Where There's A Will There's A (Wild) Way

'Three Sisters,'
Blue Mountains, Australia

Will (verb) meaning wish, desire, preference.

Will (noun) meaning purpose, determination, mind.

The phrase ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way’ is almost 400 years old. In 1640 the English writer, George Herbert, published a selection of proverbs. One of these reads:

To him that will, ways are not wanting.

The phrase has only slightly changed, but the sense is the same. If one has a determination to get something done, then they will find a way in which it can be done. It tells us that nothing can hold us back from our objective. It is an incitement to never give up. It is a rallying cry, advocating that, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’

Within the phrase, and those like it, lurks a desire to control. A will is not simply a determination of the mind, it is a determination to impose order on our own lives, or the lives of others or the planet itself. It is unsurprising that Herbert coined this proverb in the middle of the Scientific Revolution, a time when the world and cosmos were being referred to increasingly in mechanistic terms.

Pursuing the idea a little further, we might conclude that it is a determination to impose order on an otherwise wild place or being.

Hmmm…

Wild

What of the word wild? Where does it come from? What is it?

There seems to be two possibilities for the origin of the word itself. One is that it derives from the Old German word wald, meaning forest.

The other likelihood is that the word wild and the word will are more closely linked than we might think. Wild may be a shortened version of willed. The rationale for this is that a wild place follows its own will. Hence it is self-willed, self-wild.

A Wild Way

Consequently, if we were to dismantle the phrase ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way’ and replace it with ‘Where there’s a Will, there’s a Wild Way’ we might more closely unite and understand the connection between the two words – will and wild.

Coincidentally, with such an appreciation, we might even reconnect with a part of ourselves that, in westernised cultures at least, has largely been suppressed and hidden.

The eco-psychologist, Bill Plotkin, identifies four facets of the self. One of these he calls the Wild Indigenous One. This aspect of the self is, according to Plotkin, ‘is fully and passionately at home in the human body and in the natural world… The Wild Indigenous One is our most instinctual dimension, every bit as natural and at home on Earth as any elk, elm, or alp.’¹

When this wild way within us is re-discovered and experienced then the control and dominance implied in the familiar phase of where there’s a will there’s a way is seen for what it is: a self-harming impediment to our full selves, and a disrespectful and exploitative way of treating the earth.

Once we recognise that wilderness is not a state of disorder, but rather a state in which order is not imposed, we are able to find our natural wild state within the fullness of nature.

The American poet and writer, Wendell Berry, expressed this insight beautifully in his short poem The Peace of Wild Things, written in 1968.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

May we all use our will and come into the peace of wild things.

Note:

1. Bill Plotkin, Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche, New World Library, Novato, California, 2013.

Environment: It or Us?

Since the 1970s there has been much concern for the environment. Just what is this thing called
environment that is of concern?

The English word environment comes to us from Old French. The prefix en suggests in or into. The stem of the word is from viron, meaning circle, circuit. Thus, the Old French word environer means “to surround, enclose, encircle.”

Which is how the term environment has come to be understood: as all that which surrounds us, outside of us, but, significantly, not us. We reside in our environment.

In western tradition, it is only fairly recently that the sense of our environment being outside of us has started to be questioned and challenged.

The word itself, although being used in the 1600s, did not really start to be used until the Scottish historian/philosopher, Thomas Carlyle, translated a German word used in a text by Goethe as environment in 1828.¹

It was to be more than a century before the word began to find parlance in the English language. Beginning in the 1940s the word began to trend upwards in usage. With the rise of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 70s the word began to be used significantly more frequently, reaching a peak in about 1997, and trending back down again since then. Today the word environment is used approximately 95 times in every one million words – roughly the same frequency with which it was used in the mid-1980s.

The common use of, and meaning given to, the word environment remains as “all that surrounds us” and commonly also thought of as the “natural” surroundings, rather than artificial, or constructed surroundings, although this can vary from person to person considerably.

However, not many within the westernised world would consider environment to include human beings. In this way of thinking humans observe the environment, and interact, objectively, with it (in both positive and negative ways.)

Yet, there is no distinction. The environment is not an “it” out there.

Indeed, many indigenous languages have no pre-European contact word that translates as environment. The Haida people of the islands off the tip of the Alaska Panhandle refer to other-than-human creatures as their brothers and sisters. Trees are not simply trees, but tree people.²

This is a distinctly different way of seeing the world. It is one that does not divide me from my surroundings.

Perhaps the most explicit sense of an indigenous understanding of this that I have found is that provided by Jack Forbes. At the end of his book, Columbus and Other Cannibals, he offers a poem/prayer speaking of the Native American understanding that there is no such thing as my environment as distinguished from me. Here is part of the poem/prayer he calls The Universe is Our Holy Book.³

“The Old Ones say

outward is inward to the heart

and inward is outward to the center

Because for us

there are no absolute boundaries

no borders

no environments

no outside

no dualisms

no single body

no non-body.

 

We don’t stop at our eyes

We don’t begin at our skin

We don’t end at our smell

We don’t start at our sounds.

 

I can lose my legs and go on living

I can lose my eyes and go on living

I can lose my ears and go on living

I can lose my hair, my nose, my hands, my arms

and go on living.

 

But if I lose the water

I die

If I lose the air

I die

If I lose the sun

I die

If I lose the plants and animals

I die.

For all of these things

are more a part of me

more essential to my being than that

which I call “my body.”

 

Notes:

1. The German word used by Goethe was Umbegung.

2. Peter Knutson & David Suzuki, Wisdom of the Elders, Allen & Unwin, Toronto, Canada, 1992.

3. Jack Forbes is of Powhatan-Renape, Delaware-Lenape, and non-American background. He is the former chair of Native American Studies at the University of California, and in 1961 founded the Native American Movement. He is the author of several books, including Columbus and Other Cannibals, Seven Stories Press, New York, revised 2008 (originally published in 1978)

Grumpy Old Man Syndrome: 8 Strategies for dealing with him.

Statler and Waldorf
of "The Muppets" fame

I am now part way into the eighth decade of my life (no, that doesn’t mean I am in my 80s – do the calculations!) And being that old I discover that occasionally I can slip into one of the hazards of becoming older - Grumpy Old Man Syndrome.

Obtaining an older age as a male does not, of course, automatically qualify one as a Grumpy Old Man. However, the sobriquet of “grumpy” does, in my observation, fit many old men. I am not immune to it either.

Whether it be something as simple as a loud party going on in the street whilst trying to get to sleep, or (as is often the case for me) an annoyance that humanity continues to destroy this glorious planet, or simply a diminished supply of testosterone, being an older man can stimulate grumpiness.

So, how do we older men deal with Grumpy Old Man Syndrome? I outline 8 strategies that I have discovered that helps to deal with feeling grumpy. If they assist you also, then please try them out.

For anyone of a young age reading this, I might add a further strategy. You might call it a pre-strategy, or Strategy Zero. The strategy that gets put in place before these 8. The pre-strategy is this:

Strategy # 0. Don’t wait until you get to be an older man before learning and implementing these strategies. Some of them take years to learn and make part of your life.

Onto the 8 Strategies for dealing with Grumpy Old Man Syndrome.

Strategy # 1. Name it. When grumpiness arises, don’t try to repel it, just recognise it and name it. “Oh hullo, Mr Grumpy” I say to myself, “there you are again.” Intriguingly, when I do, I feel a smile arrive on my lips and in my eyes. Grumpiness then seems to dissolve.

The great psychologist, Carl Jung, is reputed to have stated that, ‘What we resist, persists, and becomes larger.’ Although no such verbatim quote can be found, some of his writings can easily be condensed to this short phrase. Effectively, trying to repel grumpiness in our mind we only end up in a struggle that does not dispel the grumps, but usually ends up with us becoming more grumpy – because our struggle has been futile.

Name it, greet it, and watch it slowly dissolve.

Strategy # 2. Accept it. Associated with the first strategy, this strategy simply accepts grumpiness as one of the myriads of feelings and emotions that we humans encounter every day.

It has been estimated that there are more than 34,000 unique emotions and that most humans experience around 400 emotions in any one day. Grumpiness is simply one of these.

That’s life.

Strategy # 3. It won’t last. Emotions, like all other phenomena, are impermanent. They do not last. The mantra, ‘This too shall pass’ is a useful one to bring to mind when dealing with grumpiness, or indeed, any other emotion that we find unhelpful or harmful.

When we realise that grumpiness is but an ephemeral emotion, then we allow it the time and space to arise and then to slip away.

Strategy # 4. Grumpiness is not alone. Often grumpiness socialises with other feelings and emotions, such as disappointment, despair, angst, anxiety, guilt, shame, or unhappiness. Grumpiness co-emerged with, and because of, other emotions.

Recognising this interplay of emotions allows us to delve further into what may lie behind, or below, the emotion of grumpiness. In doing so, we may discover that we have an unmet need that one of those other emotions is alerting us to.

If we find an unmet need, then we can devise a plan to either a. meet that need or b. find an alternative if the need cannot be met.

Strategy # 5. Grumpiness may be an indication of grief. Of the 5 “stages” of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, despair, acceptance) grumpiness would seem to be an amalgam of despair and anger.

If the feeling of grumpiness is part of the grief process, then that tells us we have lost something, or someone, that we were very attached to. We are grieving the loss. Grumpiness, at this stage, is an expression of that feeling of loss. Knowing this, we can identify what the loss is. With that knowledge, we are able to work through the grief process.

Strategy # 6. Deep Time. Our life upon this planet is a blip in the deep time of the cosmos. When I consider my lifetime against the time that galaxies, stars, and planets (including this one) have been forming and evolving, then I recognise both my insignificance and, paradoxically, my uniqueness.

Noticing my insignificance, the grumpiness is so fleeting that it become irrelevant.

Noticing my uniqueness, my grumpiness becomes a waste of time.

Strategy # 7. Bring to mind the Serenity Prayer. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr composed the Serenity Prayer in the 1930s. The wording has had different versions over the years, with the following today being the most widely quoted:

‘God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.’

If you are a non-theist, then you may wish to find a substitute for God. No matter who or what the prayer is addressed to, understanding the difference between what we can change and what we cannot has bearing upon our grumpy feelings.

More often than not, I discover that my grumpiness stems from something I have no control over. Discovering that allows me to step back and accept whatever that prompt is and allow my grumpiness to pass.

Strategy # 8. If all else fails, then repeat Strategy # 1.

Nature Disconnect - Next Step?

The four previous blogposts considered the steps that humankind has taken in disconnecting from nature, and the lessons that might be drawn from such hindsight.

One of the suggested lessons was that by critically examining hindsight we can obtain some insight. From that insight, foresight may ensue.

This blog attempts some foresight by asking, what is the next step that humanity is likely to take in disconnecting from nature?

First: some insights that can be obtained from our hindsight. Each step taken to move us away from nature was done so either establishing or bolstering a meme of disconnection.¹ At least six such memes can be identified:

1.     Nature must be controlled, tamed, and conquered.

2.     Westernised thinking is split into dualisms of; mind/body, heaven/earth, inner/outer worlds, and self/environment.

3.     Anthropomorphising nature. In this way, the forces and energies of nature are tainted with human-like spirit, rather than their own (natural) spirit.

4.     Transcendence. The goal of humanity is to transcend nature, either by improving nature, or by ascending beyond nature.

5.     Materialism. Nature is nothing more than a machine.

6.     Human exceptionalism. Humankind is the exception to the rule. Humanity is the perfection of life, either God-given, or as a result of evolution.

So, what could be the next step away from a connection with nature?

It is not so hard to imagine what it is likely to be, as the signs are very clear. Indeed, we have already lifted our foot off the ground to take the next step.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its various manifestations (e.g. robotics, virtual reality, ChatGPT, driverless cars) is well established and gaining momentum at an alarming rate.

We already know how much electricity AI consumes globally. It is enormous! The impact upon fossil fuel use is massive, and predicted to increase significantly.²

What may be less known is the requirement by AI for greater quantities of hardware than other forms of computing. This puts immense pressure on resource use, as well as contributing to the growing e-waste problem.

Those are just two of the impacts of AI upon nature. What of the memes that maintain and propagate our human disconnection from nature? Read through the following quotes and see how many of the half-dozen memes referred to above you can pick:

‘In this future, you will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parents' living room to catch up… We believe the metaverse can enable better social experiences than anything that exists today,…The metaverse is the next frontier in connecting people, just like social networking was when we got started… it symbolizes that there is always more to build, and there is always a next chapter to the story…The future is going to be beyond anything we can imagine.’

Astute readers will no doubt have recognised the reference to metaverse, and hence that these may be quotations from Mark Zuckerberg. Indeed, they are. The quotations come from his “Founders Letter” of 2021.

Mark Zuckerberg reiterated and expanded upon these ideas at the Meta Connect Conference in September 2023. In his keynote address he claimed that, via Meta, ‘(virtual and augmented reality) will be better than we have today.’ And hundreds of bright-eyed techno-optimists in the audience applauded him!

Zuckerberg’s dream (others might label it a nightmare) is still off in the future. However, with the ever exponentially expanding pace of AI it may not be far off.

Zuckerberg is not the only one expounding upon this nightmare. Others too are taking the meme of conquering nature and going a step further to doing away with nature altogether via augmented virtual reality which ‘closely resembles’ nature, but is not nature.

This next step surely is one of the most frightening ones we are likely to take. Critics of AI warn that the dangers in AI are not AI itself, but that AI will exacerbate every other danger that we already face. Think about that. Think of a danger, then multiply it by 10 or 100. Then think of another danger and multiply that also by 10 or 100. Do that with each and every danger. Surely, it is unthinkable. Surely, we should not be thinking of expanding AI in any form.

At some stage, very soon, we must recognise that the steps we have been taking over the past 10,000 – 12,000 years have taken us in an unhelpful and unhealthy direction.

We have to realise the foresight, and find the courage, to walk away from that path.

Notes:

1. Meme is a word coined by Richard Dawkins and is analogous to gene. A meme is an idea, belief, behaviour, or style that spreads through a culture via imitation. Eventually a meme becomes so common that it is assumed by that culture to be normal, or the usual state of being.

2. For example, Microsoft and ExxonMobil have entered a partnership that will increase production from the Permian Basin (in Texas/New Mexico) by as much as 50,000 barrels of oil-equivalent by 2025. https://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/news/exxonmobil-partners-with-microsoft-to-improve-permian-efficiencies/ accessed 4 February 2024

Nature Disconnect – 4 “Simple” Lessons From Hindsight

The last three blogs have considered Nature Disconnect in 7 “Easy” Steps. This blog asks: If we know what the steps have been, then are there any lessons to be learnt from hindsight?

Oscar Wilde once aid, in his typically acerbic manner, ‘Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterwards.’ The same could be said of hindsight. In this case, are there lessons to be learnt?

Yes, there are.

1.     We mess with nature at our peril.

The Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution were all supposed to “improve” the world towards human benefit. Most of these “improvements” involved disrupting, tinkering with, or obliterating nature.

Yet, this desire to “improve” things has often led to damage to our own health and the health of the planet. The Covid virus is a good example of this, as had been the many plagues and viruses over previous centuries.

The Industrial Revolution initiated our love affair with energy available from fossil fuels. Nowadays we are witnessing increasing global temperatures, more severe heatwaves, flooding, and hurricane devastation. These have resulted in crop failures, massive infrastructure damage, and loss of life, both human and non-human.¹

2.     Learning to Apply Foresight.

Hindsight, if considered conscientiously and consciously, can provide insight. And insight, in turn, can lead us towards foresight. We cannot just assume that hindsight will automatically imbue us with insight We have to work at it. Hindsight is much like the learning available in experience.

The prominent community educator, Myles Horton, had this to say about experience:

“You know, people say that we learn from our experiences.  I say that we don’t.  We only learn from the experiences we learn from.”

The learning must be consciously taken in and applied. It is the same with hindsight. Once that lesson is learnt, then insight and then foresight can be obtained.

3.     We Are Not Exceptional.

One of the myths that we have taken onboard is the myth of human exceptionalism. Whether this came from religious notions of dominion over the animals, or from early ideas of evolution as humankind being at the apex of the tree of life, human exceptionalism is a dangerous belief.

Setting aside our notions of superiority and exceptionalism would be a powerful lesson to learn from hindsight.

4.     Sapient Teachings

As noted in the series Nature Disconnect in 7 “Easy” Steps many of the steps along the way were taken because they seemed like a good idea at the time.

We innovate and invent with little regard for the future consequences. An oft-quoted saying is, ‘He or she who says it cannot be done should get out of the way of the person who is doing it.’² It is a quote that bears interrogation.

That something can be done is no justification for doing it. Wisdom comes in deciding not to proceed with something, because the (often unintended) consequences can be harmful. In scientific circles this is known as the Precautionary Principle.

Hindsight could provide us Homo sapiens with some sapience. Such sapience (wisdom) implies that we ask not; can we? or how do we? but, rather, should we?

In each of the steps along the path of Nature Disconnect there were those asking; Should we do this? Even during the early years of the Agricultural Revolution the question seems to have been asked.³ However, eventually, those taking a precautionary approach were drowned out by the voices of opportunity, ignored, and then ceased to ask the questions.

Today too, there are those asking; Should we do this? And, just as in previous centuries and millennia, the voices of progress at all costs drown them out. Now, as then, these questioners are being ignored.

Yet, if we are to learn one of the lessons from hindsight, it would be that those questioning the opportunism of innovators and inventors just may have some very pertinent questions to ask.

Undoubtedly there are other lessons that could be drawn from the hindsight available to us when we map out the steps of our journey of disconnection from nature.

Notes:

1. In late 2019 and early 2020 massive, and extensive bushfires raged through many parts of Australia causing millions of dollars worth of damage with 33 people dying. The loss of life for non-humans was almost unbelievable, with an estimated 2 billion (yes, billion, not million) animals being killed in those fires.

2. This quote is often attributed to Confucius, yet there is no evidence that he ever made such a statement. Indeed, it is a statement that Confucius, in his wisdom, is likely to have disputed.

3. One example of this occurring is that of the builders of Stonehenge. Having initially taken up the farming practices of continental Europe, it seems that from around 3,300 BCE, they gave up the cultivation of cereals and returned to hazelnut gathering as a staple food source. See: Graeber & Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything, Penguin Books, UK, 2021, pp 105-106. 

Nature Disconnect in 7 "Easy" Steps - Part 3

Ernst Heackel's 1879 "Tree of Life"
with Man (sic) at the apex 

Part 3 of "Nature Disconnect in 7 'Easy' Steps looks at the most recent steps taken in our disconnection from nature.

Step 6. The Reformation

If any vestiges of links between nature, the earth, and religion still existed by 1500 CE, then the Reformation went some way towards clearing them away. Although primarily the Reformation was a period of upheaval within European churches, and a splitting of the Catholic and Protestant faiths, what emerged by the end of the period was the separation of church and state.

The affairs of the spirit became entirely the realm of religion, and the affairs of everyday activity that of the state and secularism.

Over the course of two or three centuries secularism itself split into a number of variations, including atheism, political secularism, secular philosophy, humanism, naturalism, and materialism.

One outcome of secularism was that, in intellectual circles at least, the universe came to be viewed in a materialistic manner. Notions of the soul and any thought of an animated (or spirited) world were negated.

This materialist view of the world took us one further step away from nature. Furthermore, it paved the way for an even greater step to be taken with the Scientific Revolution.

Step 7. The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions

Although the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions could be considered as two separate steps, I am presenting them here as a single step as the Industrial Revolution in many ways was the applied form of scientific theories developed during the Scientific Revolution.

To say that this was a step is also rather prosaic. Stride might be the better term, as that word tends to imply something of greater purpose, length and/or significance.

The Scientific Revolution served to firmly infuse three long-lasting metaphors within human consciousness: 1. Nature as a machine, 2. Nature to be tamed and conquered, and 3. Homo sapiens exceptionalism.

In 1605 the German astronomer and mathematician, Johannes Kepler, wrote to a friend stating that his aim was to show that the ‘celestial machine (can be) likened to clockwork.’¹ The implication is obvious. There is no life, no animation, no essence, in a machine that runs like clockwork. Robert Boyle, the Irish chemist and physicist, took up this refrain later that century stating that, ‘The world is like a rare clock.’

By characterising nature as a machine, the early pioneers of the Scientific Revolution stripped away any mystery, wonder and vitality from nature. The door was opened to enable people to tinker (as might a clockmaker) with nature.

Moreso, the machine characterisation led inevitably to the second metaphor – that nature was to be tamed and conquered. For, if nature was nothing but a machine, then any relic of a wildness trait had to be purged.

For at least one of the major scientists of the time, Francis Bacon, the imagery was violent and contained disturbing sexual innuendo. Bacon genderised nature as female, but not in the wholesome manner of earlier personifications. The scientific method for him was to discover ‘the secrets still locked in (her) bosom… (so that) she can be forced out of her natural state and squeezed and molded.’

Bacon was vehement in his desire to conquer nature. He exhorted his fellow scientists, and indeed humanity generally, to ‘storm and occupy her castles and strongholds and extend the bounds of the human empire.’

The third metaphor – human exceptionalism – is not a metaphor that has its origins in the Scientific Revolution; however, it does find a novel expression in the scientific method.

Human exceptionalism – the notion that humans are different from, and superior to, all other life forms – can be found in early scriptural writings and monotheism. What science offered the notion of human exceptionalism came as a result of discoveries in evolution. The Theory of Evolution arose not during the classic period of the Scientific Revolution (the 16^th and 17^th centuries CE) but during the 19^th century CE. It did however, owe its instigation to the scientific method developed during the Scientific Revolution. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (published in 1859) was promoted by the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel as the tree of life in his 1879 publication The Evolution of Man (see graphic above.) Haeckel’s depiction of evolution as a tree placed humankind at the apex of the tree, suggesting that humanity was the inevitable and only possible outcome for evolution. This depiction still has favour today, with humanity’s superiority being at least tacitly assumed.

Thus, although the Theory of Evolution dislodged creationism as the process by which life on Earth has been formed, it did not (until very recently) dislocate humanity from the place of primacy in the scheme of things.

Although we do not go about our daily lives thinking of the world as a machine, or that we must conquer nature, and assert our place of superiority, these three metaphors continue to influence our behaviour and beliefs at a subconscious level, both individually and collectively. Furthermore, the three metaphors are still actively promoted in popular science.

As recently as 1986 Richard Dawkins, one of the world’s foremost popularisers of the scientific method and the discoveries of science, titled one of his books The Blind Watchmaker. Although Dawkins’ purpose was to espouse evolution rather than intelligent design, he still retained, and promoted the metaphor that nature is nothing more than a mechanical interaction of moving parts.  

Our fascination with technology (the child of science) since the Industrial Revolution has further entrenched the metaphor of nature to be tamed and conquered. When combined with human exceptionalism, technology has been the tool by which humanity has sought to improve the world. This arrogant desire to improve upon nature can be seen most clearly in responses to climate change. Technology will save us is a familiar, if not explicitly stated, refrain. Technological solutions (e.g. geo-engineering, electric vehicles, space shields, colonising Mars, wind and solar farms) are simply the latest examples of the three metaphors at work.

The 7 “Easy” steps outlined here have taken us, collectively, a long way from our natural connection with nature. Will our next steps remove us further, or is there a chance that we may begin to retrace our steps?

If you have read through all three parts of Nature Disconnect in 7 ‘Easy’ Steps then you will appreciate a few corollaries that must be stated as a result.

Corollary 1. Each step did not have a clear and defining beginning. Furthermore, each step is ongoing. The Agricultural Revolution has not ended, nor have the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions.

Corollary 2. There are other events and times that could also be considered as steps. One significant one, that I have not addressed here, is the impact of colonisation with its decimation of indigenous and nature-based peoples and the consequent dismissal of indigenous worldviews more attuned with nature.

Corollary 3. Although it is possible to outline these steps and their impact, casting blame and criticism upon those who undertook these steps is pointless and self-righteous. Our responsibility today is to learn from hindsight. The lessons from this hindsight will be addressed in a future blog.

Corollary 4. Associated with Corollary 3 is the recognition that each step along the way was most likely seen as a good idea at the time. Most likely, those who initiated each step probably thought they were bringing benefit to humanity.

Notes:

1. Many of the quotations in this section are found in: Jeremy Lent, The Patterning Instinct, Prometheus Books, Lanham, Maryland, 2017

Nature Disconnect in 7 "Easy" Steps (Part 2)

Yahweh

Last week's blog considered the first (of 7) steps in how we became disconnected from nature. This week presents the next 3 steps.

Step 3. Greek Duality,

Around 2,500 years ago, and concentrated very much in Greece and surrounding areas, a number of philosophers made important contributions to western philosophy. A key element in the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, and dozens of others, was the idea of duality. Plato it was who synthesized much of Greek thought into the dualism of body and soul.

Plato’s dualism however, was not value-free. Plato prized and privileged the soul over the body. He envisaged the soul as being trapped in the prison of the body. In one of his Dialogues Plato writes that, ‘we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself.’ The body, and by inference, all nature, was to Plato of little worth in this dualistic conception.

Plato’s student, Aristotle, was forthright in his conclusion that, ‘it must be that nature has made all things for the sake of man (sic).’

The Greek philosophers took us another step away from nature, and their dualistic thought quickly transformed spiritual ideas and concepts.

Step 4. Patriarchy, and Sky-gods

Greek dualistic thinking was being developed during roughly the same time period as the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) was being written. The influence of dualistic thinking on the writers of those texts should not be underestimated. Along with the undeniable fact that close to 100% of writing at this time (in both Greece and the Middle East) was undertaken by men, there was little impeding the step away from Earth-based gods and goddesses, towards sky-gods who were predominantly male in concept.

In doing so, the Earth and nature-based goddesses (primarily) were being systematically debased, disregarded, and discounted. None moreso perhaps, than Gaia (the personification of Earth in Greek mythology) driven out of human beliefs by the arrival of the sky-gods and later monotheism. More latterly though, Gaia has made somewhat of a rebirth via the Gaia hypothesis co-formulated by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s.¹

Not only were goddesses being banished, but, centuries later, so too were those who remained loyal to the natural rhythms of the world and the female spirits that dwelt in nature. From the middle of the 15^th century through to the middle of the 17^th century, in Europe, it is estimated that up to 60,000 witches (predominantly women) were burnt, hung, or drowned because of their holding to the cycles of nature and the reciprocity in that relationship. 

Patriarchal thinking along with the dualism of body/soul (or body/mind) took the cultures of Europe and south-west Asia another step away from connection with nature.

Step 5. Monotheism and Transcendence

For many thousands of years the peoples living in Mesopotamia, the Levant, SW Asia, Egypt, and the eastern Mediterranean had been worshipping a number of gods and goddesses. The emergence of male-dominated sky-gods (referenced in the previous section) foreshadowed the appearance, in the first millennium BCE of monotheism.

The single God of the Bible appears to have been the joining together of two gods: Yahweh, a warrior god of the Levant, and El, the father of all other gods in Canaanite pantheons. From beginnings as pantheism, religion in this part of the world moved through polytheism, to monolatry (the practice of worshipping one god, but recognising that others exist) to an out-and-out monotheism and rejection of all other theologies. The prophet Isiah, for example, writes, ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other: There is no God beside me.’

This creed – that there is one and only one god – seems to have emerged only in this part of the world. The Biblical scholar, j. Snodgrass, a little sardonically, remarks that, ‘In three million years of humanity on earth, the idea that a father-god did it all himself popped up in (just) one spot three thousand years ago.’²

However, it wasn’t simply monotheism that took us a further step away from nature. It was the notion of transcendence that came with it, leading towards the idea that paradise was no longer here on earth, but was located in Heaven and the after-life.

(An aside: There is a scene in the doco-film Living In The Time Of Dying³ in which the Native American elder and author, Stan Rushworth, is being interviewed by the film’s host, who is of European heritage. In answer to a question, Stan wryly declares, ‘We are born into Paradise, you guys were kicked out.’ It is a poignant comment on the difference between the worldview of many indigenous and nature-based peoples and that of the dominant culture that arose in Europe and SW Asia.)

The denial of Paradise on Earth was a further step dislocating us from nature and intensified Plato’s distaste for the body.

Although those living during the first millenium BCE and the first millenium CE probably did not consider monotheism as having a significant impact upon how we related to the earth, the magnitude of the step can be clearly seen from our present-day privilege of hindsight.

Next weeks blog will consider the last two steps leading us away from a connection with nature: The Reformation and the Scientific Revolution.

Notes:

1. The Gaia hypothesis proposes that the Earth is a living, single, self-regulating, synergistic, complex system.

2. j. Snodgrass, Genesis And The Rise Of Civilization, USA, 2014.

3. Available for viewing at https://www.livinginthetimeofdying.com/  See also, my review of the film here.