Once upon a time, about 300 years ago, there was a wealthy British aristocrat who planned to be a politician, but then he got sick, then got married, then began working on his father’s farm. He grew impatient with the inefficiency of the traditional farming practices and somewhere along the way invented a seed-planting drilling device that made it possible to get seeds in the soil much faster and in tidy, straight lines. Jethro Tull’s seed drill is one of the major breakthroughs credited for the Agricultural Revolution. The resulting massive advancement in food production is one of the developments credited with enabling Great Britain to birth the Industrial Revolution.
It must have been a heady time to be alive in Europe. Human creativity was popping hard and fast, with seeming miraculous developments occurring with mind-boggling rapidity. Britain had vast coal supplies that were relatively close to the surface and soon the newly-invented steam-engine was powering trains, ships, and all sorts of other machinery.
Other places in the world might not have been so gung-ho about Britain’s industrial advances. When the Industrial Revolution began, European nations were in the Age of Imperialism, exploring, seizing, and dominating vast stretches of land and sea across the globe. Britain was the largest colonizer of all and had gained access to the lands, and natural resources, of North America, South Africa, India, Egypt, and Australia. Under Britain’s Capitalistic ideology seizing the homelands of other people was just an aspect of progress, as was promoting expansion of private property (owned mostly by the wealthy), wealth creation through ownership of factories and mines, and child labor to keep those privately-owned facilities churning.
The story of the day was a story that might made right, the wealthy were entitled to exploit the less so, and both people and the planet, were primarily, resources to be harnessed. At the time, the predominant religion in Britain was Christianity and it is interesting to consider how much this culture of exploitation was influenced by the creation story found in Genesis Chapter 1, verses 26 – 28. It reads like this:
26 Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27 So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
In the Christian tradition of my youth, this Bible passage was used to justify terrible treatment of animals and Earth. It was used to justify keeping food animals in horrific conditions, keeping dogs chained alone outside to guard our stuff. The Anthropocentric concept that humans have a God-given right to dominate everything else has been used for millennia to justify tearing up this planet and wiping out species in pursuit of human activities and economic growth. Such Anthropocentric arrogance roots in a story of humankind being separate from and higher than the rest of nature.
Now, back in the day, Jethro Tull and his industrious homeboys couldn’t possibly have known that industrialization would grow to such a scale, that the technologies of extraction would become so massive they would imperil vast ecosystems and destabilize Earth’s climate.* Now however, we do know, and in order to successfully navigate through the mess we are in, we need a new story. Consider this quote from cultural historian and author, Wendell Berry:
“It’s a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we in-between stories. The Old Story – the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it – sustained us for a long time. It shaped our emotional attitudes, provided us with life purpose, energized action, consecrated suffering, integrated knowledge, and guided education. We could answer the questions of our children. But now it is no longer functioning properly, and we have not yet learned the New Story.”
I would change this just a bit to say we have not yet created the new story. That said, many, many people are busy doing pieces of it right now. As I show in the talk I recently delivered for Earth Day at Unity of Portland, Oregon, the movement to bring humanity into a healthier relationship with the rest of Nature is the largest social movement in the history of human history. It is a revolution of awareness that we are not apart from but a part of the glorious mosaic of creation.*
When Buddhist teacher Tich Nhat Hanh was asked what can we do to help the planet heal, he replied that what we need is to open our hearts to be able to hear the sound of the Earth crying, and allow ourselves to feel the grief of what we have lost and weep with her. Because if we can allow ourselves to feel that pain, we will be able to act authentically from our hearts, and be able to communicate a new story.
It’s time for a new story, a true story. What’s needed now, is a passionate, no hold barred story about our ability to change our own personal habits, our governments, our priorities and our dominant cultural worldview so that we successfully protect and restore this magnificent blue green mother and all the myriad life she supports.
Rethinking humanity’s relationship with the rest of Nature is not something that governments are going to do for us. This is something we all have a spiritual and moral responsibility to think about and act on. Here are a few recommended action items:
· Decolonize our minds. We need fewer of us who identify as “consumers” and more who realize we are “citizens of Earth.”
· Live from a space of ENOUGH – enough stuff, enough noise, enough of the current paradigm.
· Question the paradigm. Question assumptions. Have uncomfortable conversations. We are all stuck in this fundamentally unhealthy set of systems but that doesn’t mean we should just accept this normal. A new world and a new way is already being birthed and In the field of possibility there is an opening for a full-scale evolution in how we relate to our fellow species and Mother Earth.
· Finally, BE Love. Defend, protect and restore everywhere you can. Save a bug. Hug a tree. Feel it hugging you back.
The root of the word human is “humus”, meaning of the Earth or ground. We, as humans, are a part of, not apart from, all the rest of the glorious Creation expressing as and upon this Mother Earth. We are such lucky beings having a human experience on a planet of infinite, breathtaking, soul-feeding beauty, diversity, abundance.
Every single day, on a planet called Earth, is, literally, Earth Day. May you celebrate, revere, protect, and enjoy her and Oneness to the fullest.
Much love,
Cylvia
NOTES
* – Please note, I poke a little fun at the Southern Baptist version of Christianity in this talk – it’s just a bit of fun!
* * -- Early industrialists couldn’t have seen the damage that would follow industrialization, but they must surely have seen the damage being done to child workers, indigenous peoples, those held as slave (an aspect of the history of laissez-faire Capitalism that is a topic for another day).
Very well said Cynthia . Given that biodiversity day is approaching I think that your post is very relevant and with your consent I would like to quote a statement from your earth day speech in Oregon to the wider audiences in EU .
Best wishes
Africa GZanella