We live within a living system. Our Earth is alive. We are inside a Life-process that's bigger than us.
Direct perception of nature through our senses, through our bodies working the land, through our food creates a deep, strange flow of information and knowledge directly from Earth. When we press against the glass through gardening, we peer into a world that surrounds us, but that we don't see. They say fish don't see the the water they're in. Humans don't see the living system we live within. But we are in something! We are part of, immeshed in, inside the terrarium of life on Earth.
Paul Hawkin gave a beautiful commencement address to the University of Portland that was on Commondreams.org.
He said 'All the living systems of the planet are in decline and the rate of decline is increasing. and there is no peer-reviewed article in 30 years that would contradict this fact.' i have been chewing this over, this bitter truth, this reality that's perhaps to grim and big to stuff into the soundbite consensus reality.
All the living systems are declining.
Why is there so little discussion of the actual state of the Earth? The house is on fire and we seem hypnotized in our beds, in the 'cultural trance' that the Pachamama Alliance talked about.
Humanity must drop the adolescent renter mentality to the delicate bio-fabric of Creation that birthed our species. Corporate chemists dump pollution into the bio-soup of LIfe. Next thing, our elders have Alzehimer's and Parkinson's because the delicate chemistry of the brain gets all screwy. Opps. Probably shouldn't have operated an entire civilization using a harsh slash-and-burn chemistry. Instead, we want a green chemistry.
Recently I read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. It was so good and useful. The main point is that industrial chemicals don't stop at the borders between things. Pesticides to leaf to seed to babyfood to baby brain to Alzehimers. Our society has yet to act upon Carson's insight. I recommend "A Sense of Wonder", the play about Rachel Carson's life, and the interview with Bill Moyers by the actress Kaulani Lee. Rachel Carson was a great American heroine and her message is essential if humanity is to make into the livable, fun, non-sucko future.
