Sometimes we write or think things that we don’t want to believe; we dream of impossible or unthinkable things, we imagine utopian futures and grand possibilities, we fall for wish fulfilment or fall into paranoid delusions. Often such flights of fancy are just that, with no more meaning outside of our own personal psyche. But other times, we may slip into the world of intuition, of prescience, of a kind of knowing that could only emanate from the otherworld, from the dimensions where time is folded with other realms so that the future somehow pops up in front of us and we know what is coming. Writers of faery tale or myth have always explored these realms, while prophets and other wise ones access this space with skill.
Don’t you want to go there? Or at least be entranced by those who have …
But we have to be clear about how our mind works before we can start to trust these kinds of intuitions. Once we know the style of our desires and fantasies, we can be alert to them arising in our minds, and dismiss them on the way to more objective information. To do deep listening to nature, we have to quieten our personal mind and open up to our greater mind; the one that is talked about in ecopsychology, animism and spiritual realms as being the human mind that is at one with the greater reality, with the world, even with the cosmos and its mysterious gift of consciousness. This is what i mean by the ecomythic; the dimension from which appears such otherworldly yet ecocentric wisdom.
On December the 9th of 2019, i wrote that “A great fire is coming and we are all in line.” Everybody knows now that the whole south east of Australia is burning, but a bushfire near my home on the south coast of NSW had already been burning for weeks. In previous years, this would have been known as a serious fire; it took out a beautiful stretch of forest over 30km long, countless trees and animals had been scorched, and we were breathing in smoke and swimming in ash as we got used to the new reality. Life goes on and we adapt. But now we are preparing for a future of unknown collapse, just as climate scientists have been warning for years. We’re going to have to collectivise rapidly, coherently, with deep reservoirs of patience and generosity.
Mossy Point, where i lived for two years, with the cataclysm approaching nearby Rosedale
I didn’t know the ‘great fire’ i wrote about was going to spread from the one already burning and threaten my home and destroy so many others, as well as kill so many people and the countless other beings; but i knew it could. What i meant was that a great fire is threatening all of humanity now … that greenhouse gases had created a world hotter than we could handle, that traditional ‘Care for Country’, as Australian Aboriginals practiced for tens of thousands of years, had been dismissed by the new machine of modern agriculture, that the business of clearing, sowing and poisoning the land for ever-increasing yields and profits was creating a tinderbox that is ready to ignite all over the place and not go out until it has taken us with it. The amount of firepower out there nowadays; coal mines and power stations, oil refineries and endless vehicles burning petrol, nuclear power plants and of course an unconscionable pile of weaponry, from street level guns to tribal warfare capable dirty nukes, handheld anti-aircraft missiles and more, creates endless opportunity for the damaging aspect of fire to be unleashed as fresh hells on earth. Anthropogenic climate change and ecosystem destruction creates the tipping points we know are adding up.
Alongside the fires, there will be more devastating floods and hurricanes, sea level will continue to rise and destroy low-lying cities; in short, other horrors await us just around the corner. All of it is coming sooner and harder than predicted, which means we should be taking the climate science more seriously than ever, seeing as it is clear it has been overly conservative, in an effort not to be too alarmist. Ancient traditions have predicted this since before colonisation stole the lands of so many earth-loving peoples. The pueblo-dwelling Hopi of Arizona, where i spent some time in conversation with a spiritual leader some years ago, saw the signs of End Times everywhere, but also put this in a bigger picture perspective of worlds that come into being and pass away in cycles. This also inspired the visually stunning art film Koyaanisqatsi, a forerunner to more recent explorations such as Baraka and Samsara.
The Abrahamic religions tend towards linear timescales, where current events lead to degeneration and saviour for the faithful. The dualism common in western society is a constant feature, as a force of ultimate good finally defeats an evil power, after much thrashing about and the devastation of much that was good in the first place. Some fundamentalist sects even believe that the destruction of the human world could hasten on this ‘rapture’. Unfortunately, Australia currently has a Pentecostal Prime Minister, which may be part of the reason he has shown such deplorably poor leadership in terms of tackling the climate emergency and the bush fires.
Subliminally powerful, but socially irresponsible imagery of the Rapture. It promises endless glory; but it also says, “Give up on earth and return to your true home in the light!”
Eastern philosophies tend to favour cyclical time frames, wherein the end of one world would result in the birth of another. This reflects the traditional, animistic position, which followed the laws of nature to see that out of death new life emerges. Examples include the caterpillar withdrawing into the cocoon only to emerge as the butterfly – an image i have always found solace in – and the way Australian Aboriginal firestick, or cultural, burning, promotes new growth. These kinds of ideas can be extrapolated to faith in the ongoing life of the human soul beyond death; just as the snake sheds a skin, so we ‘shuffle off this mortal coil’ to arise new in another dimension. There is no reason to dismiss such beliefs, unless we are so trapped in what sociologist Max Weber called ‘the iron cage of reason’ that we can no longer accept any reality outside of the one we have been socialised into. Rather, an intelligent and open-minded person would understand that human culture evolved in close contact with nature and exercised refined senses to read subtle energies and ‘track’ psychic paths as we traversed the possibilities of consciousness outside of the physical realms.
My Zen training, alongside recent years of deep listening in nature, has opened a world of possibility like this. Generally, in Zen, we attempt to be as true to the moment as possible, focussing on the now even while always taking into account – or at least, not dismissing – the extent to which we are always also partly caught up in our personal histories and possible futures. But i have found that while dissolving the traps of personal disposition, compassionately letting go of our escapist fantasies and slipping out of the iron cage of reason, it is not only the moment that becomes more clear, more sparkling and evocative. There is also the ever-present realm of the ‘otherworld’, wherein deeper patterns of meaning that include the world of nature and psyche beyond our personal self become apparent.
And thus appears … Burning in the Sky. I was scared of this song at first, as it paints such a terrifying picture of the reality we are now speeding towards. But i knew i had to sing it and thankfully i’m in a band with 3 of the most amazing musicians, who could compose and play the music to make it a symbolic anthem for this time, as well as a call to those who want to continue to evolve and adapt, together. I knew immediately, as i heard it in my head in Tathra one night last year, that it was mystic prophecy. I just didn’t expect it to become so prescient, so quickly. Rebel for Life. Because a great fire is coming for us all and there will be a burning in the sky. Better to be forewarned than ignorant, even – perhaps especially – if the message is bleak.
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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.
We can’t all live in a green oasis – modern life separates us from our innate connection to nature all the time! So, what are the best ways to make sure we feel connected to nature every day?
When we spend time somewhere we love, it’s relatively easy to drop into a feeling of deep connection with nature; to breathe easier, feel the breeze on our faces, smell the roses (or native flowers!) and feel an intimate part of the universe and this planet filled with life.
But if we want to take that feeling into every day – and who doesn’t? – we need to practice some techniques and remember them while we drive, type, shop, get kids to school, and live in our modern world of buildings and cars, fridges and microwaves, and everything else that makes life easier but also distances us from the natural world we evolved in.
So, to help you keep that feeling you love, here are my Top 5 Tips! Please fee free to share the love, by adding to them in the Comments section below:
Breath: I start every meditation class with a focussed awareness on the breath. Wisdom traditions the world over assert the close relationship between breath and mind; both are seemingly immaterial (thought can fly anywhere at any time it would seem!), but both also have a dramatic, physical effect on the way we think and respond to the world. By practising breath awareness, we can make that effect one that reconnects us to the freedom, beauty and majesty of life in each moment.
Light: in just over 100 years of electric light, we have almost totally lost our deep connection to the cycles of sun, moon and stars, and the way we used to navigate our environment according to those daily cycles. How do we get back in touch with our primal connection to light? Start by getting up early enough to watch a sunrise, and take time to say thank you to that great golden orb that powers all life on earth! Then, in the evening before bed, why not try bowing to the moon (or howl, if the inspiration hits and the neighbours aren’t too close!), while reflecting upon the cycles of life that brought you to this moment. Finally, spend some time gazing into the night sky, remember how lucky we are to be here in the vastness of space, and don’t forget to wonder as you admire the stars.
Bodily movements: the way we move is an expression of our relationship to nature, both the inner nature of the way we feel in our bodies and the way we move through our environment, in terms of our spacial awareness. I found the combination of martial arts training and working in hospitality, where I had to be aware of who might be walking around the corner at any time with hot plates in their hands, drilled into me a consistent awareness of where I am in terms of what is around me. I practiced being ready for anything and sensing what might be coming next, in a physical way, and it feels good; like a hunter sensing prey in the wilderness.
Mindful eating and drinking: take time to focus on what you are consuming. Give thanks for it and don’t take it for granted. This is one of the traps of the modern world; things just appear in our shops and on our plates and we forget the chain of events that brought it to us, from farmers planting seeds to the sky magically allowing fresh water to fall onto fertile soil. Practice awareness of all that comes together to bring you that meal – including the technologies of production and delivery. (And try this free Nature Calling meditation)
Stories: we are all used to listening to the voice/s in our heads, as we daydream, talk about ourselves and others, judge and compare what we like and don’t like, remember the past with regret or longing, look forward to the future with expectation or dread, and so on … but what about listening to the ancient, archetypal patterns, the stories of our cultural DNA, the voices within that could lead us back to deeper connection with nature at all times? These voices can teach us to be attentive to our personal habits and predispositions, to evolve beyond our limits, to trust our intuition and be wary of danger when we sense it approaching, to treat the earth with love if not reverence, to take care of others as if we were all connected … in short, to be a better ecological citizen and a more balanced and centred individual in one.
I’ll extend each of these points out to more detail in forthcoming blog posts. In the meantime, please feel free to get in touch if you want to learn more about any of these options or more. There is a Nature Calling Online Course, if you would like to try some of these practices in more depth. Also, on my Ecoretreats, we also add simple but effective rituals to keep that connection alive, no matter else happens in our day. Check them out here and take that feeling of freedom and endless possibility back into your every day!
