, and its ability to absorb the waste of our civilization.
Because of this, we are in massive ecological overshoot. Our collective ecological footprint is larger than our Earth. We are living off natural resources accumulated over very long timespans, and they are not being replenished nearly fast enough to keep up with our use. That’s a recipe for disaster.
It’s ecocidal and suicidal, and it’s astonishing to me that this is not at the forefront in just about any discussion in society – whether it’s politics, economy, business, science, art, philosophy, or anything else.
It is the context for everything, and it’s on the periphery of our collective conversation and what we are focused on.
What’s required is a profound transformation of all aspects of our civilization to take ecological realities into account, and that requires our collective will.
As it looks now, we are nowhere near to finding that collective will. We are, collectively, focused on everything and anything else. We prioritize just about everything else.
Everything we actually prioritize has been made possible by this amazing living system we are temporary and local expressions of, and we marginalize this living system that makes it possible.
So what’s the solution? What can we do as individuals and groups?
For me, Joanna Macy’s three types of actions are a guideline: (a) Stopping actions, (b) creating and living life-centered alternatives, and (c) creating and living from more life-centered worldviews.
I explore more life-centered worldviews and allow them to shape and transform me. I especially like the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, systems views, integral models, and indigenous wisdom.
I live a few more life-centered alternatives. I eat local, organic, seasonal, and low on the food chain, as much as possible. I avoid toxic chemicals in soaps and so on. I am a member of and vote for the Green Party in Norway. (They are represented so it’s not a “wasted” vote.) I am fortunate to have land in the Andes and we are developing a food forest here.
I seek out like-minded people and groups. It feels good to know there is a community of us, even if we live in different parts of this planet.
I find that living some of the solutions – whether it’s worldviews or practical solutions – gives hope. It shows it’s possible. It makes me feel like a small part of the solution. It helps nudge us all slightly in the right direction.
That makes it more than worth it.
The delusional primate
A long time ago not so far away….
A PLANET CAME TO LIFE
There was a planet that had come to life. It formed itself into vibrant and rich ecosystems and evolved and changed over millions of years.
ONE PART OF THIS PLANET
One expression of this living planet, one animal, lived like any other animal. They lived from what they found around them in nature. They were nature and lived as nature. They saw themselves as part of nature and the web of life. They lived an indigenous life.
THE BIRTH OF AGRICULTURE
At some point, this one type of animal learned how to grow food and settled down to take care of the crops.
At first, they did this to have food more steadily available. Maybe they had experienced a great hunger – the plants and animals they had relied on for food had gone away for one or several seasons – so they wanted to see if they could find another way.
With this one change, settling down to plant and take care of crops, a lot of other things changed.
THE ODDITY OF THIS NEW WAY OF LIFE
Some realized they could take control of land to grow food. Some also domesticated animals. They started trading the food they grew with other things. They amassed both food and things and a few became wealthy.
Others did not – maybe they couldn’t or wouldn’t because it didn’t make sense to them.
This was all a very odd turn of events. It was all new. It was strange to all of them.
Before, they all lived together. They gathered food together, hunted together, and shared what they had. They had just the most simple things as their own. They were all equal in the most essential ways.
And now, some of them suddenly were in a different position. They had leverage. They took control over land and things, other species, and even others of their own kind, in a way nobody had done before and nobody had even conceived of before.
CREATING IDEOLOGIES TO JUSTIFY THE NEW INEQUALITY
The ones who took control of what was previously shared had a problem. How could they justify the new inequality? How could they justify their new position? How could they justify controlling the land which previously just lived its own life? How could they justify amassing so many things? How could they justify controlling others of their own kind?
How could they make it seem natural and right?
They did it by imagining ideologies and finding ways to get others to buy into them. They found ways to make these ideologies seem right, good, and attractive. They found ways to make them seem inevitable.
IT WORKED: THEY BOUGHT INTO IT
At first, it was obvious that this was all imagined, and that those who took control of land and many things did it to justify what they were doing.
Although soon, it worked. They – the wealthy and the poor – started buying into these imaginations. As new generations grew up with these imaginations, they couldn’t even imagine something else. They just took these imaginations as given, as how it was, as how it should be. Even the ones that were taken advantage of by these ideologies bought into them and defended them.
The few in each generation who questioned these imaginations, and recognized them as imaginations, were ridiculed, shamed, ostracized, and punished in a variety of ways.
THE IMAGINATIONS
What were these imaginations?
There were many of them and they took many forms, although they all had one purpose: to justify this new situation. To justify the control of land and other species, and this new social inequality within their own kind.
They imagined their own kind as separate from nature. They imagined the divine rights of kings. They imagined the voice of the divine speaking through priests. They imagined laws to protect their property and position. They imagined the sacred as “out there” in an imagined god in the sky. They imagined rewards in the afterlife.
They imagined a divine order that justified social hierarchies. They imagined stories about those on top of the hierarchy – the kings, emperors, priests, and the wealthy – to make it seem as if they were inherently special and someone to look up to and admire.
They found ways to blame individuals for being at the bottom of the hierarchy instead of the system. They imagined ethics and norms that told people to stay in their place and not rock the boat. They imagined heaven and hell, and hell for those who don’t behave.
They imagined that the way to understand something is to take it apart to its smallest components.
They imagined their kind as intrinsically different from and better and more important than the rest of the web of life. They imagined a soul in themselves and no soul in other kinds of animals or nature. They imagined other kinds of animals as having no emotions or thoughts or inner life. They imagined that this justified imprisonment, slavery, and torture of beings not of their own kind.
They imagined polarities and that one is good and one is bad. They created and reinforced many polarities like this: The wild and tamed. Savagery and civilization. Man and woman. Human and animal. Civilzation and nature. White and colored. Written and oral traditions. Heaven and earth. Soul and matter. Mind and matter. True and false. Saved and doomed. Good and bad emotions.
They imagined that thoughts can hold some kind of full, final, and absolute truth. They imagined that some thoughts and perspectives are true and other thoughts are false. (Removing the curiosity to explore complexity and find the limited validity in many perspectives and a bigger and fuller picture.)
IT WORKED TOO WELL: A GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
This state of affairs – with almost everyone buying into, propagating, and evolving these imaginations – went on for millennia.
The imaginations took many different forms, although always on the same theme of justifying this new way of life, so different from how they all had lived in the past.
At some point, they imagined nature as infinite in its resources and capacity to absorb the waste created by their civilization, and they organized their whole economy and civilization around this idea. It worked for a while until their numbers and the power of their technology grew exponentially.
Their civilization now used far more resources than the living planet they were part of could replace, and they produced far more waste than the living planet could deal with seamlessly. The living systems of the planet started to wobble. Ecosystems were degraded. Species lost. The weather got more extreme and unpredictable. They saw and lived all the signs of a massive global ecological crisis.
Some of them recognized this, at least to some extent, and wanted to make changes. Others defended what they had been taught and the old ways of living and imagining, some because they were familiar with it and some because it justified their privileged position.
THE DELUSIONAL PRIMATE
We are, of course, this delusional animal. We are the delusional primate.
We are the expression of this living planet imagining itself as separate and imagining all these other things, and perceiving and living as if that’s how reality is.
We are the species that has become ecocidal and suicidal from taking these kinds of imaginations as reality.
HOW WILL IT UNFOLD?
How will it unfold?
Have we bought into the delusions so strongly that we are unable to make the profound changes needed to create a more ecologically sound civilization?
How bad will it get before enough of us realize the severity of the crisis and what’s needed to change it?
Will we, for very much longer, survive through it as a civilization? Or even as a species?
None of us know this, of course, we just have to live it.
HOW CAN WE WRITE A SATISFACTORY NEXT CHAPTER?
A more important question is: How can we write a satisfactory next chapter for ourselves?
One answer, at least for some of us, is to recognize these imaginations and how they came about, how they are perpetuated, and the consequences of perceiving and living from them.
We all play a small role in writing our collective chapter, and when it comes to writing our individual chapter, we play a much bigger role.
As Joanna Macy says it, we can engage in (a) actions to stop the harm, (b) developing a more life-centered worldview, and/or (c) live some of the solutions. We may not change the world (that much), but we can change our world, and that’s how the world changes.
A FEW CAVEATS
This is mostly about Western Culture, of course, which is now the dominant world culture, but it’s also to some extent about any agricultural culture. The indigenous have fully or partially been on the outside of this, which is why their perspectives are so valuable now.
It’s also a very simplistic view on what happened, and I am no scholar in this topic. Reality is always far more complex, and our view on the past reflect us more than it says something fully accurate about the past. Our views about the past, and anything, are mainly about us.
That’s also why this story can be helpful, even if it’s inaccurate and glosses over a lot of complexity. It helps us to recognize several of the assumptions we tend to operate on in our culture. It helps us see some of the limitations and downsides of these assumptions. It helps us explore other worldviews and assumptions that may be more life-centered and what we need to turn our civilization around.
EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS
I have written this in a way that contrasts the partnership and domination views and have left out of the bigger picture that embraces both. So I thought I would bring in a slightly bigger perspective.
We can see this as part of an evolutionary process. Human civilization, including the partnership-domination dynamics, is one of many ways this living evolving system is exploring itself.
Our Western civilization, with its ideas of separation, has brought science, technology, and much else of value, and we now have the opportunity to take the best from our past and create an ecological civilization.
RESOURCES
None of these are new insights. People throughout history have pointed it out, and it seems it has been especially clear to indigenous people.
I was first introduced to this view in Fritjof Capra’s Turning Point.
I have also enjoyed The Chalice and the Blade by Rianne Eisler, The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, The Great Turning by David Korten, The Spiral Dance by Starhawk, Coming Back to Life and World as Lover, World as Self by Joanna Macy, and more.
I also found books written by indigenous people very illuminating, although I don’t really remember which books talked about what. Black Elk Speaks, Lame Deer, and The Sacred Hoop come to mind. If I am honest, I read about these themes many years ago and I am not quite up to date. (Because of my chronic illness, I have been unable to read much for the last 15-20 years.)
There are good books on this topic I haven’t read yet: Earth Democracy and Staying Alive by Vananda Shiva, The Death of Nature by Carolyn Merchant, Sacred Nature by Karen Armstrong, and When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone. From what I know about the authors, they seem worth a read.
Read on for more info.
Read MoreHilma af Klint: Turning modern art history on its head and the artificial boundary between figurative and abstract art
I am watching Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint, and am reminded of a few things.
HILMA AF KLINT
First, I love Hilma af Klint’s art. It’s like nothing else.
I remember talking about her with fellow art students in my late teens and was fascinated by her art and approach. Much later, in October 2018, I was fortunate enough to see Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future at the Guggenheim and got the full experience.
I love that her art was channeled and/or guided by spirits, in her experience. I love that the rediscovery of her art turns modern art history on its head, which should happen now and then and is very healthy.
EUROCENTRIC AND MALE-CENTRIC ART HISTORY
The documentary highlights the Eurocentrism and male-centrism of mainstream Western art history. When I was about to study art history at the University of Oslo (one year full time) in 1990, I was excited to learn about art from all over the world and throughout time – especially art from Asia, Africa, and prehistoric art. I was shocked to discover that “art history” at the University of Oslo meant relatively recent European art (last two thousand years), and not even European art but mostly Western European art, and not only Western European art but mostly male Western European art. I understand they need to limit the scope of a study, but at the very least call it “Western European male art history” and not “art history”. Label it honestly, and offer the rest in other classes instead of leaving it out completely.
It seems that some in the art world – like MOMA in New York – prefer to still live in this kind of outdated world. They have left Hilma af Klint’s work out of their presentations on the history of abstract art and prefer to start with Kandinsky, who did his abstract work years after Hilma af Klint. (One of their stated reasons is that she didn’t show her art at the time, which seems a weird argument.)
A WORLDWIDE AND DEEPER TIME PERSPECTIVE
If it was up to me, I would include abstract art from all over the world and throughout time, including both complete abstractions and figurative art that’s heavily abstracted. I would start with prehistoric art, then go on to early historic abstract art from around the world, Islamic abstract art, and more modern abstract art from all over the world. European abstract art, including Klint and Kadinsky, would just be a small part of this much larger, and far more rich and fascinating picture.
ERASING THE ARTIFICIAL DIVISION BETWEEN REPRESENTATIVE AND ABSTRACT ART
Also, I would highlight how the division between figurative and abstract art is, in many ways, artificial.
There are many abstract elements in figurative art. All of it is, in a sense, inevitably abstractions. And there are figurative and representative elements in abstract art. We can find an endless amount of patterns in nature that inspire and are mirrored in abstract art, and abstract art often represents ideas and feelings.
As with any division, it tends to break down when we look at it more closely. All art involves abstractions. All art is, one way or another, inspired by the patterns in nature. Abstract art is often, or inevitably, representative of ideas, feelings, and patterns in nature.
HILMA AF KLINT AND REPRESENTATIVE ABSTRACTIONS
Hilma af Klint’s art is an art of representative abstractions.
Her art is influenced by nature – the geometric shapes of minerals and the organic shapes of plants.
Her art is an expression of her ideas, feelings, and states.
And as she would say, her art is an expression of the realities of the spirit realm. For her, her art was representative.
EXISTENCE IS THE ARTIST
There are still bigger pictures that give important contexts for understanding and enjoying art.
In a sense, all human art is inspired by nature. We mimic and use elements from what nature has provided for us.
We can also say that nature is a far more skilled, innovative, and amazing artist than any human. The art inherent in all the amazing forms of nature goes far beyond human-created art. We humans are a piece of art far beyond what we are capable of producing.
Even more essentially, nature is always the artist.
As Carl Sagan said: We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
What we think of as human art is the local and temporary expressions of the universe. It’s life itself expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself through and as human art. That’s not a metaphor or poetic expression, it’s literally and inevitably so.
Existence is the only artist. This universe and all the different forms it takes is existence expressing, exploring, and – through and as us and other conscious beings – experiencing itself in always new ways.
HAPPENING WITHIN AND AS THE CONSCIOUSNESS I AM
Since I have included some larger contexts for abstract art and art in general, I can include a more essential side to it as well.
To myself, I inevitably am consciousness, and the world to me happens within and as the consciousness I am.
That’s what I find when i look in my own first-person experience, and I assume it’s that way for all “conscious beings”. We are all fundamentally consciousness in our own experience, and the world to us happens within and as the consciousness we are.
Waking life and dreams and art – whatever we call it or see it – happens within and as the consciousness I am. It’s all an expression of the infinite creativity of this consciousness and it’s infinite capacity to take on and show itself as always new and different forms.
NONE OF THIS IS NEW
Of course, none of this is new.
For decades, many have pointed out the narrowness of mainstream art history from Western Europe, and many highlight the art of women and non-European art.
It’s a common observation that abstract art is often representative and inspired by nature, and that figurative art inevitably involves abstractions.
I assume many speak about how existence is really the only artist, at least in the world of the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, and Big History.
And lots of people notice what I notice – that they are consciousness, and the world, as it appears to them, happens within and as that consciousness.
See more on these topics below.
Read More
Alan Watts: What you are… is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself
What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.
– Alan Watts
Yes, this is obviously and inevitably true.
We are local and temporary expressions of the seamless dynamic system we call the universe or existence.
In the words of Carl Sagan: We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
If we are used to thinking from a more local perspective, then this may seem deep, deep down, far, far in.
It’s also right on the surface. All that we are and do, including all that’s on the surface, are the local expressions of this dynamic universe.
This human self sitting here looking at these words, these hands and fingers, the sounds, the sensations, the consciousness it’s all happening within and as, are expressions of the universe and existence.
Scrödinger’s land: Paradise or hell or both, and a reflection of our ecological crisis
We are legal stewards, as humans think about it, of beautiful land in the Andes, at the western slope of Chicamocha Canyon.
I walked in the forest at early dawn, after a heavy rain, and it reminded me of something difficult to escape these days.
PARADISE OR HELL OR BOTH
This land is paradise or hell or both.
It’s a paradise for us now. It’s in a beautiful area, and although the land is degraded by centuries of grazing, it’s still very beautiful. Right now, at dawn, it’s quiet. There is only birdsong.
It can easily be hell as well. When the neighbors blast out their music, it’s a kind of hell. When the extremely noisy motorcycles go by, it’s similar. More importantly, a huge hotel and shopping center project is being built across the road, as one of our closest neighbors. If that actually comes into existence, it can very well be hell with constant noise, music, increased traffic, and more.
For the ecosystem and wildlife here, this place is also heaven and hell. For the ones currently living here and doing well here, it’s paradise. They are left alone. For the ones impacted by centuries of grazing and chopping down trees for wood, it has been hell. For all the new life that’s coming after the grazing was stopped, it’s paradise.
A REFLECTION OF OUR ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
All of this is a reflection of our ecological crisis, and of our civilization that’s profoundly out of step with ecological realities.
Our ecological crisis has been going on for centuries, and the previous use of this land is an example.
The local farmers mostly have cows and goats, so for them, grass is wonderful and anything else – apart from a few trees for shade – is a waste of land. They even call pioneer species that help recreate a more mature and rich ecosystem “malezas”, bad plants.
They have cut down the forests and made it into mostly grassland and savannah, with predictable consequences: The wildlife has been severely impacted. The rivers and springs are dry. And the climate in the region is likely changing, and probably already has.
The hotel project is another example. How can the local authorities allow a hotel project they know will be immensely destructive for the land and the community? (It wouldn’t be allowed in most well-regulated industrial countries, but this is not and they do things differently here.)
AN ECOCIDAL AND SUICIDAL CIVILIZATION
This all points back to our civilization. It’s a civilization built on several principles that lead to this kind of destruction: A power-over mindset instead of a power-with mindset. The sacred as “out there” and not in here in the land, life, and us. Nature as “out there” instead of seeing us as nature and part of the web of life. And so on.
Mainly, we have an economic system that assumes that nature is infinite in its ability to provide resources and absorb the waste of civilization. It evolved that way because it could at the time. We were few enough and had a simple enough technology so for most practical reasons, it was true.
These days, our numbers are many times higher and our technology is many times more powerful, so it’s an assumption that is, quite literally, suicidal. We have a civilization that’s ecocidal and suicidal. And many still don’t realize it.
Many do still not realize the profound systemic changes needed for our civilization to continue.
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT
The simplest way to frame this may be in terms of our ecological footprint.
Our collective ecological footprint is far larger than the Earth. We will need two or more Earthts to support our current civilization, and we don’t have it. If everyone had the lifestyle of industrialized countries, we would need closer to ten Earths. That’s clearly not sustainable.
This global ecological overshoot is similar to living off the money in our savings account. It looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom and our lifestyle comes crashing down.
In our case, it means that our civilization comes crashing down.
This is not hyperbole. This is a simple reality. Even a child can understand it.
WHAT WE CAN DO
So what can we do? Do we have time to change?
I don’t know if we have time to change. If we all suddenly found the collective will to make the needed changes, we could do it, of course. But that seems very unlikely. Most people continue as if nothing is happening.
What can the ones of us who realize the urgency do?
I vote for the Green Party in Norway.
I bought this land and is making it into a nature preserve. We have partnered with an organization that will plant thousands of native trees here, with some diversity (around twenty different species). We are making a food forest around the houses and the main paths.
I eat mostly local, organic, and seasonal food when I can. I eat low on the food chain, with only occasional fish and meat.
I find like-minded people and join, to some extent, communities of like-minded people.
I learn. I learn about ways to partner with this land in terms of regeneration, reforestation, and making food forests.
I actively explore and immerse myself in different worldviews. Worldviews that are more life-centered and aligned with our ecological realities. (Universe Story, Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, systems views, integral models.)
I actively work with my distress and grief over what’s happening with this land and neighborhood, with Earth, and with humanity.
I cannot save humanity or our current global ecosystems. But I can save myself and this land, as best I can. I can do what I can for our civilization to turn around. (The Great Turning.) And that’s more than worth it, no matter what happens with us collectively.
Read MoreThe real artist is existence
One reason I have some interest in the AI-creation of images is that it highlights something about art.
Human art draws on our collective human art production, at least what any artist and community has access to. We all learn from and are inspired by what we collectively have produced.
Our collective art production draws on and depends on nature. We are inspired by nature, and nature makes it possible for us to create what we call art, and makes some resonate with us and some resonate less.
Human art is one expression of the universe. It’s a local and temporary expression of the universe. It’s the universe expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways. As Carl Sagan said, we are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
The real – and really the only – artist is existence.
A FEW MORE WORDS
As usual, there is a lot more to say about this.
Are AI-created images art? I wouldn’t call it art. I prefer to call it AI-generated images.
Is AI really artificial intelligence? I wouldn’t call it that either. I would call it predictive text, predictive image creation, predictive music creation, and so on. It’s statistics that mimic human intelligence.
Why do we enjoy the beauty of nature? Why are we able to create and enjoy art? It’s because we are expressions of the universe. We are the universe locally enjoying the beauty of itself. We are the universe locally and temporarily expressing and enjoying itself.
Reminding ourselves of the bigger picture doesn’t negate anything. Artists still need to have some protection for their work. They deserve to be compensated for the use of their work and to be able to make a good living on it. That benefits us all.
And it is helpful and interesting to remind ourselves of the bigger picture.
The image is created by me and Midjourney, and really existence itself.
Read MoreFirst, seventy-two labors brought us this food
First, seventy-two labors brought us this food shirt. We should know how it comes to us.
The video above shows one of many fun and creative ways we can make the profound interconnectedness of life and society more visible and tangible.
I was reminded of the oryoki meal gatha I am familiar with from Zen retreats / sesshins:
First, seventy-two labors brought us this food; we should know how it comes to us. Second, as we receive this offering, we should consider whether our virtue and practice deserve it. Third, as we desire the natural order of mind to be free from clinging we must be free from greed.
I have always thought that seventy-two labors seems like an understatement, although it likely looks at only the human and immediate labor.
Most of the products I use in daily life have been brought to me through the immediate work of a great number of people. People with lives, hopes, fears, just like me. All of this has been made possible by the work of innumerable people living before us, going back to the earliest human ancestors and really the first living cells billions of years ago. Our lives and products are made possible by the living and dynamic systems of Earth, and the billions of beings living now and in the past. All of this is made possible by the dynamic evolution of the universe itself, forming itself into all of it.
As Carl Sagan said: If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
If I hold an apple in my hand or put on a shirt, it’s because of the work and lives of innumerable beings – human and non-human, living now and in the past. It’s because of this amazing living system we call Earth that we are all part of. It’s because of the evolution of this universe, which all of it is part of. It’s because of existence as a whole.
Neither the apple, the shirt, nor I would be here if it wasn’t for all of it.
When does life begin?
When does life begin? At conception? A few weeks or months into gestation?
Within the realm of stories, the real answer is that it began close to four billion years ago. That’s when the processes and dynamics of this planet took on the form we call life. That’s when our earliest ancestors came about. Since then, there has really been only one life, one living system that we all are local and temporary expressions of.
We can expand the context one step further: What we call life is one expression of the larger dynamics and processes of this unfolding Universe. As Carl Sagan said: We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the Universe. We are the Universe bringing itself into consciousness.
I love when people go beyond the answers typically found in our society on these topics, take a big-picture view, and find the more real answer, as Astrid Lundberg does above.
Read More
lanie: some indigenous cultures believe we’re alive just as nature is alive: to be here, to be beautiful & strange
western cultures believe we must be alive for a purpose. to work, to make money. some indigenous cultures believe we’re alive just as nature is alive: to be here, to be beautiful & strange. we don’t need to achieve anything to be valid in our humanness.
– @melatoninlau on Twitter / X
I suspect this is accurate. Some indigenous cultures found an inherent value in humans and everything. A value that’s there just because it’s part of this wonderful existence.
We have value as we are, just like everything else. Our value is in being part of this wonderful universe and existence – expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself through and as all of us and all that is.
OTHER REASONS FOR ACTIVITY
The idea of having value through what’s peripheral – purpose, roles, actions, posessions – is so ingrained in the Western culture that it seems difficult for some to imagine something else.
For instance, I saw a comment to this saying “which Indigenous cultures? they didn’t just lay around being lazy”. That seems to come from someone who engages in activity primarily in order to find value. Without that, she or he can’t imagine a reason for doing anything.
In reality, there are innumerable reasons for doing something. Free from ideas about why we do something, we still do something and are in activity. It’s part of our nature. It’s just that it comes from another place in us.
We may do it to be more comfortable, to have a different life, to have food, clothing, and shelter, to take care of ourselves and those we love.
We may do it from love. Curiosity. Wanting to experience it. Exploration. Fascination.
We may do it for no apparent reason at all. Doing things is just what humans – and all beings – seem to do.
A CLOSER LOOK
It’s worth exploring all of this.
Where do I find my value?
If I find my value in what’s peripheral – roles, actions, possessions, a sense of purpose – what happens if or when these change or go away?
If I find my value in what’s more essential – in being part of this wonderful existence – what happens? How do I live my life? How do I live this moment?
Read MoreKurt Vonnegut: Practice any art… to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow
Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.
Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
– Kurt Vonnegut
Life – the Universe, Existence – is inherently creative. It has formed itself into matter, molecules, solar systems, living planets, us, everything we know. It’s still forming itself into always new things.
It’s how life gets to know itself. It expresses, explores, and experiences itself in always new ways.
We are made out of creativity. So why not consciously explore it?
When I was passionate about art in my teens and early twenties, it was for that reason. I loved exploring what would come out. I got to know myself in new ways.
This is not only about what we think of as art. It’s all of life. Learning, experiencing, having a conversation, making a meal, dealing with a conflict, gardening, going for a walk, playing with a dog…
Whatever we do is life expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways through and as us.
The real alchemy: the transformation inherent in existence itself
I started listening to the Elixir episode from Something Rhymes With Purple, which is about alchemy and alchemy terms. Alchemy is essentially about change and transmutation.
I love alchemy as a metaphor for our inner transformation, as Jung so beautifully described and explored.
And yet, the ultimate alchemy is not done consciously by humans. It happens all around us and it happens as us all the time. It’s the alchemy of existence itself.
Existence is change. It is transmutation.
This universe is transforming itself continuously and inevitably – from energy to particles, from simple particles to complex, from general uniformity to areas of more density, from these areas of more density to solar systems with stars and planets, from non-living matter to life, from life to life that’s conscious and conscious of itself, and so on. (We even have consciousness consciously aware of itself as the universe bringing itself into consciousness.)
So much of what we take for granted is the most amazing alchemy in action. We are it and we fully depend on it for our life.
Just look at the amazing alchemy of soil and seeds becoming plants, and the amazing ecological succession from pioneers (which we often think of as “weeds”) to eventually a mature and rich ecosystem.
What we humans do with alchemy is just one tiny subset of this far more vast and grand alchemy that’s always in process.
That is hinted at in the word itself. The word “alchemy” is thought to derive from the ancient Egyptian word “khem” or “kem,” which means “black.” This may refer to the rich, fertile black soil of the Nile Delta, which was crucial for agriculture and associated with creation and fertility.
Shifting baseline syndrome: When we don’t realize how much nature is changing & learning to see with deep-time eyes
Yes, this is a big concern. Most of us don’t realize how much nature has changed over the centuries and even over the last few decades. We see nature and don’t realize how impacted it is by human activity.
CHANGES OVER THE LAST FEW DECADES
When I grew up in Norway in the ’80s, the garden was brimming with insects, birds, badgers, hedgehogs, and more. We had the windows and doors open in the summer, and the inside of the windows became full of insects when we closed them. We drove a few minutes in the car, and the windshield was covered in insects. After one drive, we had to clean it.
These days, there is very little life of any kind. There are very few insects. I hardly see any on the windshield. The inside windows have just about none. I don’t see any grasshoppers, ladybugs, butterflies, crickets, daddy longlegs, or any of the very familiar insects from my childhood. I don’t see any swallows anymore.1
I suspect most young people don’t realize how much this has changed and how quickly. They didn’t experience it for themselves. This is all they are familiar with. This lack of life is what’s normal for them.
CHANGES OVER CENTURIES AND MILLENNIA
This is also happening over longer timespans. When I look at the rolling hills here in Southern Norway, it’s beautiful in its own way. For my inner eye, I see something else. I see the rich and diverse old forest that very likely was there before humans, or when there were only a few humans there thousands of years ago. I see a multi-layered old forest full of animals, birds, and insects. I imagine the ocean similarly full of life.
When I walk through my childhood forest, I experience it differently from when I was a child. Back then, I thought this was wilderness. Now, I see a monoculture planted for profit. The trees are all the same type and of the same age, planted too close together for much else to grow there. It’s far from the rich diversity of a natural old-growth forest.
CITIES
When I walk in a city or town, I imagine how it looked before humans built it. I imagine walking through the rich and multi-layered forest that used to be there. (Or whatever ecosystem it was.)
LEARNING TO LOOK WITH DEEP TIME EYES
For me, it’s important to learn the basics of how mature and rich ecosystems look, and how it was where I am before humans had a huge impact. It’s important for me to learn to see landscapes and places with deep time eyes.
IMAGINING HOW IT CAN BE
It’s also important for me to learn to imagine how I can be. If we engage in regeneration and bring back a mostly native and rich ecosystem, how would it look? How would it look right here?
GRIEF, HOPE & ENGAGEMENT
If I look at the past, it brings up sadness and grief, and that’s a natural and healthy response. I am nature grieving itself. I am a part of this planet and ecosystem driving the loss of so much of itself.
That’s why I also make a practice out of imagining how it can be. I imagine the place I am in full of life and a rich and mature ecosystem, with human settlement as an integral part of it.
That’s also why I make a practice out of doing something in my own life. When I do something to bring it about, in however small a way it may be, I am part of the solution. It’s meaningful. It brings hope. I get to see that something can be done.
IN MY CASE: SOME OF THE SMALL THINGS I DO
What are some of the small things I do?
In my mid-teens, I got deeply into systems views and deep ecology. In my teens and early twenties, I also got into ecospirituality, the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, and so on. I learn to see with deep time eyes. I learned about how the ecosystems used to be before they were hugely impacted by humans. I learned to imagine how it can be, with regeneration and sustainability efforts.
I shifted how I see myself in relationship with nature. I am nature. I am part of this seamless living planet. I am part of this evolving universe. I am the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. I allow this to work on me, and I invite in a deepening visceral experience of it. (Deep ecology, universe story, epic of evolution.)
I learned how we can create a more life-centered and ecologically sustainable civilization. I learned about how our current economic system doesn’t take ecological realities into account (assumes nature is infinite), and how that can and needs to change.
I do small things in my life. I recycle. Use dishwater and shower water for plants. I walk or take public transportation when I can. I try to limit my consumption.
I make connections with and learn from like-minded people.
I have been engaged in several sustainability community projects in the past, especially when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin. (EcoTeams, NWEI discussion groups, Practices to Reconnect, Sustain Dane.)
I am also gifted with being the steward of land in the Andes mountains, and I am engaged in the regeneration of this land. (Roughly a thousand native trees will be planted as soon as the rain returns, and we are also developing a food forest.) We are also using natural building techniques (rammed earth), we use mostly local and/or recycled materials, we will collect rainwater and use it to water the plants, we plan on installing solar power, and so on. It’s a gift and a great privilege to be able to do this.
NOTES
(1) Why is the loss happening? The general reason is that we – in our Western civilization – are in ecological overshoot. We use far more resources than nature can keep up with and replenish. The more detailed reasons are many: Use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers to grow food. Monoculture. Loss of old forests. Reduced diversity in the gardens. (When I was little, many gardens had wild areas and in general had a lot more trees, bushes, and flowers.) More houses. Less wild (semi-wild) areas.
What comes together falls apart
What comes together falls apart. That’s how this world is. That’s how existence is. It’s not wrong. It’s not a mistake. It’s what allows anything to be at all. It’s what creates space for something new.
Seeing this makes it all heartbreakingly beautiful. It helps me more fully appreciate what’s here. I can find gratitude for what’s here as it is, just because it’s part of life, it’s transient, it is something that came together and will fall apart. It’s only here now.
The photo is of Cañon del Chicamocha, taken two years ago. It’s a moment that will never come again – both the clouds and the view and my life as it was then. (Ale, Merlina, and I stayed at the house of friends in the neighborhood we are still in.) What’s here will never come again.
A kincentric view on life
This kincentric – or life-centric – view on life is far more aligned with reality than our traditional anthropocentric view. It’s informed by ecology, experience, and common sense.
It’s also crucial for our survival. We need to transform the systems of our civilization to align with ecological realities, and a kincentric view will help us do that.
For more from Enrique Salmón, see Kincentric Ecology: Indigenous Perceptions of the Human-Nature Relationship | I Want the Earth to Know Me as a Friend
“I love you, but I love our ecocidal civilization more”
For decades, we have been in a global ecological overshoot.
If we continue, it can only end one way: A dramatic ecological collapse, and with it the collapse of our civilization. (We are in an escalating phase of that ecological collapse now.)
So why don’t more people take it seriously?
Why do so many, in effect, say to their children: “I love you, but I love our ecocidal and suicidal civilization more”?
THE CRUX OF THE SITUATION
The crux of this situation is not – as many think – greed, corporations, governments, lack of technology, or similar. These all exist within a system that’s out of alignment with ecological realities. People are just fulfilling their roles in this ecocidal and ultimately suicidal system.
The crux is the system itself and the worldview it comes out of.
We have a civilization out of alignment with ecological realities.
For instance, our economic system assumes unlimited natural resources and an unlimited ability of nature to absorb our waste and toxins. This system was developed at a time when we had few enough people and simple enough technology so we could make those assumptions. These days, with billions more people and far more advanced and effective technology, it’s ecocidal and suicidal.
What type of worldview does this come out of? We have a worldview that assumes separation. We don’t viscerally get that our own health and well-being is intimately related to the health and well-being of our larger social and ecological whole. We assume, as mentioned above, unlimited nature while we live as part of a limited planet.
Even more fundamentally, we have a civilization that reflects a power-over orientation. We seek power over ourselves (just look at the orientation in many self-help books), others, and nature. And one that assumes that divinity is a sky-god removed from us, nature, and the universe. By removing divinity from ourselves and nature, we open it all for abuse.
The alternative is a power-with orientation where we seek partnership and cooperation with ourselves, others, and nature. And seeing divinity in nature and the universe, which leads to relating to it all with more reverence, respect, and gratitude.
There are workable alternatives. It is fully possible to have an individual and collective worldview that treats ourselves, others, and nature with reverence. And it’s very possible to have a system where what’s easy and attractive to do, individually and collectively, is also what supports society, ecosystems, and the lives and well-being of other species and future generations of all species. It’s a matter of priorities and collective will.
WHY DON’T WE TAKE IT MORE SERIOUSLY?
So why do so many – through their words and actions – prioritize supporting this clearly suicidal civilization over the lives and well-being of their children and grandchildren? Why do they continue to vote for the same politicians? Why do they feed themselves and their children food grown with poison? Why do they clean their houses with toxins? Why do they use pesticides in their garden? Why do they have a sterile lawn instead of a natural garden that supports life? Why do they continue to live as if we are not in a massive ecological crisis?
As usual, there are many possible answers.
We live within this system so it’s difficult to break out of it and live very differently. Our system makes what’s easy and attractive to do also, often, damaging to our life-support systems.
Many have enough with their daily lives. We don’t feel we have the resources to deal with the bigger picture or long-term thinking.
It requires intention and effort to change our worldview, way of life, and who we vote for with our money and ballots. It’s easier to put it off.
The change required may go against our identity. We have built up an identity around a certain political orientation and way of life, changing it all requires us to go outside of that identity, and that seems difficult and scary.
We live in denial in different ways. We tell ourselves that…. nothing is happening, we have time, others will take care of it, we’ll find a technological solution. We distract ourselves (being busy, entertainment, scapegoating, going into harebrained conspiracy theories, and so on.)
Many misdiagnose the situation. As mentioned above, they think it’s about greed, human nature, corporations, governments, lack of technology, and similar things existing within the system. In reality, it’s about the system itself and the worldview it reflects. Some also seem to think our crisis is mostly about climate change while it’s far more fundamental than that. In theory, we can solve climate change, and we’ll still go into ecological collapse if we don’t solve the overshoot problem itself.
WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?
I don’t know. We can just do our best and see how it unfolds.
Our current civilization will end, as they all do. In the best case, it will transform into a more ecologically sound civilization.
Very likely, we’ll have to live through a massive ecological collapse first. It seems difficult to avoid, considering how far we already are into it, and how most people distract themselves with literally anything else.
And that means a massive loss of different types of species, and – again in the best case – a massive reduction in the size of humanity.
So what do we do individually?
SOME THINGS WE CAN DO
Here is some of what I have done.
I have educated myself about the situation. Early on in life, I learned about overshoot and ecological footprints, studied systems views, and so on.
I aim to orient myself to reality. I try to take a sober and informed view of our situation while also knowing I cannot know for certain how it all will unfold.
I find joy and meaning in my connection with the larger whole, through the Universe Story, the Great Story, the Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, and the Practices to Reconnect.
I am working on transforming my worldview – intellectually and viscerally – in the same way, and also through different forms of inquiry.
I have made myself somewhat familiar with what happens when civilizations decline and end. What we see in the world today is partly typical for our civilization, and partly what we would expect when it’s in decline. (That includes people distracting themselves with conspiracy theories, or attaching to super-optimistic views of a coming golden age, lots of people waking up, and so on.)
I take small actions in my daily life. I eat organic, local, low on the food chain, and with the seasons as far as possible. For many years, I only bought (very cool and high-quality) second-hand clothes. When it’s possible, I buy food from local farmers. And so on. Doing this helps me feel that it’s possible to change and that I am contributing, in a small way, to the solution.
I have also been involved in other ways. For several years, my self-created job was to coordinate a relatively large group of people with a passion for sustainability. We used a consistent partnership-oriented and solution-focused approach. These days, I am the steward of 15 hectares in the Andes mountains and we work on a long-term regeneration project there to help the land back to a more diverse and vibrant state.
I remind myself of what I am grateful for. At times, I have done a daily all-inclusive gratitude practice. (Write and send a list to a partner that includes what it’s easy to find gratitude for and what’s challenging, this helps open the mind to find the genuine gifts in anything that’s happening in my life.) Other times, it happens more spontaneously in daily life.
I know that endings, change, and death is what opens space for something new. The early relatively uniform state of the universe gave way for particles and matter. The death of stars provided more complex molecules that formed themselves into this planet and us. The death of species opens space for other species. The death of previous civilizations created space for ours. The death of individuals creates room for new individuals. Another civilization may come after ours. Eventually, after humanity is gone, other species may develop their own civilization. And so on. I know this intellectually and am deepening into a visceral knowing of it.
I have sought out communities of like-minded people. I was involved with an amazing sustainability organization in Madison, Wisconsin. I was active in natural building and permaculture groups. I did a work trade at an organic CSA farm in Wisconsin.
I notice my more fundamental nature. I bring my more fundamental nature to the foreground of attention. I find myself as what the world – to me – happens within and as. I find myself as capacity for it all. That helps to release some entrenched identification with this human self, a sense of doer or observer, and so on. I sometimes use Headless experiments or the Big Mind process to explore this further. In the past, I did a lot of basic meditation (notice and allow what’s here in the field of experience) to invite my more fundamental nature to notice itself and rest in and as that noticing. This too is something my system is viscerally deepening into.
I have done a lot of inquiry on stressful beliefs and identifications (The Work of Byron Katie), and on my sense fields to soften the charge in identifications (Kiloby Inquiries).
I use heart-centered practices to help shift how I relate to whatever is here – thoughts, emotions, sensations, others, situations – and so on. Mostly ho’oponopono and tonglen.
I have done a lot of body-centered practices like taichi, chigong, yoga, and Breema. This helps shift how I relate to my body and myself and life and helps me find more nourishment and grounding.
I have also done a lot of practice to train a more stable attention. Mostly, bringing attention to the sensations in the nose from the breath.
I have done and am doing healing and trauma work to help shift how I relate to whatever is here in experience and invite healing for issues in themselves. I find Trauma and tension Release Exercises (neurogenic tremors and movements) very helpful. And these days, I mostly use Vortex Healing.
I am sure there is a lot more that doesn’t come to mind right now.
Helpful contexts for my life
I find I have a few contexts for my life that seem helpful
I can also call them pointers or reminders.
Here are some of them, as they look to me now.
DON’T KNOW & QUESTIONS
I don’t know anything for certain, and mental representations are questions about the world.
The nature of thoughts is that they help me navigate and orient in the world. They cannot hold any final, full, or absolute truth. That’s not their function. They are questions about the world.
The map is not the terrain. Stories are different in kind from what they point to, unless they happen to point to other thoughts. The world is always more than and different from any stories about it, and also less than any story.
To explore: The Work of Byron Katie. Philosophy of science.
MY MORE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE
In one sense, I am this human self in the world, just like my passport and how most people see me.
And I find I am more fundamentally something else. I am what the world, to me, happens within and as. I am what the field of experience – this human self, others, the wider world – happens within and as.
I am what a thought may call consciousness, and the world to me happens within and as this consciousness. The consciousness I am forms itself into all these experiences.
To explore: Big Mind process. Headless experiments. Basic meditation (over time!).
WHAT WE MOST FUNDAMENTALLY WANT
I can’t speak for all other beings, but I have found some things I – and the different parts of me – more fundamentally want. It’s variations of love, acceptance, connection, safety, belonging, coming home, and so on. If I take a surface desire for anything at all and trace it back to something more essential, I tend to arrive at one of these.
These seem essential and I suspect they are quite universal, based on what I see in the world and what others say.
There is something even more fundamental, and that’s a wish to find our nature, to consciously come home to what we already are. That gives us, in one sense, all the things we look for.
And that doesn’t mean that our human self doesn’t have wants and wishes that we can find the essence of and find ways to fulfill – mainly by giving it to ourselves here and now, and also in life.
To explore: Inquiry, tracing our wishes back to their essentials. What do I hope to get out of it? What do I hope to get out of that? And so on.
THE WORLD IS MY MIRROR
The world is my mirror. Whatever characteristics and dynamics I see out there in others and the world is also here. I can take any statement about anyone or anything, turn it to myself, and find more than one genuine example of how it’s true. (Including true at the moment I have the thought about someone or something else.)
This is wonderful in several ways. It means I can use my thoughts about others and the world to discover more about myself. It means I can find more of my own richness in myself and in how I live my life. I can explore outside of what I thought were my limits and boundaries, created by identities and ideas about myself. I can more easily recognize myself in others. And so on.
To explore: Projection and shadow work. The Work of Byron Katie.
OVERSHOOT
Our civilization is in overshoot. We are using far more resources than the planet can generate, and we are putting way more waste and toxins into the planet’s circulation than it evolved to deal with.
We would need two planets to provide for the resource use of humanity as a whole, and five or more to provide for the resource use of the Westernized and industrialized world.
This cannot continue.
That’s serious enough in itself, but there is something more serious. This is like spending money from our savings without replenishing it sufficiently. It looks fine for a while, until it’s empty and our lifestyle comes crashing down.
In our case, it’s not only our lifestyle that comes crashing down. It’s likely our whole civilization.
Will we be able to transition into a new and more ecologically sound civilization? How will the crash impact us? How many will die? How many species and ecosystems will die in the process?
We don’t know but it will likely be very challenging for us and any other species.
To explore: Articles and books on overshoot and the ecological footprint.
DEATH GIVES LIFE
What comes together falls apart.
That goes for this universe, this living planet, our current civilization, humanity, each of us, and everything we know.
Our mammalian psyche may have a problem with that, but it’s actually wonderful.
It’s how anything is here in the first place. It’s how we are here.
We are here because all the states the universe has gone through have come and gone. Stars died and provided most of the matter making up this amazing planet and us. Species died and made space for us. Individuals died and made space for us.
Death opens up space for something new. Death is how we are here. Death is how anything is here.
Impermanence is even how we can experience anything at all. Each moment is gone and opens space for a new one.
Our civilization will be gone, perhaps opening space for a new one. Humanity will be gone, opening space for other species to perhaps eventually create their own civilization. This universe will likely be gone, opening space for a new one.
It’s all a kind of a dream. What’s here is gone, opening the space for something else.
To explore: The Universe story, the Great Story, Epic of Evolution, Big History.
HAPPINESS, CONTENTMENT, MEANING & GRATITUDE
Happiness comes and goes. Often, what creates happiness are small things in daily life. Holding someone’s hand. A hug. A kind word. Ice cream. A good meal. A beautiful sunrise. And so on. We can set up our life to create moments that spark happiness.
Contentment can come in different ways. We may live a life in integrity and be in relative peace with ourselves. We may relate to ourselves – and especially our distressed parts – with kindness. We may find our nature, our more fundamental home, and find contentment there. We may have been lucky with our parents and upbringing, naturally relate to ourselves and live our life with kindness and wisdom, and find contentment that way.
Meaning is again something else. We can find meaningful activities in our life, and those are often about creativity and expression, being of service to others and the larger whole, or a combination of the two.
Finding gratitude can contribute to each of these. I can find gratitude for the things my personality naturally is inclined to find gratitude for. (I have shelter, water, food, family, friends, a beautiful day, the song of birds, a kind word, and so on.) I can also do a more radical gratitude practice where I find gratitude for everything in my life, whether my personality tends to like it or not. This can bring about even more profound shifts.
To explore: Psychology that addresses these topics. See also this book.
KINDNESS TO OURSELVES
Some of the essentials I seek are love, understanding, safety, and so on.
I can give those to myself. I notice a distressed part of me, and I can meet it as a kind and wise parent would a child.
If our parents didn’t consistently do this for us, we likely didn’t learn to consistently do it for ourselves, so this can take intention, attention, and practice. It can be a lifelong process and more than worth it.
To explore: Resources on reparenting ourselves. Heart-centered practices like Ho’oponopono and tonglen directed toward ourselves. Self-compassion. The Befriend and Wake up process I have written about in other articles.
EVOLUTIONARY CONTEXT
I like to see behavior in an evolutionary contest. It helps me find useful and kind stories to understand myself, others, and other species.
We just traveled with our cat to a new place, and she was hesitant to drink the water. That too makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. In a new place, it’s important to be careful with the water. Don’t drink if it’s not moving or if you don’t see others drink from it. I filled a glass with water, slurped some with delight while she was looking, and she happily drank (a lot!) from the same glass. (This is likely also why cats often like to drink water from the same glass as their humans. They trust it’s safe to drink if they see others drink it.)
I don’t have to beat myself up for having sugar cravings now and then. I understand why. It’s because my ancestors evolved to crave sugar because it helped them and their offspring survive. Sugar was found in rare and nutrient-rich foods like fruits, and the cravings helped them prioritize seeking out and eating these foods. In our modern world, this impulse has been hijacked by the food industry to sell products. I don’t have to be too hard on myself for having these cravings or even following them now and then, these cravings helped my ancestors survive. (And I can find practical strategies for dealing with them. For instance, only buying what’s on my shopping list, and having someone to be accountable to.)
When I am sick, I know that most (nearly all?) of my symptoms evolved to help me heal. The general fatigue and illness feeling motivates me to rest, which helps my body heal itself. Fever – increased temperature – helps my body kill pathogens. Diarrhea flushes out pathogens or undesirable food. And so on. This shifts how I relate to what’s happening when I am sick. I find more appreciation and even gratitude for my symptoms. (It also highlights one of the strange things some do in our culture, which is to try to counter or stop the natural self-healing processes of the body like fever, diarrhea, and so on.)
I have a fear of heights. That too is very understandable from an evolutionary perspective. My ancestors likely survived partly because they had some fear of heights, and the ones who did not were more likely to die young and not pass on their genetics. I can still work on this fear so it doesn’t stop me from doing the things I want.
To explore: Evolutionary psychology.
MY CONNECTION WITH THE LARGER WHOLE
How am I connected with the larger whole? Am I a separate being or is something else more true?
When I find my more fundamental nature, I find that the world – as it appears to me – happens within and as what I am. Already there, the ideas of separation break down, at least in how it all appears to me.
Through science, we also find stories of oneness and connection, and these inform our perception, choices, and life in the world.
As Carl Sagan said, we are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
The universe is one seamless system. It has evolved and temporarily formed itself into you and me and our experiences and everything we know. It will continue to evolve and change itself into something new. (And that may not always conform to our ideas of “progress”!)
Our planet is one living system. Our health and well-being is dependent on the health and well-being of this larger living system.
This helps me feel more connected as a human being, see myself as an expression of the larger whole, and behave in ways that (are more likely to) take care of this larger living system I am a part of.
To explore: Systems views, Universe Story, Great Story, Epic of Evolution, Big History, Deep Ecology.
Image by me and Midjourney.
Read MoreReverence for what gives us life
Worshipping what gives us life — the sun, water, soil, ancestors, fellow living beings, the Earth, the universe as a whole – makes a lot of sense.
And worship here, for me, means reverence and gratitude.
It makes a lot of sense to have reverence and gratitude for what gives us life, and that’s everything.
The Sun. Water. Soil. Plants. Animals. Humans. Ancestors. Earth as a living whole. The universe as a whole. It’s all a seamless system. All of it is why we are here. All of it is what gives us life.
I should also mention something about the meme above. It’s phrased as either-or to get a point across. For me, it’s both-and. I can have reverence for what gives this human self life, and what gives all beings life. I can find myself as the unseen, as the consciousness the world to me happens within and as. And none of that excludes Spirit as an unseen consciousness that everything – all of existence and all of our experiences – happen within and as.
A suicidal & ecocidal civilization: Finding a more real, grounded, and kind way to relate to it all
All civilizations rise and fall, and ours is no exception.
An interesting twist is that ours is the first global civilization that rises and falls and we don’t know how that’s going to look.
INDEX
What comes together falls apart | A civilization fatally out of alignment with reality | Sudden change | Familiarity with systems dynamics | We have the solutions but do we have the collective will? | What will collapse mean? | What can we do individually? | Collapse acceptance | Power-over vs power-with | What’s my history with this? | Notes
WHAT COMES TOGETHER FALLS APART
How can we know that our current civilization will fall?
In terms of history, it’s because all past civilizations have risen and fallen. It’s what civilizations do and ours is no exception.
In the bigger picture, it’s because everything does. What comes together falls apart.
We can notice it here and now. Every moment, what was is gone and something new and fresh is here. And it happens at more obvious and larger scales, including at the scale of humanity, culture, Earth, and the universe. It will all be gone.
Everything we know – collectively and individually – has come together and will fall apart.
A CIVILIZATION FATALLY OUT OF ALIGNMENT WITH REALITY
We can also look at specifics of how our civilization creates its own fall.
The most obvious may be that our civilization is fatally out of alignment with reality.
We operate on a worldview that’s out of alignment with reality. For instance, we assume and emphasize separation in a world where everything is intimately connected. We assume the superiority and rights of humans over other beings. We prioritize the current generations over Future generations. And, crucially, we assume that the Earth has unlimited resources and unlimited ability to absorb waste. (See more below under “Power-over vs power-with”.)
This is reflected in all aspects of our culture and all our systems. (1)
Let’s look at our economic system.
We have created an economic system that assumes an infinite ability of nature to provide resources and absorb waste, and that our health and well-being is not dependent on the health and well-being of the larger ecological systems.
We made those assumptions because it fits our general worldview, and because we practically could at the time it was developed.
At the time, our population was relatively small and our technology relatively simple so we didn’t receive immediate feedback from nature. For all practical purposes, nature was infinite.
We still use that economic system. The problem is that we now have a much larger population and a far more efficient technology, so Earth cannot keep up.
Globally, our ecological footprint would require two Earths to be sustainable. And for the Western world, our ecological footprint would require around five Earths to be sustainable.
We are also putting more waste into the Earth’s system than it can easily deal with. There are plastic particles and toxins in just about every living being. We are in the middle of an insect apocalypse because we (insanely) grow our good with toxins. Our climate is changing dramatically from all the heat-trapping gasses we release into the atmosphere.
We are in overshoot and we are not doing anything significant to change it.
And that overshoot has serious consequences.
SUDDEN CHANGE
Ecologically, we are doing the equivalent of living on our savings. If we lived on the interests – the surplus produced by the Earth – it would be sustainable. But we are digging into the savings. That looks OK for a while. We have what we need. Then we suddenly realize the harsh reality. We are out of funds.
Our climate is similarly set to undergo sudden change. Any system tries to maintain equilibrium for as long as possible. We put heat-tapping gasses into the atmosphere, the system maintains a kind of stability for a while. And at some point, it shifts into a new state, and that tends to happen quickly. In the case of climate, it shifts into a more chaotic and unpredictable state.
That’s what we can expect with our global ecological system as a whole. In the coming decades, we can expect to see a series of sudden and likely dramatic shifts. These shifts feed into the system to trigger a cascade of other shifts.
What may happen?
Several moderate changes are already happening: More extreme weather. Stronger storms. More drought. Heavier rain and flooding. Crop failures. Species extinction. Mass death of insects impacting the whole ecosystem. Mass human migrations away from areas that become unlivable from drought, flooding, and rising ocean levels (eventually tens of meters). This, in itself, is serious but manageable, at least initially.
We may also see more extreme changes: Changes in ocean currents may significantly impact regional climates. The oceans may die due to rising water temperatures, acidification, and low oxygen levels, and this – loss of oxygen production from plankton, etc. – will seriously impact land life. Forests may collapse in large regions due to drought or they may lose their ability to produce oxygen because of increased temperatures. And so on. These are all things experts in the field say can happen, and will likely happen if the current Earth changes go far enough. If any of this actually happens, it’s not realistically manageable for us. It may not be compatible with human life.
FAMILIARITY WITH SYSTEMS DYNAMICS
If we are not familiar with big-picture thinking or systems theories, we may assume a kind of linear and gradual progression. That means we have time. Things look mostly OK so far, so why change too much too soon?
If we are familiar with overshot and systems views, we tend to see it differently. Then we know that things may look mostly on for a while, then there is a sudden shift, and we are screwed. We don’t have time to wait. Changing things within our current sudden is not enough. We need a deep transformation of our civilization as a whole.
WE HAVE THE SOLUTIONS BUT DO WE HAVE THE COLLECTIVE WILL?
We have the solutions.
We know some (humane) ways to reduce our population. (Educate women, provide economic safety nets for everyone, and so on.)
We have many technological solutions that are part of the puzzle.
We know how to create an economic system that takes ecological realities into account, and where what’s attractive and easy to do – individually and collectively – is also ecologically sound. (We have the big picture and know in what direction to move, and the details will be worked out.)
We have the worldviews necessary for a more sustainable civilization. Some elements may be ecospirituality within each of the major religions, the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, deep ecology, systems views, integral views, and so on.
The question is: Do we have the collective will? Will we find it in time?
We are already too late to avoid massive changes to our planet which will impact all of us, so we have minus time in that sense.
Will we be able to create an ecologically sustainable civilization in time to prevent the fall of our civilization? We have to work towards it as much as we can, but it is unlikely.
What we tend to see at the end of civilizations is what we see in the world today: A few who recognize what’s happening, take it seriously and sincerely work towards creating a better and more functional civilization. Many who go into denial, continue much as before, or wait for others to do something. Polarization, infighting, distractions, and the privileged holding onto their privilege even if it’s suicidal. Of course, all of this is common anyway.
There is also a great deal of simplistic misdiagnosis of the situation. Ideas that focus on aspects of what’s happening within the system but not the system itself. Some blame greed, governments, or corporations. Some think there is a technological solution. Some assume it’s mainly about climate change. Some think we still have time because the changes will be gradual and incremental. And so on. All of it is simplistic and myopic. This misdiagnosis reflects and comes out of the worldview that created the situation in the first place. And the misdiagnosis is part of the problem.
WHAT WILL COLLAPSE MEAN?
I don’t know.
What we know is that it will look different from the collapse of past civilizations. They were regional and this one is global. People in those civilizations continued to live their lives, just in a slightly different context. A lot from those civilizations was passed on to other and emerging civilizations. In our case, we don’t have another place to go. We have destroyed our global life-support system to the extent that it may no longer be able to support us, or at least very many of us.
The best scenario may be significant ecological changes, a significant reduction in the size of humanity, and a new emerging civilization – hopefully with some lessons learned. This requires that the more extreme Earth changes – like the death of the oceans – don’t happen.
The worst, from our perspective, is the end of humanity. (Along with many other species and ecosystems.) The Earth’s system changes to the extent that it’s no longer compatible with human life. In this case, the end of humanity happens sooner rather than later. If the changes are as dramatic and rapid as some scientists – and especially those familiar with systems views – think, it may even happen within one or two generations.
In the bigger picture, these are not disasters. This is just what happens. It’s how reality is set up. Things come together and fall apart. Death is the price of life.
WHAT CAN WE DO INDIVIDUALLY?
The question then is: What can we do individually and in small groups?
We can do what we can in our own life.
We can find what we are most drawn to, and do that. Joanna Macy talks about three categories: Stopping actions. Creating and living alternatives. And developing and spreading new worldviews.
In my case, I eat organic and local as much as possible and do a few more things in my personal life. I used to be actively involved in local sustainability organizations. I do healing work for myself and others. I currently have 36 acres in the Andes mountains I am helping regenerate and make into a food forest. (I realize the last one is not everyone can do, and I didn’t expect it in my life.)
We can all find something we are drawn to that’s meaningful and a small part of the solutions. We may not be able to save the world. But we can save our world. We can save ourselves by doing something meaningful.
We can realize that we live within a *system* that’s not ecologically sustainable.
That means that what’s easy and attractive to do is not ecologically sustainable. We all, inevitably, contribute to the destruction of ecosystems, just by going about our own lives. That’s not our fault. It’s inevitable. We don’t need to beat ourselves up for it. (And we don’t need to use it as an excuse either.)
We can find ways to nourish ourselves through our connections with the larger whole.
We can explore the Practices to Reconnect (Joanna Macy), the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, ecospirituality, systems views, integral views, and so on. Whatever we resonate with.
We can spend time in nature. We can connect with and nourish our physical body and sense-oriented animal self.
We can get familiar with the bigger picture.
Through the Universe story, the Epic of Evolution, systems views, Big History, and so on, we can become familiar with the bigger picture.
We expect what comes together to fall apart.
During the end of a civilization, we expect an amplification of what we generally see in society: Polarization, infighting, distractions, denial, people holding onto privilege, and so on. It’s what humans do.
We also expect some to do the work to create a better functioning civilization.
And we expect to experience grief, anger, hopelessness, and a wide range of emotions as a response to what’s happening.
We can find more peace with death and change.
Change happens. What comes together falls apart.
It happens continuously, which we notice if we look closely. And it happens at a more obvious and larger scale, sooner or later.
Change and death are what allow something new to exist. It’s what opens up space for something new and different. It’s what allows experience. It’s what allows evolution. It’s how we are here. It’s what allows anything to exist at all.
Everything and everyone is born to die.
It’s meant to be. It’s perfect. It’s how this universe is set up.
We can find gratitude.
We can find the gifts in death and change. As I have mentioned above, it’s what allows anything to be at all. It’s what allows us as individuals to be. It’s what allowed humanity and our current civilization to exist.
It’s what opens the space for something new. When our civilization is gone, who knows what will come in its place? Perhaps some humans will survive and create something new, and even something more aligned with ecological realities. And when humanity is gone, who knows what will come in our place? Perhaps the descendants of the octopus will create a new and amazing civilization that would not be possible if we were still here.
We can allow and welcome our grief, anger, and other responses.
It’s completely natural to experience grief, anger, hopelessness, and a range of other emotions in the face of what’s happening with our world. And it helps to make friends with it and even welcome it.
It’s natural. It’s healthy. It’s something we can channel into action.
We are, in a very real way, a local part of the Earth grieving itself. We are the Earth grieving itself.
These are universal emotions. All humans experience it and many or most species likely experience it in one form or another. It’s one of the things that tie us together. Even what triggers these emotions is universal in its essence.
We can find gratitude.
There is a lot to find gratitude for here.
We are an expression of all of existence. We are part of this amazing and beautiful larger whole.
We are alive. We are alive at the peak, in some sense, of our civilization. We have the basics for life and often a lot more. Many of us live beyond what anyone could have imagined in the past, and better than 99.9% of all humans that have lived in terms of healthcare, food availability, convenience and so on.
We are aware of the larger context of impermanence and can allow it to inform us in sobering and beautiful ways.
By viscerally getting impermanence – including of ourselves and all we know – we can find deep and equally visceral gratitude for our life and what’s here now.
We can find kindness towards ourselves.
We can learn to relate to ourselves and our world with more kindness.
That, in itself, makes a big difference.
It makes our life easier, and we are giving ourselves something essential we all wish for. It’s what we often are really looking for when we think we are looking for something else.
It’s something our civilization doesn’t really teach us and something we don’t learn unless we are lucky with our parents and upbringing. So this work is also part of changing our civilization and our individual and collective worldview.
One of the things I do for myself is to aim at being a good parent to myself, especially when thoughts and emotions visit that it’s difficult for me to meet with kindness. And I also use the befriend & awaken approach.
We can find kindness towards others.
We all do our best with the cards we are dealt. When people go into denial, short-sightedness, and so on, it’s their way of dealing with living in this world. A lot of it, or all, comes from fear.
We can be of service.
We can find meaning and joy in being of service, in whatever form that takes for us. Whether it is supporting humans, non-humans, or ecosystems.
We can find fellowship.
We can find others like us. We can find and create communities. We can support each other.
I did this in the past and lost it to some extent (apart from what I carry with me) due to illness and other life circumstances. Now, it may be time to refind and rebuild community.
We can find our nature, if we are drawn to it.
What do I mean by our nature?
It’s true enough that I am this human self in the world.
And if I look more closely, I find that in my own immediate experience, I am more fundamentally what my field of experience happens within and as. I am, more fundamentally, what a thought may call consciousness, and the world, to me, happens within and as this consciousness. This is what mystics across cultures and throughout time have described. (And talking about it this way is compatible with a range of worldviews.)
Just about anything is an invitation for us to notice and explore how it is to live from our nature. And these types of more dramatic and massive change even more so.
Of course, many won’t be drawn to it. But if you are, then there are ways to explore this. The ones I have found that seem most effective are: The Big Mind process. Headless experiments. Kiloby Inquiries. Basic meditation. And supportive practices like training a more stable attention.
What does this do for us? Not much, necessarily. But it does feel like coming home which is a relief. And it does change the context for everything.
COLLAPSE ACCEPTANCE
What does collapse acceptance mean?
It means accepting that what comes together falls apart.
This civilization will come to an end. Human civilization will come to an end. Humanity will come to an end. Each of those deaths will leave space for something else, which could be a new human civilization or new species eventually developing a new civilization.
It also means accepting the possibility of a more imminent collapse than many expect.
It’s a possibility, it’s not inevitable. We don’t know for certain.
To me, it also means using this to fuel our life – our gratitude, zest for life, engagement, connections, and so on. We can use it to deepen our conscious connection with our life, the life of others, and life in general. We can use it to be good stewards of our own life and life in general. It’s immensely precious as long as it’s here.
POWER-OVER VS POWER-WITH
A few more words about worldviews.
The worldview of our civilization (post-agriculture) has a power-over orientation where we seek power over ourselves, others, nature, and so on. We have a transcendent sky-god out there somewhere and not in or manifesting as everything, including ourselves, others, and nature.
That allows us to see nature – and ourselves and others – as primarily a resource and something to use (and abuse). This is internalized in all of us, and we can train ourselves to recognize it and support and emphasize alternatives ourselves and our culture.
The alternative is a power-with orientation where we seek partnership and cooperation with ourselves (different parts of our psyche), others, nature, and the universe. It’s also to see all of existence as sacred, as the divine or an expression of the divine. (This includes ourselves, others, nature, the universe.)
When this is internalized, it leads to a very different life individually and collectively. We’ll still need to use natural resources to support our own life, but we’ll do it from a different place. We’ll do it with more gratitude, reverence, and seek to find ways to do it that supports not only our own life but the larger living system, future generations, and life in general.
Of course, there will still be times when a more narrow view takes over – times of crisis or when we are caught in trauma, and we’ll make mistakes because we don’t know better – but that will still happen within a larger context of a general power-with and immanent Spirit orientation. And there will be systems in place to protect the interest of life – our own and the wider living systems – to prevent the worst anti-life behaviors.
This is not idealism. It’s what’s necessary for our own survival. It’s how we protect our own survival and the survival of our descendants.
WHAT’S MY HISTORY WITH THIS?
I loved nature from a very early age. As a child, I always said I wanted to become a zoologist. (What I really meant was ecologist but I didn’t know that word then.) I loved being in nature. I loved the hiking, skiing, and cabin trips with my family. I loved sleeping under the stars in the mountains of Norway. I loved the nature documentaries with David Attenborough and Sverre M. Fjelstad. I loved Cosmos by Carl Sagan, which had a huge impact on me and – in many ways – changed my life. (“We are the local ears, eyes, thoughts and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.”)
In my mid-teens, I got deeply into Fritjof Capra, systems views, and the people he references. I also got deeply into Deep Ecology (Arne Næss, a fellow Norwegian) and eco-philosophy, and I got deeply into Jung. I read all the books I could get my hands on from these authors.
Climate change became a big topic in my later teens, in the ’80s, and even then, I saw it as just one expression of the problems inherent in our civilization. We need to make the changes anyway, climate change or no climate change. (Discussing the details about it and whether it’s human-caused or not is a distraction and sometimes an intentional distraction.)
In my twenties, in the US, I read everything I could find about ecospirituality (from any and no particular tradition), ecopsychology, the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, and so on. I used the Ecological Footprint a lot in my work with sustainability. (I was the initial paid coordinator for Sustain Dane in Madison, Wisconsin.) I organized several projects where we used the ecological footprint as a central theme, and also several events and workshops (and one longer retreat) where we used the Practices to Reconnect and the Council of All Beings.
These days, I work on a regeneration project (15 hectares) in the Andes mountain. It feels deeply rewarding to help this land become more vibrant and healthy again and support the lives of innumerable beings. An integrated food forest will provide food for non-human beings and humans. And it may also eventually be part of local eco-tourism. We’ll see. Anything can happen.
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Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd died unexpectedly last Saturday. I met him the first time in the ’90s in Wisconsin, where he led an ecospirituality workshop hosted by some (amazing) local nuns, and several times since then. We were both involved with the EcoTeams at the time, and we both share a love for ecospirituality, the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, and so on. Over the last few years, his focus was mostly on post-doom no-gloom. He and his wife, Connie Barlow, both did exceptional and very important work, and I am sure she will continue.
On a personal note, I feel sad that two of the people I have felt the most resonance with have recently died (Bonnie Greenwell and Michael Dowd) and that Adyashanti recently retired (although he will still put things out there).
I thought I would share some resources here:
Michal Dowd – his official website with videos and more.
The Great Story – a huge amount of resources.
Michael Dowd on Wikipedida
Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World – I love this book
Interview with Michael Dowd on Buddha at the Gas Pump (2015)
A recent sermon.
Deep time overlay in daily life
All of us are informed by a myriad of mental images and words in daily life. Many or most of these operate without being consciously noticed although we can train ourselves to notice more.
DEEP TIME IN MY WORLD
Since I know my own world best, I’ll use myself as an example.
In my daily life, I often notice mental images and words relating to deep time.
My mind is creating an overlay from history, evolutionary psychology, and the universe story, and it’s using it to make sense of the world.
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
I often check in with evolutionary psychology if I see a behavior I am curious about.
For instance, when I hear or hear about the stress many experience, it’s natural to check it with an image of how our distant ancestors lived – in smaller groups and a much simpler life focused on gathering and hunting. That life had challenges too, of course, but it is simpler than our life so contrasting the two immediately gives us some understanding of why modern humans experience so much stress, anxiety, and depression.
When I see people who are overweight, or hear about eating disorders, or walk into a grocery store full of sugary things, I am also reminded of the environment we evolved in. We evolved to love sugary things since they were fruits, we didn’t so often come across fruits and they are full of valuable nutrients and energy, so it was good for us to have a strong desire to eat them. These days, that impulse is hijacked by the modern food industry where we are surrounded by sugary temptations and it’s not so easy for many of us to resist.
HISTORY
When the pandemic happened, I was not surprised for long by most of what unfolded.
I knew that pandemics happen roughly one hundred years apart (there are obviously exceptions) so this one came right on time. (A century after the Spanish Flu.)
I have read and studied some epidemiology since my teens, so I knew what works in terms of measures we collectively can take to reduce the impact. So I was not surprised by the measures taken by most governments. They just followed standard pandemic guidelines based on what we know works from history. (There were some variations, of course, with Sweden and China as polar opposites. And that’s very good. That allows us to study and learn from it in hindsight.)
I was also not surprised by the upswing in conspiracy theories and groups of people being upset about some of our collective measures. In pandemics or other collective crises, there is an upswing in conspiracy theories, scapegoating, and fear relating to any change. (I was disappointed that some of my friends fell into it without apparently much awareness of how they were just repeating patterns from history.)
UNIVERSE STORY
Sitting here, and often in daily life, I am also aware of how I am literally stardust.
I and all of Earth are created from matter forged in ancient stars.
I am aware of my distant ancestors going back. to the very first single-celled beings Earth formed itself into.
I am aware of my intimate relationship with all Earth life.
I am aware that the universe has formed itself into all I am and all I am aware of.
MORE FUNDAMENTALLY CONSCIOUSNESS
There is another aspect here that is not really deep time, but maybe more a (kind of) deep psychology.
For a few decades now, I have found myself most fundamentally as consciousness.
To me, the world happens within and as this consciousness. (That includes anything within the content of experience, including this human self, any thoughts and emotions, any sense of a doer, observer, and so on.)
So when I see or imagine other beings, I assume that’s how it is for them too, whether they are consciously aware of it or not. I see an image of them too most fundamentally being consciousness, operating through and as the body-mind they function through and as.
That gives another depth to my world.
GOOD TO NOTICE
All of this is how my mental field gives some depth to my world.
And it’s very good to notice.
It’s good to notice that it is a mental overlay.
Although it gives depth and richness, and my personality mostly likes it, it’s good to hold it all lightly.
TRAINING OURSELVES TO NOTICE
We can train ourselves to notice these mental field overlays.
For instance, as I am sitting here I am aware of my mental images of the world beyond what I can take in with my senses, I am aware of mental images overlaying my visual field, I am aware of words and images roughly outlining the next few paragraphs, and so on.
The most effective way to learn to notice this that I have found is traditional sense field explorations and modern variations like the Kiloby inquiries.
And this helps us hold it all a little more lightly. Or, at least, notice when we don’t!
DEEP TIME RESOURCES
How do we develop a more of a deep time overlay on the world?
What resonates the most with you? What do you have curiosity, fascination, or passion about? What are you drawn to?
If you like history, take a look at Big History.
If it’s nature and the Earth, then deep ecology may be a good place to start.
If it’s spirituality, then just about all religions have an ecospirituality wing. You can also explore pagan or shamanic approaches.
If it’s science in general, systems views and an integral approach may be a good fit.
If it’s evolution, check out the epic of evolution and evolutionary psychology.
If it’s awe and a connection with the universe and existence as a whole, try the Universe Story.
If you are more interested in a direct and experiential approach, try Practices to Reconnect and different forms of inquiry (Kiloby Inquiries, the Big Mind process, perhaps also The Work of Byron Katie and Headless experiments).
Searching on any of these will bring up online groups, videos, podcasts, websites, books, and other good starting points. There is a lot out there on these topics.
Personally, I got into the Universe Story first, through Carl Sagan’s Cosmos when I was about ten. It changed my life and set me on this course. In my mid-teens, I got into deep ecology and systems views through Arne Næss and Fritjof Capra. I read everything I could get my hands on. In my twenties, I got into evolutionary psychology (as part of my psychology studies), Practices to Reconnect (Joanna Macy), the Universe Story, and the Epic of Evolution. I have organized several events where we used the Practices to Reconnect.
Read MoreHow we relate to other species
A neighbor cat comes to stay with me most of the day and evening, although I don’t give him food and he has to go home to his family at night.
His family is home most of the time, so he is not here because they are gone. I suspect he comes because I give him attention, because I may be a novelty, and perhaps most of all because I treat him as an equal.
SEEING HIM AS EQUAL
I see him as consciousness, just like me, that just happens to operate through a slightly different body.
This consciousness here operates through this body, which happens to be human. And that consciousness there operates through that body, which happens to be a cat.
In the realm of stories, it’s similar. We are both expressions of life, existence, and the universe.
He is the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe, just like I am. He is the universe taking the form of a cat. I am the universe taking the form of a human.
And in terms of evolution, we are closely related. What we have in common is infinitely more than the little that differentiates us.
In all the ways that matter, we are equal. We are the same.
HOST, STEWARD, FRIEND
Just like I would with any visitor, I try to be a good host for him. I give him water. I let him out when he wants to go out if the door is closed.
Just like I would with a child, I try to be a good steward of him while he is here. I rescued him when he fell down into the basement. (He fell into a ventilation shaft while exploring, and landed on a cardboard box and was unharmed.) I make sure he goes home at night to spend the night with his family.
And just like I would with a friend, I am attentive to his needs, wants, and moods. I try to be a good friend to him.
SEEING CATS AS CATS OR SOMETHING MORE FUNDAMENTAL
Many treat cats as… cats. They see them as mainly different from us, and they adopt a lot of the cultural baggage of how we in the West treat non-human species. Cats are generally OK with it, but it does create a sense of division. Humans see themselves as divided from cats, and cats sense and adapt to and respond to that.
I and others treat them as equals. We are all living beings. We are all fundamentally consciousness to ourselves. We are the universe taking these local and temporary forms. And cats respond to that as well. They seem to enjoy it. Just like us, they enjoy being related to as equals.
That may be one reason why cats seem to want to spend time with me. (And why I have a history of “stealing” cats in that way, which people tend to not like.)
BEYOND NEIGHBORS VISITING
This, of course, goes far beyond non-human neighbors visiting.
This has to do with how we relate to all of life – ecosystems, this living planet, and future generations.
Since I live in our current system, my life inevitably is mostly destructive to life. That’s how it is for just about all of us. For instance, I fly in commercial airplanes, and that contributes enormously to my ecological footprint.
I also try to help shift us all – and the system we have created for ourselves – in a more life-centered direction. I worked with sustainability for many years. (I was the coordinator of a local organization that helped individuals and groups make shifts in a more sustainable direction.) I have volunteered a lot. I write some about it here. I vote for the Green Party. I am creating a nature reserve in the Andes Mountains. And so on.
It’s a drop in the bucket, but many drops create an ocean. And I am a very small part of helping shift our current system into something that can be far more sustainable.
Photo: The photo above is from last night. He has been coming here for the last two weeks since I moved into my parent’s house to get it ready for sale. (My parents just moved somewhere else.)
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Robin Wall Kimmerer: We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn
In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.
– Robin Wall Kimmerer
That’s how I see it too.
THE WAYS WE ARE THE SAME
In some essential ways, we are all the same. We all share ancestors going back to the first living Earth being. We are all parts of the same evolving living planet and the same evolving universe. We are all part of the same larger seamless whole. We are all the expression of the universe, just like any being and anything else.
A YOUNG SPECIES
And yet, as a species, we are very young.
We are especially young when it comes to dealing with civilization and advanced technology. We have a lot to learn from how ecosystems work and other species, especially since most of them have been around far longer than we have. Mainly, we urgently need to learn to take ecological realities into account in how we organize ourselves and how we see the world.
HOW WE RELATE TO MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS
As a species learning to use mental representations in a complex manner, we are also young. We are still in the early phase of learning to relate to these mental representations intentionally and consciously.
It’s a new(ish) tool, and it takes time for us to figure out how to use it effectively. As it is now, we partially put it to good use, and we partially misuse it.
How do we misuse it? Mainly by not recognizing our mental representations for what they are, and taking them as more true than they can ever be.
And how can we learn to use this tool better? The essence is simple. By learning to recognize our mental representations for what they are: They are mental representations. They are not inherent in what we project them onto. They are questions about the world. They are provisional. They are here to help us orient and navigate. They cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth.
Although the essence of this is simple, actually doing it sometimes requires a lot of examination and untangling, individually in our own lives and collectively as a culture and civilization.
And that is something we, as a species, largely have to figure out on our own.
OUR CHALLENGES FROM BEING A YOUNG SPECIES
Many of the challenges we collectively (and individually) face today come from being a young species. There are many things we haven’t figured out yet.
We have an economic system – and a civilization – built on the assumption that nature is limitless. That’s understandable considering our history with far fewer humans and far less efficient technology. Today, with billions of us and efficient technology, it’s clearly suicidal.
And we tend to hold some of our mental representations as truth, which creates a lot of distress and conflict – with ourselves, with others, and even with the rest of this living planet.
Image: Midjourney scene of a jungle
Read MoreAnimal communication
I have been fascinated by animal communication since my early teens, and maybe before. I remember Carl Sagan writing about dolphin communication in one of his books, and I have always thought that if we arrive at a better way to communicate with animals, our relationships with them would change as well. Hopefully, for the good of them and us.
HUNGER FOR WORDS
A few years ago, I discovered Hunger for Words through an online article, and I immediately thought that this was one of the breakthroughs I had been hoping to see.
Hunger for Words is a project created by a speech therapist. In 2018, she got a dog (Stella) and wanted to see if some of the methods she used with children would also work with Stella.
Specifically, she started using buttons that each represented a word or simple phrase and taught the meaning to Stella.
I started my experiment with just a few recordable buttons that Stella could push to say, “outside,” “play,” and “water,” and the same language facilitation strategies I use with children. Since introducing those first words, Stella has progressed far beyond what I ever thought could be possible. Now, Stella uses a homemade communication device to say more than 45 words (and counting!), combine up to 5 words together to create unique phrases, ask and answer questions, express her thoughts and feelings, make observations, participate in short conversations, and connect with us every single day.
CLOSE RELATIVES & SHARED ANCESTORS
It’s amazing to watch videos of Stella and other animals using these buttons to communicate. They are creative in how they put sentences together in a way that demonstrates a real understanding of language.
And why would we be surprised? Dogs and cats are mammals like us. We are cousins. We share most of our ancestors. They may not naturally have words, but they do communicate clearly. And through this method, they learn to communicate with words so we can more easily understand them.
THE EFFECTS OF IMPROVED COMMUNICATION
As this becomes more common and commonly known in our culture, what effects may it have?
I hope it will help us recognize non-human species as sentient beings like us with emotions, wishes, needs, hopes, and fears like us. They wish the same as we do, which is to be free from suffering and have a good life.
And that, in turn, may shift how we treat our fellow beings. They are like us. More than us versus them we are all “us”. So why not treat them as we would have wanted to be treated in their situation?
Why not give them a voice, even beyond this type of communication? Why not assign people to speak up for non-human beings in places where we make decisions that impact them? (Government, courts, board rooms, and so on.)
Why not give them stronger legal rights and ways to enforce these rights?
SHARED INTERESTS
Some may assume that this is not in our interest. After all, don’t we sometimes need to use non-human species for our own good? To take their land so we can grow food or build houses? Keep them captive for our entertainment? Keep them imprisoned so we can eat them?
It may look that way from a short-term and narrow-interest perspective.
And yet, from a bigger perspective, it looks very different.
Here, we see that we share interests.
We are embedded in the ecosystems of this planet. We are all parts of this living evolving system we call Earth. We share fate. We are all dependent on a healthy, diverse, and thriving ecosystem and planet.
And by giving non-human beings a metaphorical and literal voice, we not only take care of their interests but our shared interests. We take care of our own long-term interests.
This is essential not only for them but for us.
GIVING A VOICE TO THE VOICELESS
This is not by any means idealism. This is realism.
For our own survival, we need to give a voice to those who do not have one in our society. We need to give a voice to non-human species, ecosystems, and future generations. And that voice needs to be backed up by laws and the legal system to have a real impact.
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Why do I love animals? Why do I love nature?
I recently watched the last season of His Dark Materials, and find I have as much and often more empathy with the dæmons as I do with their human counterpart. (The dæmons are animals representing an aspect of the people, their inner self, anima/animus, or something similar.)
Why do I love animals? Why do I love nature? Why is it sometimes easier to find love for a non-human being than for some fellow humans?
There are many answers and they all (literally) come out of one.
Here are some that come to mind:
MISTREATED
Non-human beings are often mistreated by humans. I tend to side with the underdogs, and in this relationship, non-human beings are almost always the underdogs. I have a natural empathy with non-human beings for that reason. (I know this particular dynamic is rooted in my own history and experiences.)
INNOCENCE & DIFFERENT HISTORY
The natural world has everything from cooperation and care to fights and mercilessness.
At the same time, we see an innocence there. For all their savvy and specific skills, knowledge, and experience, many of them generally function cognitively at the level of human children or babies.
Most non-human species must have mental representations and use them as we do, to orient and function in the world. And yet, it seems they are much less likely to elaborate on and believe these imaginations. They use them in a more simple and direct way.
For many of us, it’s easier to find love for animals. They are simpler. In some ways, they are innocent like children. For that reason, we don’t experience the same friction with them as we do with humans. We don’t experience the clashes of hangups and worldviews we experience with humans. And most of us have been more hurt by humans than non-human beings, we have a different history with them.
For all of these reasons, it’s often easier to find love for non-human beings. And especially the ones we know personally and live with.
MIRROR
Animals mirror me in several different ways. I see myself in them.
They mirror my animal nature. They mirror how I am with a simpler mental field. They mirror how I am minus my more complicated – and complicating – human mental field with elaborate ideas, beliefs, identifications, etc.
And the different animals mirror different parts of me as well. Whatever story I have about any type of animal, I can turn it to myself and find specific and genuine examples of how, where, and when it’s true.
And since I wish to have – and have – some love and care for these parts of me, I have the same towards the beings mirroring these sides of me.
WE ARE CLOSELY RELATED
All Earth life is closely related. We are all, literally, part of the same family. We share ancestors. We are cousins. We are far more similar than we are different. We share far more than what’s unique and different.
We are “we” far more than we are “us” and “them”. And we all know this in our cells and bones and our mind when we subtract our complicated human mental field. Any ideas of separation come from our ideas, not from reality.
PART OF THE SAME SYSTEM
We are all part of the same living and evolving system we call Earth or Gaia.
We are subsystems in larger living systems.
We are subsystems in the larger systems we call the Earth and the universe and all of existence.
We are all expressions of the same larger living wholes.
We are part of the same metaphorical body we call life, Earth, the universe, and existence.
And that’s not just metaphorical or poetry or wishful thinking. It’s what current science tells us.
As Carl Sagan said, we are all the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are existence bringing itself into consciousness.
We are all the Earth, the universe, and existence expressing, experiencing, and exploring itself temporarily and locally as us.
EXPRESSIONS OF THE DIVINE
We can call existence and reality God, Spirit, or the divine.
Here, we can say that we are all expressions of God, Spirit, or the divine.
We are all the divine expressing, experiencing, and exploring itself temporarily and locally as us.
We are all the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the divine.
We are the divine bringing itself into consciousness through and as us.
PART OF THE ONENESS I AM
There is also another oneness here, and one that’s far more immediate.
In one sense, I am this human being in the world.
Ehen I look in my own first-person experience, I find I am more fundamentally something else. I find I am capacity for the world as it appears to me. I find that the world, to me, happens within and as what I am.
I am the oneness the world, to me, happens within and as.
To me, everything – including any being – is part of the oneness I am.
And to the extent I allow this to sink and infuse and transform my human self, this gives birth to a natural love that’s not dependent on feelings or states. It’s the love of the left hand removing a splinter from the right.
WORDS AND LANGUAGE
I use the word “animal” here since that’s the terminology most people use these days.
In reality, we are all animals. We are all living beings.
There is no reason to create a hard and imagined boundary between us and the rest of Earth life.
We are all closely related. We are all in the same boat. We are all embedded in the same larger living systems. We are all expressions of the evolution of the universe. We are all expressions of existence. We are all the Earth, the universe, and existence expressing, experiencing, and exploring itself through and as us.
When I hear the word “animal” I am reminded of the old Greeks who used a similar mind-created division. They called any non-Greeks barbarians. I assume future generations may see our current human-animal distinction as equally quaint and old-fashioned.
Today, there is a growing awareness of all the many ways racism and sexism is expressed in society and our language. In the future, I assume there will be a similar awareness of how our anthropocentrism is expressed in our language and society, and a movement to change it.
CULTURE & OUR ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
How we see humans versus the rest of life is obviously dependent on our culture.
In some traditional cultures, all life is seen as related and part of the same whole.
The irony is that in our culture, that’s the view of science. Science tells us all life is closely related and part of the same living evolving systems. And yet, most people operate on an outdated and misguided idea of the basic separation of humans from all other life. We operate on misconceptions while we know better.
Why? I assume it’s not just because of tradition and habit. It’s also convenient. It allows us to keep using and abusing non-human beings and nature in general.
And that brings us to saw over the branch we are sitting on. It’s out of alignment with reality, and operating on ideas out of alignment with reality has consequences. In this case, the consequence is the destruction of the living systems we are fully embedded in and dependent on.
NOISE
I’ll add one topic that’s been on my mind since my early teens.
I have personally never liked noise or loud music. I love silence and natural sounds, and less human-created sounds (apart from some music).
And, as far as I can tell from research and personal observations, it seems I share that with most non-human beings.
So why do some humans apparently love noise and loud sounds and music?
I don’t know but I assume it has to do with our noisy and complex mental field and what happens when we take certain (painful) ideas as reality. (Taking any idea as reality is painful in itself, no matter what the idea tells us.) Perhaps the outer noise masks the inner noise, at least for a while? Perhaps it’s a strategy to distract ourselves from our own discomfort and pain?
Perhaps it’s a sign we haven’t found peace with our own experience, as it is? A sign of war with our experience?
In our culture, we act as if we are at war with nature, and we act as if we are at war with our own experience. The two are closely related. They depend on each other. And they may break down together.
FINDING PEACE WITH OURSELVES & PEACE WITH NATURE
In most cases, if we find peace with our experience, we tend to find a deeper love for nature. And finding a deeper love for nature tends to be reflected in finding more peace with our experience.
Of course, both take work. And even if we find this peace, and wish to live in a more peaceful relationship with life in general, we are still living within a social and economic system that is inherently destructive. It was created at a time when we didn’t need to take the limits of nature into account. And now – with increasing human numbers and more efficient technology – it’s obviously destructive to life.
We can personally experience peace with life, but our life is not peaceful to life as long our collective human system is as it is.
It takes personal intention, skill, and work to find peace with our experience.
It will take a similar collective intention, skill, and work to find real peace in our relationship with nature – and transform our collective life so it takes ecological realities into account.
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How old am I?
I had a birthday yesterday, and it brings up the topic of age.
How old am I?
It’s a simple question, and if I take it seriously, it can reveal a lot about my nature.
THE AGE ON MY PASSPORT
In a conventional sense, I am the age my passport tells me. It’s the age in my official documents, and the answer most people expect if they ask the question. It’s not wrong, but it’s a small part of a much bigger picture.
MY BODY’S AGE
In another sense, my body has a certain biological age. Depending on genetics and lifestyle, it can be older or younger than my conventional age. This age has some importance in terms of my health. (And depending on how it’s measured and what criteria are used, it will likely change somewhat.)
THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE
In yet another sense, I am the age of this universe. According to current science, I am roughly 13.7 billion years old. This can sound like an answer that’s meant to be cute or clever, but it’s far more real than that.
Everything I am as a human being is the product of 13.7 billion years of evolution of this universe.
Every molecule is the product of this evolution, most having been forged in ancient stars blowing up and reforming into this planet which formed itself into all of us and this living evolving world.
Every dynamic in me is the product of the evolution of this seamless system we call the universe.
As Carl Sagan said, and I often quote: We are the ears, eyes, thoughts and feeling of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
Everything I am as a human being is the product of the evolution of this larger seamless system I am a local and temporary expression of.
In a very real sense, I am the age of this universe. Everything I am as a human is the age of this universe.
This age is important since it’s a reminder of the reality of the oneness of the universe. It’s a reminder of what current science tells us about our more fundamental identity and nature.
TIMELESS
All of that has some validity to it. And yet, am I most fundamentally this human self? Or even a local and temporary expression of this seamless and evolving larger whole?
If I look in my own first-person experience, what am I more fundamentally?
I find I am more fundamentally capacity for any and all experiences. I am capacity for the world as it appears to me, including this human self and anything connected with it. I am capacity even for any thought or sense that I am fundamentally this human self.
I find that any experience – of the wider world or this human self – happens within and as my sense fields. (Sight, sound, sensations, taste, smell, mental images and words.)
To me, the world as it appears to me, happens within and as what I am.
This is my more fundamental nature, in my own immediate experience.
Here, I find I am what any ideas or experience of time happens within and as. My nature is timeless, allowing and forming itself into ideas and experiences of time and change.
LAYERED
My age is layered.
As a human being, I am the age in my passport and my body’s biological age.
As a local and temporary expression of this larger seamless evolving system, I have the age of this universe. (And that will change somewhat depending on what science says.)
And in my own first-person experience, I find my nature is timeless. I am the timelessness any ideas and experience of age happen within and as.
I love the richness of my age. I love that there are many answers and that some change over time.
I love that each one makes sense in its own way.
WHY DON’T WE USE OUR UNIVERSE AGE MORE OFTEN?
If science tells us we all are 13.7 billion years old, why don’t we use that age more often?
It may seem a silly question, but it’s actually a very important one. Science tells us our more fundamental age is 13.7 billion years, so why don’t we collectively take it more seriously?
It may be because this story is still relatively new so it hasn’t had time to sink in yet.
Also, we are used to using our age in our passport so most people stick with that. Much in society is dependent on separating us by age. (School, tickets, pension, and so on.) And many seem to like to follow that orientation.
For me, it’s beautiful and important that this is an age we all share. Everything that exists has the same age. That’s amazing and wonderful to me. It’s a reminder of what ties us together and that we are all local and temporary expressions of the same seamless evolving whole.
That’s far more fundamental and important than the age we happen to have as local and temporary expressions of this whole.
WHY DON’T WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR TIMELESS NATURE MORE OFTEN?
Similarly, why don’t we acknowledge our timeless nature more often?
It’s not because it’s not here to be noticed. Based on my own noticing and what I hear from others, it seems we all have this nature. (It’s the nature of the consciousness we all inevitably are to ourselves.) (1)
It’s not even because it’s difficult to find. I assume most can find it with guidance and within minutes.
So why don’t more people acknowledge this?
I assume there are many answers here too. The obvious one is that we live in a society that tells us – directly and indirectly – that we most fundamentally are this human self, an object within the field of our experience. As we grow up, we see that this is what others do so we do the same. In our innocence, which is very beautiful, we train ourselves to do as others do.
There are also many misconceptions about this. Many traditions suggest that finding our nature is difficult or takes a long time, or that it’s for special people, or that it’s about something distant, or that it gives us special powers.
In reality, it’s right here. It’s not only what we are most familiar with, it’s the only thing we are familiar with. It’s what all our experience consists of.
Since it’s about noticing what we already are, it’s for all of us.
It doesn’t give us any special powers, it’s just a noticing of our nature. (And that can be profoundly transforming for our perception and life in the world.)
And with good guidance, most of us can find it within a relatively short time.
How can we find it? The best approaches I am familiar with (so far) are the Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.
Of course, finding it is just the first step. It’s just a glimpse. If we want to continue exploring it, we need to refind it here and now. We need to explore how to live from this noticing. We need to investigate anything in us out of alignment with it, anything created and operating from separation consciousness.
And that takes dedication, passion, and a lifetime. (Or more if there are more.)
(1) Why don’t we acknowledge our timeless nature more often? It’s not even because it’s illogical. Based on logic, we find that in our own experience, we have to be consciousness. If we “have” consciousness, we inevitably and most fundamentally have to BE consciousness in our own experience. And the world, to us, happens within and as the consciousness we are.
We have all of the characteristics of consciousness, and since the world to us happens within and as the consciousness we are, that too – to us – have those characteristics.
We are what’s inherently free of time and space and that our experience of time and space happens within and as. We are the oneness any sense of distinction and separation happens within and as. And so on.
This just says something about our own nature in our own first-person experience, it doesn’t say anything about the nature of existence or the universe. And that’s more than enough. If we are led – by existence – to take it seriously, that’s profoundly transforming.
Image: A look at the distant relatives we call the “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.)
Why do we love our land? An evolutionary perspective on landscape
When it comes to understanding anything human, I often do a quick check-in with an evolutionary perspective. And the same obviously goes for understanding the behavior of any species.
My wife and I are stewards of beautiful land in the Andes mountains.
Why do we see it as so beautiful? Why do we feel so connected with it?
We fell in love with it within seconds of our first visit. And it feels as if the land chose us as much as we chose it.
OUR ANCESTRAL HOME
One answer, which came up in my environmental psychology classes at the University of Utah, is that humanity comes from the Great Rift Valley in Africa so we are naturally drawn to that type of landscape. It’s our ancestral home. We love open landscapes with trees and shade. It’s the environment we co-evolved with.
Our pre-human ancestors likely lived for innumerable generations in that landscape, and our first human-like ancestors lived there before they started migrating out to the rest of the world.
In this case, there is a clear similarity between this land and the landscape of the Great Rift Valley. (Not surprising since both are close to the equator and about the same elevation.)
Many if not most of the ancestors in me feel at home there.
BIOPHILIA
There is also a much deeper and general reason for our love – and sometimes fear – of nature.
We are nature. So we love, and sometimes fear, nature.
The universe is a seamless whole. It’s a holarchy, a whole with wholes within it.
It’s also an evolving system, expressed through and as – among everything else in the universe – our living and evolving planet and us as a species and individuals.
As Carl Sagan said, we are the universe bringing itself into consciousness. We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe.
When we look into the universe, we are looking back at ourselves. When we experience nature, we are experiencing ourselves.
We co-evolved with all of it.
We find nature beautiful because we recognize ourselves in and as it, whether we are conscious of it or not.
THE LANDSCAPES WE ARE ATTRACTED TO
At a more conventional level, there are other reasons why we tend to find nature beautiful, and why we are especially drawn to certain landscapes.
Our ancestors lived with, from, and as nature, so it makes sense to be attracted to nature. It helped them survive. (Neutrality or aversion would not be so productive.)
It makes sense that we tend to be attracted to open landscapes. Having a view helped our ancestors to survive. They could see prey, friends, and enemies from far away and prepare accordingly.
It makes sense we tend to be attracted to green landscapes. For our ancestors, it made sense to be drawn to green landscapes since it means vegetation, and vegetation means shade, protection, and food.
It makes sense we tend to be attracted to moderate climates, for obvious reasons.
It makes sense that we are attracted to running water since it means fresh water for drinking, bathing, and cooking food.
Many love sitting by a bonfire or a fireplace, or even just a candle. For our ancestors, these types of smaller and controlled fires meant food, warmth, protection, and community.
The ones who were drawn to these features of nature were more likely to survive and they passed these inclinations on to their descendants, including us.
And it makes equal sense we are afraid of or slightly repulsed by certain things in nature. Most of us have some fear of heights, and this fear has helped our ancestors avoid dangerous situations. We tend to have some fear of snakes and some insects for the same reason. We avoid places that smell musty, moldy, or rotten.
Our ancestors who experienced some fear or repulsion to these things were more likely to survive, have children, and pass these tendencies on to us.
CULTURE AND ANYTHING HUMAN
Human culture and anything human – all our experiences, thoughts, and feelings – are obviously part of the seamless whole of existence. It’s all the evolution of the universe and this living planet expressing itself in these ways, through and as us and our experiences.
We obviously find a lot in humans and culture beautiful. But not always. Why is that?
Again, an evolutionary perspective can give us answers. If we see an open and infested wound, it makes sense to experience some repulsion since it can help us not get infected. If we meet someone who is chronically caught up in anger, blame, or similar, feeling less attracted to it can help us to avoid problems. If we see a building or village in disrepair, it may be best to find another place to go. And so on. (This is obviously a very simplified outline.)
On a more immediate level, what we find beautiful and not has to do with how we relate to our thoughts about it. If we believe our thoughts about something or someone, it will often create attraction or aversion.
HOLDING IT LIGHTLY
As usual, it makes sense to hold all of this lightly.
An evolutionary perspective on psychology and behavior helps us arrive at educated guesses at most. It’s not something we can verify once and for all.
Personally, I often use it to find more understanding and empathy for myself and others. I find a plausible explanation in an evolutionary context, and that helps me see that our experiences and behavior are not as personal as they first may seem. It all comes from somewhere else.
Note: The photo above is from our land in the Chicamocha Canyon.
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Joanna Macy: If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by… people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear
If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.
– Joanna Macy
That’s what creates any change. When our love is greater than our fear. When we realize that continuing will be more painful than making a change.
Mother’s day
It’s mother’s day in some countries today.
We can look at mother in many ways, including literally, as a projection, and metaphorically.
And although much of it may be pretty obvious, it can also help us shift our perspective. We may be able to shift out of habitual views and into views that are more new and fresh to us, and hold them all more lightly.
And that, in itself, is often valuable.
LITERAL MOTHERS
The most obvious is our own human mothers – whether it’s our biological one or the one(s) who raised us.
Can I find love for my human mother even if she wasn’t perfect?
The more we resolve any issues with our mother and those in our early life, the more we tend to resolve many of the more central issues we have. If you wonder what to find healing for, a good place to start – and end – is your mother and father and anyone important in your early life.
The more we find healing for our relationship with our mother, the more we can find genuine gratitude for her, as she was and is.
Another side to this is that, to us, our mother is as much or more in here as out there. Finding healing for our relationship with our mother (and father) helps us heal parts of ourselves.
MOTHERS ALL THE WAY BACK
There is also the lineage of mothers.
This lineage goes through all our human mothers through the centuries and in many geographical locations, going back to the early human migration(s) from Africa.
It goes back through our non-human humanoid ancestors. The ones that may be somewhat similar to primates today.
It goes back to our non-human and non-primate mammal ancestors. The small ones that lived during the dinosaur era and even further back.
It goes back beyond this, to our non-mammal ancestors. The ones who left the ocean for land, and the ones who lived in the ocean.
It goes back to the very simple organisms that were the pioneer lifeforms in the oceans.
And it goes back to the very first single-celled organism that’s the ancestor of all life today.
All of these are our mothers. They tie us to all Earth life.
Without them, we wouldn’t exist and the amazing living planet we are part of wouldn’t exist.
MOTHER AS A MIRROR
We also have the mother in all of us.
These are the mother qualities of nurturing, understanding, fierce protection, and so on, and also the distorted version of these.
When I see mother qualities in others, whether nurturing or protective or more distorted, can I find it in myself? What stories do I have about my own mother and other mothers? WHat do I find when I turn this story to myself? Can I find specific and genuine examples of how each one is true?
OUR CHILDREN AS OUR MOTHERS
We think of mothers as mothers of children. Is the reverse also true?
Yes, in a sense, our children are our mothers. They are part of making us who we are.
Can I find appreciation and gratitude for this as well?
MY EXPERIENCES ARE MY MOTHER
At first glance, it may look as if the situations I am in are my mother.
The universe, planet, ecosystem, culture, subcultures, and family I grow up and live in form and shape who I am.
All my experiences – whether I call them small or big – are my mother.
THE WAY I RELATE TO MY EXPERIENCES IS MY MOTHER
When I look more closely, I find something else is more true for me.
It’s the way I relate to my experiences that forms and shapes me and who I am in the world.
The way I relate to my experiences – the way I relate to myself, others, situations, and so on – is my mother.
MOTHER NATURE
Nature is our mother in a very real sense.
Without this living planet, we wouldn’t exist. Every molecule in our bodies comes from the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the food we eat. All of it comes from the wider ecosystems we are part of.
We are an intrinsic part of this living system and a local expression of this living system.
Our own health and well-being, individually and collectively, is dependent on the health and well-being of our mother, of this living system we call planet Earth.
MOTHER UNIVERSE
Similarly, the universe is our mother.
All of existence, going back to the beginning of time (if there is any) and stretching out to the widest extent (if there is any boundary), is our mother.
We depend on all of it for our own existence.
Without the whole, just as it is, we wouldn’t be.
WE ARE THE MOTHERS OF EXISTENCE
The reverse is also true here. We are the mothers of the universe.
We bring existence into form and life – locally and through and as our experiences and life.
We are the local expressions of existence as a whole. We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe.
As Meister Eckart said, we are the mothers of God.
CAPACITY AS THE MOTHER OF ALL
There is also the mother of existence, which is what allows it all – as it appears to me – to happen.
When I look at what I more fundamentally am in my own first-person experience, I find my nature is capacity for the world as it appears to me.
I am capacity for any and all experience – whether it’s of this human self, the wider world, or anything else.
This capacity is the mother of the world as it appears to me.
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Wolfwalkers & our relationship with the wild in nature and ourselves
I loved this movie in many different ways. And as any good story that deals with primal archetypes and archetypal dynamics, it can be interpreted at many different levels.
It can be seen as a metaphor for how humans treat each other, including how the English have treated the Irish. It can be seen as a more literal story about how humans treat nature and the wild. And it can be seen as a mirror for dynamics in ourselves, and how we civilize ourselves at the expense of the primal aliveness in ourselves.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIP WITH THE WILD
It’s easy to imagine a history of the human relationship with the wild, and it will – by necessity – be somewhat speculative when it comes to the early history.
Before agriculture and civilization as we think of it, people lived in nature, with nature, and from nature. They may have had more of a partnership relationship with nature and the wild, and they likely respected nature out of necessity. They had a more nature-oriented spirituality. They didn’t have much property so they didn’t have much hierarchy. They may have had a more matriarchal culture. The inevitable damage to nature was limited since their numbers were small and their technology simple, and they also moved if they needed to which limited their impact on the areas they were in.
With agriculture, this all changed. We could accumulate wealth. We had more division of labor, tasks, and skills. We developed a hierarchy. The ones higher up in the hierarchy developed a wish to control others and the general population. We got culture as we know it. We got more removed sky-God religions. We got a more patriarchal culture.
We lived in tamed landscapes or towns and cities. With agriculture, we depended more on tamed nature. We lived more distanced from the wild. We depend much less on the wild. The wild became “other” to us. For those higher up in the hierarchy, it became in their interest to also tame the population.
We learned to tame nature and ourselves, and find this comforting and the wild scary and unsettling and perhaps even evil.
Our human relationship with the wild shifted. We went from living in and from the wild to becoming distanced from it and viewing it often as something scary and suspicious. We learned that taming ourselves and nature was safer.
WHAT DOES TAMING OURSELVES MEAN?
We know what it means to tame nature. It means to make the wild into agricultural land, towns, and cities. Replace wild forests with planted forests. To kill any animals – typically large predators – we see as competitors or any danger to ourselves. And so on.
But what does it mean that we tame ourselves?
In one sense, it just means that we learn to live with others and in civilization. We learn to express our feelings with words instead of through actions that may harm others. We learn to cooperate. We learn to take others into consideration when we make our choices and live our life. This is natural for us since we are a social species and it doesn’t necessarily come at much or any cost.
In another sense, it can mean that we tame ourselves at the cost of our aliveness, sense of connection and meaning, and authenticity. This happens when we take taming ourselves in a slightly misguided way. We may deny our emotions or needs, wishes, and desires instead of acknowledging or expressing these and finding ways to get our needs met. We may disconnect ourselves from our body and nature and feel disconnected, ungrounded, and aimless. All of this tends to come as a consequence of believing painful beliefs and identities and perceiving and living as if they are true. And these painful beliefs and identities tend to come from our culture or subculture. They are passed on and shared by many if not most humans in our culture, and some may be common across cultures – especially in our modern world.
HOW DO WE REWILD OURSELVES?
Rewilding nature is a popular topic these days, and very much needed for the health of nature and ourselves and our culture.
But how do we rewild ourselves?
There are several approaches, and what works best is probably a combination of the ones that resonate the most with us – and that may change over time.
We can connect with nature through spending time in nature, gardening, spending time with non-human species, learning about nature, spending time in the wilderness, learning to survive in the wilderness, spending time at a bonfire, looking at the stars, and so on.
We can connect with our body by walking barefoot, receiving bodywork, doing different forms of yoga, learning to recognize and take seriously the signals from our body, and so on.
We can engage in nature-centered spirituality and rituals, including the Practices to Reconnect from Joanna Macy.
We can shift our worldview from one of separation to connection and oneness, for instance through deep ecology, the epic of evolution, the universe story, ecospirituality, system views, integral models (AQAL), and so on.
We can engage in actions on behalf of other species, the Earth, and future generations. These may be small and “invisible” everyday actions or more visible in the world. These may be actions to stop damage, change our culture, or envision and implement life-centered alternatives.
We can learn to notice and acknowledge our emotions and wishes, needs, and desires. We can find ways to express this and meet our needs in a kind way. We can find a more authentic way to live that’s kind to ourselves and others.
We can identify fears we have of rewilding ourselves. What’s the worst that could happen? What does my culture tell me could happen? What do I find when I examine these stories? What’s more true for me? How is it to meet and be with the fear and allow it as it is? How is it to find love for it?
We can find healing for any emotional issues that create a sense of separation and lack of connection, aliveness, groundedness, and meaning.
We can identify and investigate the views and beliefs that create a sense of separation – with ourselves, others, nature, and the universe as a whole. We can identify beliefs passed on through our culture. We can find them in ourselves and inquire into them and find more freedom from them and what’s more true and honest for us.
We can connect with and taste the wholeness we are at a human level, through a combination of meditation, body-centered practices, emotional healing, and more.
We can explore what we more fundamentally are in our own first-person experience. At one level, we are a human being in the world. And what do I find when I explore what I am in my own first-person experience? I may find I more fundamentally are capacity for the world as it appears to me. And what the world – this human self, the wider world, and anything else – happens within and as. I may find myself as the oneness this human self and the wider world happen within and as.
This is not only for the benefit of ourselves. It benefits our culture. It may help our species survive. And it will likely benefit other species, this living planet, and future generations.
Note: This article itself is an example of rewilding ourselves. I saw the movie three or four weeks ago, made a few notes, and allowed it to rest. Today, I was moved to write the article and it came out easily and naturally, without much if any effort.
When I saw the movie, I noticed I wasn’t ready to write the final article. I knew that pushing it would be uncomfortable and likely wouldn’t give a good result. So I allowed it to rest and digest on its own, and I waited for it to come to fruition in me and move me to write it.
I planted the seed, waited, and it sprouted in its own time in the form of this article.
Read MoreCells and oneness
Someone I talked with brought up the idea that we are like cells in an organism. Just like a cell is a part of a larger organism, we – as human beings – are part of a larger organism. We are holons in larger holarchies, just as we are a holarchy for smaller holons. We are part of the seamless system of this planet and the universe and all of existence.
This is all accurate at a story level, in terms of science, and so on.
At the same time, we are something else. To ourselves, in our own first-person experience, we are capacity for the world as it appears to us. We are what the world – this human self, the wider world, and anything else – happens within and as. We are oneness and love.
These two are complementary. In the world and as human beings and at a story level, we are like cells in a larger organism. To ourselves, when we look, we find we are capacity for the world as it appears to us, and what the world happens within and as. We are oneness and love, and we are the oneness and love that – to us – the world happens within and as.
Alan Watts: You are it!
They say in the Upanishads, those ancient texts of Hinduism, they say: Tat Tvam Asi. You’re it! Ha! You are everything that’s going on. In other words, you are a partiucular place in which the whole universe is focused.
– Alan Watts, see this video on FaceBook
For me, there are two different parts to this.
One is that to me, I am everything that’s gong on. My nature is capacity for every experience I have and am. The world and universe as I experience it happens within and as my sense fields. The universe, to me, happens within and as what I am. This is something I can explore in my own first-person experience and find for myself.
The other is that I am a particular place in which the whole universe is focused.
As this human self, I am a part of the seamless and dynamic whole of the universe, a holon in a wast holarcy.
Every experience, thought, feeling, action, state, and so on, that I experience (and am, in that moment), has innumerable causes stretching back to the beginning of time (if there is a beginning) and out to the widest extent of the universe (if there is a boundary). What’s here as this human self – and any experiences and activities of this human self – is created by the universe as a whole.
As Carl Sagan said, I am the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. I am the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
This is something I can find within stories, including western science, the universe story, the epic of evolution, and so on.
Why do we find nature beautiful?
Why do most of us find nature beautiful? Especially if it’s mostly natural and untouched by humans, or mimics a more natural state?
There are many answers to this question.
CO-EVOLUTION
We have co-evolved with the rest of nature. We evolved as part of Earth’s living systems. So naturally, we’ll tend to experience an affiliation with the rest of nature.
EVOLUTION
We have evolved to find certain types of nature attractive. We tend to be attracted to landscapes that serve our survival needs. Landscapes with trees, sun, wind, water, lush vegetation, shelter, abundant life, and so on.
CULTURE
There is obviously a cultural component to this. We learn what’s beautiful in nature and what’s not, and this is often rooted in something that makes sense in a survival context. Sometimes, it made sense several generations back (for instance, wanting to get rid of competition in the form of large predators) and not so much anymore.
SEAMLESS LIVING SYSTEM
We are, in a very real sense, Earth taking the form of us. The living systems of Earth take all the forms we see around us. We are Earth locally seeing, feeling, and experiencing itself. When we experience a tree or a landscape, we are Earth experiencing these parts of itself through and as us. And conversely, when the rest of nature encounters us, it’s Earth experiencing that part of itself – us – through all these other parts of itself.
SEAMLESS EVOLVING UNIVERSE
More fundamentally, we are existence experiencing itself. In the words of Carl Sagan, we are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness. No wonder we find a lot of the universe and existence beautiful.
OUR NATURE / WHAT WE ARE
There is yet another fundamental answer to the question.
And that is that, to us, all our experiences happen within and as what we are. Our nature is to be capacity for all our experiences, and any and all experiences happen within and as what we are. We are oneness, and we are the love that comes from this oneness recognizing itself. We may not notice, but that doesn’t change our nature.
We naturally have preferences, including from evolution, culture, and our own biology and experiences. And because of this and sometimes our beliefs, hangups, issues, and so on, we find certain things distasteful or even ugly.
And yet, we tend to find much of nature very beautiful.
Why? One answer is because it is already and inevitably happening within and as what we are.
WHY DON’T WE FIND EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL?
Looking at all of this, another version of the question comes up:
Why don’t we find everything – all of nature and all of existence – beautiful?
I have already hinted at this earlier.
The answer is partly in our evolution, culture, biology, and personal experiences. We have natural preferences and biases because of all of these influences.
And the answer is partly in our beliefs, identifications, hangups, issues, and so on. These cause us to find certain things repulsive and unattractive, or even just boring and neutral.
The two often overlap, and the second tends to build on the first.
So the more we heal our beliefs and issues, the more we heal our relationship with all of life, and the more we notice and live from our nature, the more we tend to find everything beautiful.
We’ll still have our preferences. We’ll still be a good steward of our life and choose some things and not others. And we’ll tend to find more and more – and perhaps even everything – inherently beautiful.
CHANGING DEFINITION OF NATURE
Through this, we see a changing definition of nature.
I started out by defining nature in a more conventional sense, as relatively untouched ecosystems.
We went through defining nature as us too. Everything we are, do, and experience is – in a very real sense – nature. All of what we are and experience is part of the living seamless systems of Earth and the universe.
And we end up defining nature as all of existence.
Each of these is accurate in its own way.
Image: Scott Kelly, ISS
Read MoreTiny in a huge universe
Modern science has shown us that we are close to insignificant in size compared to the vastness of the universe. How do we take this?
IF FUNDAMENTALLY SEPARATE IN OUR OWN EXPERIENCE
If we see ourselves as fundamentally separate from the larger whole, then this can be scary or depressing or confirm the meaninglessness of it all. It can easily tie into some of the emotional issues or hangups we have.
CONNECTED WITH THE LARGER WHOLE
And if we perceive ourselves as part of this larger whole, then it can become a source of awe, fascination, joy, and a sense of deep connection. I am the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. I am the universe bringing itself into consciousness. Everything I am and experience is something this amazing universe forms itself into here locally as this human self and this life and these experiences.
ONENESS IN TWO FORMS
As suggested, this goes beyond being a part of a larger whole and connections.
There is a very real oneness here in two ways.
We have the oneness of the physical universe. The universe is one seamless system. We and our life and experiences are local expressions of this larger system. We are a holon in a holarchy.
And we have the oneness we already are in our own first-person experience. It’s easy to perceive ourselves as something within the content of our experience, and specifically this human self, an I, a me, a doer, a man or woman, and whatever other identities our minds create for us. After all, that’s what most of us learn we are and what’s correct in most cultures.
And yet, when we look more closely in our own first-person experience, we may find we are more fundamentally something else. We may notice that our more fundamental nature is as capacity for the world as it appears to us, and that we are what the world – and all our experiences – happen within and as.
And here, we find another oneness. We find that to us, as it appears to us, the universe and all of existence already is one.
DEEPEN INTO A PERCEPTION OF CONNECTIONS AND ONENESS
How can we deepen into this perception of connections and oneness?
We can learn about the universe a seamless system, and this planet as a living evolving system. (Systems theories, Gaia theory, and so on.)
We can do the practices to reconnect and similar rituals to get it into our bones.
We can explore what we are in our own first-person experience, for instance using structured inquiries like the Headless experiments and the Big Mind process. Or even exploring the sense fields or using basic meditation, heart-centered practices, and so on.