Our way back home
8.1 October 2017
“Modernity [has] failed: it has become a threat to the survival of life on our planet. Consumption…the insatiable hunger of modernity is built-in: no amount of re-shuffling the deck…can change this. But…there is also…a different sort of hunger – a yearning for spiritual depth and renewal. Our sense of an overwhelming loss of wholeness, meaning and authenticity drives a new impulse.”
“The crisis of modernity…is a failure of vision in which our disembodied life-world has lost its “place” in existence. We no longer see ourselves within the webs and cycles of nature. The loss of a direct relationship to the world terminates a once universal human understanding of our oneness with the natural world…[an] intimacy with the world as the immanent basis of spirituality.”
“This understanding is an essential and irreplaceable foundation of human health and meaningfulness. Only if these ties are re-established can spirituality that matters return.”
“Modernity takes us ever further from home…and denies any homecoming. [A] new spiritual dimension…could lead us back. What bars our way is our failure to put an end to reigning institutions and illusions. We must allow ourselves to see what has happened to us…the origins of this disaster…[and] that it is not impossible to bring disaster to a halt – to imagine and strike out in new directions – by embracing spirit in its earth-based reality…to make our way to what still awaits all around us – to find our way back home.” 1
Going home
8.2 November 2017
“The notion of an organic, living, and spiritual universe was replaced by that of the world as a machine.” 3
Influenced by this theory scientists began to view all biological organisms as inanimate – products of blind chance and the mechanisms of evolution. Such mechanistic habits of thought underlie the structures of our society and influence not only scientists but also economists, businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians. It is a worldview that believes that no animal or plant has a life, or purpose, or value of its own – that all exist only to be exploited in the name of progress and profit. Today – mankind has forgotten that nature is alive.
“The mechanistic theory of nature…has led to our present crisis” 4
Economic growth and progress are the drivers of the Industrial Age and tragically under this regime we have become alienated from the Earth. The result has been the desecration of this “wonderful world.”5 Civilisation is killing the planet – we are killing the planet.
“There is no time to be lost…because man has now acquired the power of…destroying all life on this planet.” 6
The priority for humanity should not be yet more powerful weapons or computers. All our hi-tech gadgets do not enrich us – they serve only to take us further from the natural world that was once our home. No – our urgent task is to rebuild our relationship with the Earth. Thankfully, many of us still experience a strong empathy with our pets or sit enraptured by animals in wildlife documentaries. It’s this private emotional engagement that could hopefully provide the starting point of a spiritual movement “back to the Earth.”7
“We need to love and respect the Earth” 8
Rather than preserving an artificial separateness we need to remember our interconnectedness and recognise that “man is an integral part of nature.”6
Our remote ancestors perceived this reality and had no difficulty in feeling communion with the Earth. We need to learn once again listen to her wisdom because she “communicates the most sacred of mysteries.”9 We need to rediscover our ancestral intimacy with the Earth – remember that we are simply “naked apes”2 and live once again within “the community of living things.”8
“Turning from the world’s present state and direction…look for guidance [from] the spirituality within Nature.” 10
“Matter is the tangible exterior of things, and spirit the non-visible interior.” 11
“Return to a sense of kinship with all beings.” 14
“The time has come when we will listen or we will die.” 9
In our myopic dedication to materialism the Earth has been “depreciated…exploited and abused.”11 Mankind has degraded and polluted the land, air and water. Now our hubris threatens to bring doom upon ourselves and all life. Any hope of salvation lies in changing the perceptual foundations of civilization – that you and I change.
“The time has come to lower our voices and cease imposing our mechanistic patterns on the biological processes of the Earth…and begin quite humbly to follow the guidance of the larger community on which all life depends.” 9
The time has come to change from the mechanistic to an ecological paradigm. For too long we have been enamoured with the industrial world and now, after a long absence, we need to “find our way back home.” 10
