Back to nature #2: Deep Ecology- Nostalgia for Eden

Nostalgia for Eden

A widely held belief amongst environmentalists, Deep Ecologists and other “post-modern” humans who yearn for a return to the idyllic world of an imagined Garden of Eden is that the struggle for sustainability is a new one: for most of human history, hundreds of thousands of years, people have lived in stable societies with minimal impact on natural resources, and have had the wisdom and respect for the natural world that is required to be sustainable.

This is the point of view expressed, for example, in Thom Hartmann’s “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”. The belief goes something along the lines of: we used to be spiritually and ecologically more enlightened than we are now. We used to have cultures that were sensitive to the balance of nature, that understood our place within the greater scheme of things, and knew our limits. We only took from our surroundings what we needed to survive and we did so with reverence and respect for a Higher Order of things that existed throughout the natural world. Nature was our Mother, our Guide and our Teacher. We well understood our place in nature, and knew that we could not overstep the limits without severe repercussions.

The Retro-romantic view of nature

Deep ecology is a philosophy originally conceived of by the Norwegian philosopher Arnie Naess and popularised by the rainforest activist John Seed who, together with Buddhist scholar Joanna Macey created one of its best-known forms, a workshop ritual called The Council of All Beings. Some years ago I attended a few of these weekend workshops with John Seed and was sufficiently inspired by the experience and by its interpretation to lead similar workshops myself. The message is clear and simple: it is we humans who are to blame for environmental destruction, and the reason is that we have lost our way: somehow, somewhere along the way in human history, we “forgot” that we are really “just another part of the web of life” and began getting above our station, imagining that our culture, our tools and technology, perhaps above all our intelligence would exempt us from the agreements of the rest of the natural world. The subsequent destruction of that world by a being that has forgotten the dues it owes to its origins is well documented: species extinctions, climate change, pollution of the air, soil and water.

If only we could get a direct experience that we are indeed just an animal like any other, we might begin to act differently. The Council of All Beings and other Deep Ecology workshop activities were created to try to give such a deep experiential motivation for environmental activism. If we truly reconnected with our whole bodies, emotions and mind to the reality of our original natural state then we would have far more strength to work to defend the rest of nature, our true family.

Council of All Beings

The process of the ritual would involve three parts: First, a “medicine walk”, a half-hour or so when participants would walk or sit by themselves and choose- or wait to be chosen by depending on one’s beliefs- a nature spirit or deva.

Once all the participants had their nature-being decided upon- it could be anything, plant or animal, or perhaps a hill-side or even a whole ocean- we would assemble and again in silence each would make a mask of the Being.

Some would be plain cardboard cut-outs; others would be elaborate theatrical costumes with feather, shells or twigs and leaves to help evoke the Being more visually.

At the proscribed time we would assemble and then, at a sign from the workshop leader, enter into the space prepared for the Council and as we passed through a symbolic doorway or arch, put away our human persona, put on our Mask and enter the Council.

The rules of the Council were very simple: humans were excluded (or, in some forms of the ritual, not permitted to speak); they were only referred to as “the Two-Leggeds”; and – a necessary precaution in a group that could have both foxes and chickens, rabbits and bears, cows and buttercups- no predation was permitted during the council.

The usual format was that each in turn the Beings would speak, and usually it would involve a sorry tale of how their species or environment had been badly affected by the notorious Two-Leggeds: they have destroyed our habitat. They come and hunt us for sport. They have poisoned our land and trapped our young.

I found these rituals at the time powerful and moving. There is something quite special about spending a weekend with a group of like-minded people in a beautiful natural place, some of the time spent In silent meditation, then the making of the masks and a magic moment of entering the ritual space of the Council and looking around through the eyes of your mask at all the other masks: badgers, trees, flowers, birds, mountains, streams and forests.

The logic of Deep Ecology seemed to me at the time irresistible: if anyone had any doubts about our inseparableness from the web of life, John seed would suggest: “Just hold your breath for five minutes, then tell me if you still think you are not part of nature”. The sheer power of this simple truth won me over: the practice of Deep Ecology was surely the way to awaken the modern world from its techno-delusion and show us the way back to nature.

There was however one unanswered question: if humans had lived for most of their existence in sustainable harmonious groups, what went wrong? How did this “forgetfulness “ of our natural state ever manage to take place?

Although I never stopped asking this question, I didn’t come across a compelling alternative to the Deep Ecological perspective until a couple of years later when I read a book by the controversial American philosopher Ken Wilber Sex Ecology and Spirituality. According to Wilber, humans are not “just another strand in the web of life”; in fact, we are that strand of the web that has evolved the capacity of awareness of the whole web- and in this sense has been able to transcend it.

Do other animals and plants have the consciousness to examine or perceive- and therefore the compassion to protect- the Web of Life? Or are humans unique in their capacity to see the whole web, to examine- and disagree- on what their relationship to the rest of nature is? And if so, does this mean that a different strategy is required to “wake people up” than just trying to get them to remember that they are just part of the web?

In retrospect, the Council of all Beings seems curiously anthroprocentric. Is it not arrogance of the highest order to put on masks of animals and plants and presume to know how they would feel or what they would say about humans if they could? Surely the thing that marks us out is precisely that it is uniquely a human trait to sit around in councils and discuss such things- predation or otherwise.

Many of the Deep Ecology workshop activities that I learnt with John Seed and Joanna Macey I still believe are very useful and powerful tools for motivation, for self-awareness, for healing. I would however have difficulty with some of the interpretation that was assumed in the workshops I attended.

For example one particularly important and powerful activity, pioneered by Macey, is know as the Truth Mandala- a safe space in which one is free to express grief, anger, fear or despair at the state of the world and our assault on the environment. I believe this kind of approach has a lot to offer and would like to see it used more in a Peak Oil and Climate change context.

But I often felt also that in Eco-Psychology, the interpretation was already given and unquestioned you are party of the earth. You are grieving. This is because the Earth is hurting- you, Her child, are feeling the Mother’s pain. By getting in touch with this pain- the Despair work- we can be empowered to act for positive change.

In the next section of this series, I want to consider developmental theories of consciousness and how they present a very different perspective from Deep Ecology and similar philosophies; and how they suggest that, “Going back to Nature” in this sense may result, not in salvation, but disaster.