It was really refreshing to have a conversation with my mate, Dr Thomas Bristow, an expert in ecopoetics, and Senior Editor of the journal i am also an editor for, PAN: Philosophy Activism Nature. Tom wanted to chat about what the Romantic poets – Blake, Yeats, Wordsworth, Byron and co – saw in nature, and in particular what they learnt from listening for the spiritual aspects of the earth. It was a fun yarn and we touched on many aspects of the subject matter, following a handful of questions, or prompts, in a free range flow. Tom called this chat ‘Romantic Vision’ and you can access the video of it here (no pressure, but Tom tells me this may only be posted for a limited amount of time).
But first, i must wonder aloud about the value of literary explorations, poetic conversations, appreciating the Romantics and attuning ourselves to our local ecosystem in an age of planetary destruction. There’s a point in the interview where i admit that Thich Nhat Hanh might be right: perhaps what we most need to do is to hear the earth crying. This is not a very good sales pitch. And it’s probably only true to a certain extent: we are also a miraculous incarnation of consciousness in a primate body, embodying the spirit of life in a fantastically rich way, a celebration waiting to be had. My point is that opening our minds to the Deep Listening that i suggest at the culmination of this chat is not necessarily going to make you happier, but it may very well help you to be liberated from some of the more innocuous yet pervasive limits of your mind. Worth a shot?
To get there, Tom and i talked over the resurgence of European myth in the 18th century, which inspired Romantic poets to personify or anthropomorphise the environment, as a means to address ‘nature’, to represent vast fields of energy, beyond the human scale, and to create textual events that trigger legacies of ecocentric writing and orality. If you’re interested in the historical development of Western consciousness, you might enjoy our riff on how Romanticism worked as a response to Enlightenment. My key term for this was the ‘suprarational,’ which i saw as an attempt to develop consciousness beyond the human, to include our ancient predilection for pantheism, or notion that intelligence is a quality of the universe, or another dimension, which arises with this one (or even as its prerequisite).
This reminded me of the intelligence we find in nature, which is revealed in the way plants reach for the sun, or animals know instinctively how to hunt prey or follow seasons or find their way back across entire oceans to their birthplace. I can’t help but feel that for all of our technological development, the modernised psyche is a truncated version of something that could be far greater, in scope, depth and alacrity. We need to incorporate reason into our toolbox but be ready for so much more, when we open our minds to a conversation beyond the merely human, with plants and animals and places.
“We are leaning our for love and we will lean that way forever” Leonard Cohen
This more open-minded consciousness could also perceive more beauty in the world and thereby require less stuff from human society and production. There’s more to say about how recognising spirit of place can help protect the natural world, but i’m writing that for the next issue of PAN, so i’ll keep the water nymphs and satyrs for then.
When we are alive to the ecomythic dimension of life, human consciousness opens up to what actually is arising in nature, which is other forms of intelligence. This can also be called animism, which indigenous people have always said is real, not metaphorical: spirit beings, spirits of place, and spiritual entities are all other types of intelligent beings, which exist but do not take physical bodies in this dimension with us. They represent life force, sometimes of that place, sometimes from beyond. If we want to learn from them, we have to put aside our historical, socialised self, and enter into a trance of timelessness, beyond our personal foibles and concerns. Even as we are thoroughly enmeshed in capitalism and colonisation, simply by being alive in the world today, we can turn our backs on the worst of it, the most obvious effects it has on our minds, and find ourselves as we also always were and are: trailing clouds of glory, as Wordsworth wrote in his Ode on Intimations of Immortality.
Any true Romantic knows how to love a storm
Tom asked how we get there. I can only humbly suggest we meditate in sand dunes, or under trees, or by a babbling brook (or, if you’re in urban lockdown, on a pot plant and its own mysterious urge to live). A great place to start is with Miriam Rose Ungunmerr, who made the practice of Deep Listening more accessible to the public, especially helpful for non-Aboriginal Australians living on this ancient land.
Then maybe, if we can quieten the voices of our humanity for long enough, we might be able to hear the muses still, as they sing the song of the earth, for those who will listen.
*NB: Please Subscribe, Share, Comment … anything! It’s much more satisfying to write these posts when there is a conversation going on, believe me.*
You’d be forgiven for thinking there were more important things to do, more pressing actions to be taken, than sitting quietly on a meditation cushion. And you’d be right. Sitting meditation is practice. For being in flow with the moment, moving with grace, embodying consciousness in the best way possible, as a primate capable of self-awareness. While doing important stuff, like fighting fires. Grab the hose, aim the water, protect the assets, move back, come around the side, get out, get in and do your job. All under extreme pressure. Professional or volunteers; now that’s action.
HILLVILLE, AUSTRALIA – NOVEMBER 13: RFS Firefighters battle a spot fire on November 13, 2019 in Hillville, Australia. Catastrophic fire conditions.
Most of us who faced fires in Australia over recent weeks aren’t heroes. We’re just trying to save our lives, families and homes, and helping others when we can. But no matter whether you had to fight ember attacks or full blown fire fronts, or if you were watching the previously unimaginable horror unfold, as monster fires joined up to create a mega-catastrophe on a world changing scale, we’ve all been scarred by this experience. How we deal with it can be a matter of personal choice, but from a therapeutic perspective, if you get time, you could do worse than to sit. Contemplate.
Hone your mind. It helps. Getting to know yourself better, you can come to realise your habits and choose what works for you according to the balance of your desires and values. Or just relax, let the mind melt down the spine like a melting egg of golden butter. Breathe into the centre and up along that spine, lifting each part as if it were carried by a silver rope hanging down from the heavens. Let that breath go through the top of your head, lifting it also and tilting it slightly forwards, so that your chin is tucked a little. Look 45 degrees to the floor. Let thoughts float away like clouds in the sky. Don’t judge them, it’s a waste of time and undermines the self you want to be. Breathe in, up the spine, and let go as you exhale. Repeat.
Sit in nature if you can. It’s precious. As we’ve seen.
Sitting in meditation affords you time to check in with yourself and give you time to recognise if you are carrying some self-defeating patterns. Also to melt them away a little each time, or to support better ones. We practise in every sit, as well as throughout the day. This is a clarifying of the mind that is also self-care, because sitting in meditation can help you ensure that you’re not getting too wound up in cycles of action and reaction, by putting your daily experiences into a more expansive framework. Just like the monk who learns that the same amount of salt in the wound feels very different when you identify with the expanse of the lake and not just the limited confines of the personal mind, we can become more than an action/reaction machine.
Sitting with how expansive our minds can be can transform them from their former limits.
Sore? Let that pain dissolve into the entire energetic matrix within which we incarnate: the earth. Rest in that exact place where you are for a while. This will remind you of how much you can be as well as help you do stuff better. This includes fire fighters and frustrated parents, baristas and climate scientists. It could also help activists entering upon the shores of burnout, or just plain exhausted by the fight against a corporate and political class that is supposed to be serving us but is serving its own interests instead. The forces of climate denial are varied and very well funded. This makes the current mainstream story unpalatable, at best, and criminal, in terms of the environmental damage being wreaked upon the planet right now. We must feel this, if we are to identify with our larger being, the one that dissolved into the lake, and be true citizens of the earth, along with all our kin, without whom we cannot survive, let alone flourish. Air comes from forests and seas (remember this sometimes with your breath). To be fully alive, we must be fully alive with the earth. That’s expanded consciousness. That means something.
A simple three point defence of climate action in the face of current conditions:
The drought is biting so deep in New South Wales, that even this nice patch of rain we are now having (at least on the south coast) hardly keeps the dust down. The whole south east of Australia is drying out, just as the climate scientists warned us it would. That means running out of water in towns, as well as for plants and animals – everyone suffers, not just the humans. It also means increased fire danger – not just more bushfires out of control, but more wild and dangerous ones than ever.
This is a result of increased greenhouse gases, a term we don’t hear as much anymore: more carbon (and methane and more) in the atmosphere, as we burn more fossil fuels, cut down more forests, and let the profit motive hold sway.
We cannot let this continue. It’s not just about this drought, or that fire, or the other superstorm: it’s about the way we treat the planet. Support your local environmental action now, as groups like Extinction Rebellion up the ante against vested interests, politics beholden to the power of filthy lucre, apathy and mean-spirited conservatives.
Thanks for listening and sharing. Take care out there and keep fighting the good fight!
The dead wombat has been there for a couple of days now. The stench tells the story, as do the flies. The painted stripe down its back is another thing – a sign to those who care, that this one has been checked. Its pouch is empty; no babies need to be rescued from its dead body. Drive on, like everybody else does. We’re in a rush, or going too fast, or we’ve just seen it so often it doesn’t register anymore.
Roadkill – it’s an everyday reality for those who drive, especially long distances on country roads. It’s the collateral damage of the road trip. And it’s a sign of the times, a symbol of how we live, the things we can’t change, the fast pace of modern life and the way we treat the rest of the world (aka nature). We cut straight lines across the land, just as we do across the seas and skies, in order to get from one place to the next as fast as humanly possible.* Because we have business to do, people to meet, more immediate concerns than caring for the land and the planet that is our home. More important stuff.
That’s how we got here – to the precipice of the ecological emergency, which afflicts the entire earth now, the cliff over which we are hurtling since the feedback loops started to kick in. We burn greenhouse gases and turn the plants and animals into agribusiness and treat them all like grist to the mill. Any cereal grain or docile beast unfortunate enough to be domesticated has been ‘farmed’ – or more accurately, industrially exploited – to the point of complete depersonalisation.
You couldn’t do to battery hens, pigs, or feedlot cattle what is routinely done on behalf of obscene profits if you actually had to face what these animals feel. We couldn’t decimate the insect population and pour countless trillions of litres of chemical run off, of pesticides and fertilisers, into the sea, creating desolate coastlines and Great Barren Reefs, if we cared about the rest of the earth’s population.
It’s all about the wheat, the rice, the cotton; not the birds, the bees, the native grasses or traditional remedies that used to grow here. Where? Anywhere.
This dead wombat is one of the dozens I see every week on my work commutes. Smashed to death by a metal bullet hurtling down the road at 100kmh, another human being at the wheel. Almost inevitably, we won’t stop to witness the passing of another life at the hands of modern society. It’s just what we do. Kill thoughtlessly, randomly, impersonally, as an inevitable side effect of our hustle and bustle. This is what we have done to our planet and home.
Roadkill is a symbol for our times.
For more on the mythology of straight lines, see the ecomythic doco “City Living, Nature Calling” here.
Here is a letter that is less than 1 page long and is designed to gather support for the Global Climate Strike on Friday 20th of September. Please feel free to adapt, sign as your own, share widely and use to initiate a conversation in your workplace or with anyone.
On Friday the 20th of September, we have an opportunity to show our support for a movement that is focussed on building a new way of life for humanity: one that does not take our planetary home for granted and works to protect it for future generations and for other species. Without this transformation, we will continue to do irreparable damage to the environment, to our soils and rivers, seas and fellow creatures.
This is just one day of the year, dedicated to the biggest issue facing the entire human race. No matter how important our work is, we can find a way to strike in support. If we work in a caring field, or anywhere that safety is an issue, we can suggest that those who don’t want to strike are rostered on to work. Management may be open to this, if they recognise the unparalleled danger that we face. If not, we can apply for leave. But however we do it, we have to strike. We have to show that business as usual is a death sentence for life as we know it.
The devastating impacts of human-induced climate chaos are increasing daily. Animals and plants are becoming extinct in frightening numbers. We are involved today in a struggle that is no longer ideological (about beliefs or ideas), or historical, but scientifically validated as an existential threat to living species on this planet right now. This is the most important moment to be alive in the history of humanity. No longer do our actions only matter to our local communities – although they still do. We must now give in to the call to “Think Globally and Act Locally”, for this emerging crisis affects us all.
On Friday the 20th of September, we are being asked – by leaders in the environmental movement, by school students who can see their very future crumbling before them, by climate scientists and communicators the world over – to strike for climate action. I call upon you now to
commit to this action and to make your commitment public;
talk with your colleagues about how to keep everybody safe (rostering staff who are prepared to stay on at work to ensure public safety while others strike);
make a statement of support for the general strike’s aims, which are to call upon world leaders in politics and industry to support serious and immediate climate action such as complete transformation of energy to a carbon neutral world; and to
enable your organisation, department or corporation to professionally and compassionately manage this day in support of climate action, as meaningful participants in the most important movement of our times, in ways that promote the transformation of our own work practices in alignment with a carbon neutral global society.
Yours in civil disobedience, Geoff Berry [*NB: adapt and sign your own name here freely!]
You couldn’t do to battery hens, pigs, or feedlot cattle what is routinely done on behalf of obscene profits if you actually had to face what these animals feel. We couldn’t decimate the insect population and pour countless trillions of litres of chemical run off, of pesticides and fertilisers, into the sea, creating desolate coastlines and Great Barren Reefs, if we cared about the rest of the earth’s population.
This dead wombat is one of the dozens I see every week on my work commutes. Smashed to death by a metal bullet hurtling down the road at 100kmh, another human being at the wheel. Almost inevitably, we won’t stop to witness the passing of another life at the hands of modern society. It’s just what we do. Kill thoughtlessly, randomly, impersonally, as an inevitable side effect of our hustle and bustle. This is what we have done to our planet and home.
