Coming Home, From Ecocide to Love, and the Role of Community
By Mary Cunningham, Tracton Community
If there is one fundamental truth that has become clear in the last 12 months it is that we are all connected. We are one of 13m species. True, the connections aren’t always obvious, but which bolts in an aeroplane would you be happy to fly without? Don’t you prefer to have them all for strength, security, resilience?
The science and the warnings on unprecedented loss, degradation, ecocide is readily available to us – Just launched in Jan ’21, a stark UN Adaptation Gap Report (2020) warning “Biodiversity loss and climate change coupled with inaction ‘threatens survival of all species’” It warns of the threats to all species if governments fail to take measures to adapt. It emphasizes the critical importance of nature-based solutions addressing human well-being and biodiversity by protecting and restoring ecosystems. Inadequate plans, implementation measures and huge funding gaps remain, made all the worse by the current pandemic as adaptation is pushed further down the political agenda across the world and the spectre of a broken planet left for the next generation.
So many other major reports exist; IPCC (Oct18), UN IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (May’19), and more recently the UN Global Biodiversity Outlook Report (Sept ’20), which references the current pandemic and the degradation of ecosystems which are profoundly affecting human health and survival; the current global response is insufficient, targets for sustainable development goals missed; all of them speak to the worsening and the urgency of our situation.
But where is the large-scale waking up, the political will? The model of ‘business as usual’ means we are passing on an impoverished world to our children. Each year 1,000s of plant and animal species disappear, up to 10,000 times the natural rate. It is expected that up to 50% of all species will disappear in the next 20 years. They will be gone forever and no longer able to convey their message to us.
Science verifies that our bodies and brains respond well to exposure to the natural world, where we are reminded of our inter-connectedness and our place as a species in the web of life and the natural order of things. It is a relationship that is essential to console, restore and heal us. According to John Moriarity (poet, philosopher, author), when we deepen in this practice of immersing ourselves in nature - he recommends venturing into wild spaces without fences - it brings the fences that are in our minds down, it keeps the wildness in us alive. The sacred power of nature lifts our spirits. It evokes new ways of seeing and being in the world, a return to perceiving the world as if for the first time. How immense the possibilities if we could give this gift of experience and gratitude to ourselves. He speaks about gradually surrendering to the magnetic pull of the ‘pagan’ wilderness – forest, mountain, bog, river– as ‘powerful medicine’ for the soul. We need to stand in a new way on the earth, side by side with the animals and the plants.
George Monbiot (Guardian Aug’17) asks could we better defend the natural world if we used different language to describe it. In the silence, awe and wonder of our observation of the living planet he asks how have we failed as a society to capture, treasure and act on that experience? The language used by ecologists, scientists, media etc has become the language we are accustomed to now. This language estranges us from the plants and animals, describing them as if they belong to us and are there to serve us; such as ecosystem services, natural capital, fish stocks, improved pasture etc. These words are rooted in the exploitation and domination of our earth for economic gain and disguise our assault on life, on beauty and on all forms of life.
Words encode our world view, our beliefs and values. With their use and repetition we can teach ourselves and our children a particular world view. For example, equating the loss of soil with how much it costs in money gives impression that we can ‘fix’ it with money when, in reality the continuation of such loss means the end of civilisation. He suggests we use the word ecocide instead of extinction, currently used to describe our obliteration of a species, as if all obliteration was a natural process of change. He suggests we recruit poets and nature- lovers to find the words for what we cherish.
Another call to free the imagination and generate creative thinking about what future we can build, comes from Peadar Kirby (professor, author, activist, Cloughjordan Eco Village) ‘If we do not do the impossible we will be faced with the unthinkable.’ To transition safely we need an ethic of belonging to the natural world and to one another.
He entreats that we fundamentally and radically need to change direction. We need to challenge and move people out of their comfort zones and create a seemingly impossible revolution in our society between now and 2050. Like Monbiot, he says that because of the language that is used to describe the situation, the penny doesn’t drop that it’s our livelihood and wellbeing, homes and towns that are on the edge of the precipice, while we are witnessing (on our screens) how our destruction of the planet is mostly affecting the lives of people who are living within their ecological footprint. ‘While climate change and biodiversity loss are showing the extent of the destruction of nature, and the obscene inequality and erosion of social protections the extent of the social crisis, the coronavirus has finally exposed the whole devastating system directed by a self-governing market and its rapacious demands’, undermining society and ecosystems.
As an educator he asks that we be bold and radical in questioning and learning together. What is this new planet we are on now? This ecological Armageddon of undermined ecosystems and societies is the new climate for education and should dominate our concern. He sees few superficial signs of greening in this model. Within our educational system are we fostering a conformity and stifling of the imagination to a (techno-economic) value system which serves the needs of global corporations – unlimited progress, competition, extreme individualism, unregulated market, consumerism? Are we keeping the show on the road for the 1% of the world’s population, worsening the quality of life for everyone else? Where and how do we offer the skills for a turbulent future, for community resilience, for resistance to this current assault.
‘How can we sow the seeds of new values and practices, new energies, and imagine a new future. This is the question for our communities.
In order to journey together out of the mess and go back to fundamental values to restore the levels of ecological harmony, Kirby draws on the encyclical of Pope Francis for answers; to establish harmony within ourselves, with others, with nature and other living creatures and with God.
From a concern and care for ‘our common home’ Pope Francis (encyclical, Laudato Si 2015) speaks of the divine nature that is in everything, from panoramic vistas to the tiniest living form. A nature that unites all. He urges us to become aware and to turn to the suffering of the planet and make it personal. ‘We have to realise that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’.
The pandemic has certainly destroyed the myth of the self-sufficient individual. Do we question our role in silently acquiescing to the illness and poverty of disadvantaged and controlled populations and ethnic groups? Are we saying we’re ok with communities in China not having access to clean air and blue skies or have migrant workers in Spain treated with indignity and appalling living conditions so long as we have more cheap stuff? ‘It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.’Mother Teresa
In his paper Deep Adaptation(2017), Jem Bendell (Social Scientist, Professor of Sustainable Leadership) says that if we listen to the science we will see that there’s no hiding place now. Our house is on fire and this is not the time to look for the instruction manual on how to put it out. Every day we are tearing at the web that supports our life. In response, a forcible loosening of ‘industrialism’s death grip’ is required. People must come together to undermine a system that demands we participate in environmental degradation and is ultimately suicidal.
He calls and questions us to be resilient and creative in readying our response to the inevitable collapse. We must come together, to relinquish together by reflecting and asking ourselves; what do we value that we want to keep? What do we need to let go of so as to not make matter worse? He affirms that we have the capacities to answer these questions and make meaning together.
As a community we need discuss and put in place the structures to create skill full communication- finding common ground so we can find the place to start the conversations and give voice to what we yearn for. Commitment to make change happen comes from our deepest yearning. What values and ways of relating will support us as we face the task of saving habitats and species and building resilient communities? Can we stay engaged, kind, curious, creative without attachment to any outcome? He suggests a model of Relational Leadership to create positive and empowering relationships within our communities so we can collectively work together in service to the whole and the future of all living beings.
Life-long activist, eco-philosopher, professor, author and Buddhist scholar, Joanna Macy (workthatreconnects.org) shares with Bendell the importance of hope (Active Hope), resilience and particularly truth; “The most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully present to what is happening in the world.” She calls us to participate, to be alive and to serve and heal the world. In so doing we are healing ourselves. ‘In experiencing our inter-existence we can know that we are larger, stronger, deeper and more creative than we have been brought up to believe.’ We can accept as a privilege the taking part in the healing.
Her workshops help to build personal and community resilience. We need to open to the trauma in the web of life ‘that called us into being’, in all its wonder, beauty and suffering. To learn together and take actions of service, ‘ is how we release our gifts and awake to our true nature’.
But who wants to be uncomfortable? Yet ‘the anguish, grief and rage is a measure of our humanity and interconnectedness’. In turning away from the pain for the world and other beings, the more numb we become, the more impoverished our lives. And in expending our energy pushing down despair, distracting ourselves, we lose access to our imagination and our capacity for creative solutions.
‘As we work to heal the Earth, the Earth heals us. As we care enough to take risks, we loosen the grip of ego and begin to come home to our true nature.’
Expressing differently the concept of life being in service to life – seeing everything in and on the earth as gifts to us - Charles Eisenstein (author Sacred Economics), speaking on the nature of our predicament holds the view of the planet as alive, its organs being the soil, wetlands, forests, elephants, whales, insects, every ecosystem and species. Life creates the conditions for life to thrive. When we destroy and degrade the forests, topsoil, wetlands etc we are destroying the basis of life and if we keep doing that the planet will die of organ failure. Even if we cut emissions overnight, the planet is on the way to organ failure unless we protect, heal and restore the damaged organs. Miracles of healing are possible. Can we align ourselves with the healing forces of nature, a sacred being in and of itself?
In asking why we are so engaged in self-destruction, he focuses on the story of separation - of separate individuals, good vs evil, human vs nature - that we have been living and using to legitimise our actions on the planet. Another important question for him is the origin of this separation, asking where does our ecocidal civilisation draw the energy from to keep it going? Why are we destroying life on earth? Why are we focussed on GDP and money? Why do people over-consume? Are there deep unmet needs built into our society that we seek to fulfil through over-consumption and domination?
So, he asks; How are we to move to a place of reverence and wonder for being alive and to a desire to serve life? Only possible by connecting people with experiences of beauty and loss, opening the doorway back to love. We have endured a trauma living in that story of separation and therefore anything we do that dissolves that story meets our needs for community, belonging, connection, meaning, intimacy. And will surely have the consequence, he hopes, of recasting our political vision and softening the craving for ‘stuff’.
He asks that we show up with an open heart towards all life even if we don’t know the answer to how or will it work?
There is emerging now (from artists, spiritual traditions, social scientists, personal experiences and reflections) an imperative to connect people with love for the earth. To act from that love with an attitude of service. To be able to live without knowing the answers but with the knowing that this is good and needs to be done.
Hieroglyphic Stairway by Drew Dellinger
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?