Animists like me believe the world is alive. It goes beyond an intellectual idea, but it’s more than just a feeling, too; many traditions from around the world recognise the possibility that consciousness flows through the universe, that intelligence is a property of the physical world. It shows in the way animals are born to move, knowing what to look for in their environment and where to go from birth, even across the planet sometimes, then back to breeding grounds regardless of the ebbs and flows of their life and without maps or signs. At its most primal, the intelligence of life is expressed in the way that plant life lifts out of soil and trust its face towards the sun, even that way tides shift in accord with lunar movements.
Taken to its logical conclusion – even though some people, trapped in ‘the iron cage of reason,’ as German sociologist Max Weber, called it, think that logic has nothing to do with it – this means that the planet is alive. This is what most traditional societies understood, native Australian populations included. More scientists now claim that “The Earth is Just As Alive As You Are”, following the controversial Gaia Hypothesis made famous by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. The sticking point was always sentience; does the Earth want to give birth to and sustain life, or does it just happen by coincidence? As Climate Scientist Professor Will Steffen explained to me during the filming of Nature Calling pilot episode, it’s not necessary to be so concerned about this that we either embrace or dismiss Gaia: we live on one earth system, where everything is connected and everything matters.
This is a neat piece of writing by Ferris Jabr, of the New York Times.
Here’s a song that accepts this perspective and dances its truth, out in the open, with intuition and the poetry of the earth built in. As Will has long said, we need the humanities and the social sciences, including psychologists and media analysts, to change human behaviour in accord with the requirements made of us by runaway, anthropogenic climate change. Songs of the Earth are part of this response; inspiring tunes that make us think in new ways or align with our wishes for a safe and flourishing planetary home. Planetary Rumpus, by my band Severins, brings animism alive in a modern sense; it is informed by scientific thinking sparked with Nietzsche’s idea of Dionysian frenzy, asking us to drop into that realm with all of our senses intact – and the recognition that we need a new compass for these wild and changing times.
Planetary Rumpus expresses the instinctual drive within, our genetic coding, which we feel surging through our bodies and veins like a double helix rising out of the primordial soup towards the heavens. It asks us to feel the sun on our skins at dawn as if we are being awoken to a brand new day, as if sunrise were a ritual of rebirth and another chance at realising the great fortune of our lives, as consciously self-aware primates on a living planet … this is the archetypal music of the cosmic serpent in our double helix DNA body/minds, right now. Turn it up and let rip.
Right now, for those of us who are informed about the state of our beautiful planet, is a time for mixed emotions: anger, sadness, grief and rage all seem logical responses to the environmental devastation being wreaked upon our beloved home in the name of obscene profits.
I feel all of this, on high rotation, on an almost daily basis. But, while i let myself be tossed upon waves of hopelessness and loss in the name of authenticity, i also always remember that we have to keep coming back to love: love of self, love for others and especially love for the earth. And there is one other thing that is so deeply coded into our biological and cultural DNA that reconnecting with it makes us much stronger for the struggles we have to face. This is the transformation of our consciousness. This is something we have done consistently, throughout our evolution, until the modern age saw us distanced from a culture of ceremonial rites, of initiation into the great mysteries, of psychological and spiritual growth as a core focus of our lives.
But we can get all this back; in fact, we must, unless we want to be passengers on our planet’s destruction, passive consumers allowing the destruction of our ecosystem to go on beneath our very eyes. Right now, we are like the butterfly, emerging: already transformed beyond what we were before, we have cracked the seal of our cocoon and are breaking free of old limits … but we haven’t yet built up the strength required to fly as free as people can be.
My metaphor for a process of immersive, experiential evolution is, as you have guessed, the butterfly. Let me take you on a brief journey through the metamorphosis promised by this spirit animal par excellence.
Caterpillar half way through creating its own cocoon for transformation into Monarch Butterfly
First, consider this simple fact: the caterpillar chooses to enclose itself within the cocoon. It is driven by its genetic code, but by contrast, we can choose to make this decision, to enter our own ecomythic underworld of darkness and mystery, to allow ourselves to be unravelled and dissolved, until we are ready to reappear afresh. Let’s underscore that point, because it reflects our modern relationship with ritual: we need to be unafraid of the darkness, of unknowing and letting go, of being torn asunder by grief and anger, of dissolving into our own goop in an act of faith that we will be reborn, reawakened for a new day.
Now to actually change from a caterpillar to a butterfly takes another thing altogether, and that is complete dissolution of our former being. This is what we require of society right now, in terms of dealing with the ecological crisis. And in order to be a functional part of this planetary transformation, we as individuals need to be true to our full emotional range without giving into the depths of despair or the peaks of rage we might feel when faced with the realities of ecosystemic destruction.
We need to feel everything, allow it to wash over us, and then be reawakened: to our power, to our love, and to our consciousness as it evolves into something entirely new … something planetary yet personal, ancient yet timely, informed yet passionate. Meditate on Butterfly Spirit and let it guide you, receive its spiritual sustenance as you come home to self, and return to society empowered and more capable of helping it to radically transform as we know it must.
“Choose Transformation, Create Cocoon, Allow Yourself to Dissolve into Deep Feelings, Wait, Crystallise, Reform, Grow Strength, Break Out of Former Limits, Fly Free. Repeat Daily.”
Geoff Berry, outlining the rites of the Butterfly: Adapt and Practice, Practice and Adapt.
When we think about the lack of action on climate change, as well as the ongoing rush to strip the planet of ‘resources’ and thus continue the devastation of the environment regardless of our obvious need to take care of the earth, we can easily slip into despair. Seeing as world politics including Australian ‘leadership’ seems to be going in the wrong direction, blind hope is not going to help us. So what do we do?
Aside from turning to the good things that are happening in our communities – and there are plenty of them! – we can return to the breath. Leave the societal realm behind and breathe into the body. This gets us back to the experience of awareness, of the one state we can definitely change for the better – our own body and mind. Deep breath awareness not only relaxes the mind and thereby reduces stress, it can also lower our heart rate and create space so that we are not merely reacting to the world at the moment, but exploring a space of freedom and creativity as well. We can also give some air to feelings that have compounded around the issue that has wound us up; we may feel sadness and grief, frustration and anger … this is a good opportunity to can allow ourselves to be human, to have the feeling and then to let it go (don’t rush!).
In the body, when we have breathed through our tension or anxiety, we can find comfort; we can recognise whatever needs to be changed, what it takes to be in our power, to be ready for action, to stand for what’s right, to be poised as an animate being capable of self-awareness … and when we have reignited these potentials, we can go further, breathe into the depths of the mind/body beyond the personal self, to the core truth of being human, which is that we are also more than this; we are interdependent beings, open to the elements through breath and ingestion, made up of DNA shared by plants and other animals and mitochondria and clay and water and salts …
Through breath we can find psychological freedom and return to the intertwined mystery of human being: we are consciousness embodied in self-aware primate form, both completely dependent on nature for our lives and also capable of experiencing ourselves beyond the limits of time and space. This is the paradox of being human; we are only here and now and also always more than this. Just like light and consciousness, metaphors for each other … but that’s another story, for another time.
For right now, return to breath, rebalance the self and remember the more-than-self, and return to the world ready to fight the good fight for another day. Beyond all else …
