This piece was written as a requirement for week ten of the course “Deep Ecology in Context” taken online through Naropa University, Boulder, CO during the Spring of 2005. The requirement had been to summarise the material from that week.
For me spirituality is an essential part of deep ecology. I would go as far as to say that for me deep ecology is spirituality, or certainly an expression of spirituality. Spirituality is a chance for us to become more full human beings, to become more fully who we are, who we can be.
I step outside of my front door in the morning to the richness of the natural world. To the sound of birds. To the sight of birds darting to and fro. To squirrels scampering up trees, scavenging on the ground for food. The cool morning air on my face and the aromas that this brings with it. The colours of early spring flowers dotted around. As my eyes, ears and tactile senses experience these myriad of forms so I experience a feeling of fullness, of being energised and more complete.
Whether recognised or not, our concern for the earth originates from our connection with it. Concern arises out of an empathy with the world with which we live, in which we live. The empathy arises out of an interconnection with the earth. John Seed says that, “the pain of the Earth is our own pain and the fate of the Earth our fate also.” If one is connected with someone or something, one feels their pain as one’s own. Arne Naess explains it this way, “[I]t is identification with or seeing something of yourself in others: being joyful when others are, sorrowful when you see others sorrowful.” He calls such an identification, “self-realisation” and refers to it as having a, “realisation of the deeper and broader self.” Naess call this sense of a wider self the ecological self. It is the ground of our being, that from which our sense of self arises.
Such a broad sense of self does not deny the idea of an individual. Western philosophy especially has promoted this idea of all beings being encapsulated within their frame of skin and bones, and the sense of self residing in this frame as being an isolated individual. Such an idea pervading society creates a society with everyone working for themselves, a survival of the fittest mentality. Anything will be done to get what “I” want. This view results in a lack of care for the world in which we live. Empathy and connection have been ignored and denied. With that in place, feeling for the harm that you are committing becomes numbed out of acknowledgement. However, by as much as you harm the world in which you live, so by as much do you suffer spiritually. It is not a case necessarily of being aware that you are harming yourself spiritually. The harm arises as you are denying the very ground of your being. You are separating yourself from this ground and the greater, more expansive being that you could be.
So ironically one could say that the individual is actually more healthy through this wider identification; the individual becomes a more whole individual. The person knows who they are more fully within the context of all that they interact with. Life becomes a series of interactions, relationships within a wider whole of which you are very much a part.
This brings up the point that it is not enough simply to have an intellectual acknowledgement of our spiritual connection. Not cared for or nurtured, your spiritual side will wither. I don’t believe that it can ever die, but not looked after, like a plant not watered, our connection to our ground of being can shrivel up. John Seed points out how in indigenous cultures, “we may notice that without exception ritual affirming and nurturing the sense of interconnectedness between people and nature plays a central role in the lives of these societies.” As Seed suggests, what would be the need for carrying out such rituals if a split between humans and nature was secure? If these rituals are “so universally perceived” as necessary, it suggests strongly that work needs to be continually maintained in order to cultivate our spiritual connection. A form of spiritual practice needs to be part of our lives.
A society which recognises the spiritual side of our nature, creates an enlightened society, a society which cares about all other members of that society and the natural world in which it exists. Such a society continues to grow spiritually and is more healthy for that interaction. Helena Norberg-Hodge speaks of her experiences in Ladakh, saying that the small rural communities have been at the mercy of “an urban or further-removed élite.” As the small communities lose their “power and self-respect” they become intolerant, and with that grows a “rejection of your own and others self-realisation.” Such feelings have spread through modern society. All aspirations and measures of success are outside of ourselves and for the most part attainable only for the few (pop stars, football stars, multi-millionaires). Our education system measures children by the grades that they get, and this also becomes a measure of their character. Self-esteem of those in society dips as people can’t attain the goals that society sets them. Spiritual aspiration becomes swamped under despair and visits to the shopping mall, things which just go to feed a more of the same.
Deep ecological spirituality does not ask of us to attain any manufactured goals, it just asks of us to be who we are. To celebrate and be with the world in which we live. Then through your celebrations, through your gratitude towards the world in which we live, grow and become more fulfilled human beings by deepening your connection with it.
As Brian Swimme says, “but if a person is working with food and agriculture, say permaculture, and the primary motive is to produce the food, then something is missing.” The food is important for sure, but production devoid of a deeper connection and appreciation of world that you are interacting with becomes a heartless, mechanical process that you just want to get done. Life and living is turned into a drudge.
References:
The Rainforest Information Centre: Council of All Beings -
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/council.htm
Resurgence: January 1997, Self-Realisation and Society -
http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/articles/norberg_naess.htm (article no longer archived online)
Earth Light Magazine: Science as Wisdom, The Story as a Way Forward -
http://www.earthlight.org/interview26.html