Ego and Civilization: Provisional Efforts, Not Our Best

Thomas MertonThomas Merton (1915-1968), a Benedictine monk, once said, “What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?” It was a simple appeal for a new human from a person whose own engagement with the ego-Self struggle brought him to a consciousness large enough that he could cross into thoughts and actions too big for civilization. He learned from Nature, pursued interfaith spirituality, and earnestly believed that nonviolent societies were possible.

On the heroic journey, both our ego personality and civilization are understood to be provisional, not the end point—much in the way a caterpillar is provisional en route to a butterfly. Self knows how to meet Merton’s appeal for a new human.

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Are National Parks OneEarth or MultiEarth?

Henry David Thoreau: Public Domain photo from Wikipedia We will not succeed on our journey into the larger topographies of OneEarth consciousness without increased connections with the Wild. Henry David Thoreau opened others’ eyes to this essential connection when he structured his life to include experiences of wilderness. Far from escapism, his connection with Nature kept fresh his Call to a OneEarth world. Nature often elicited eloquent words from Thoreau as he explained why we humans cannot develop fully within the consciousness of civilization. In his essay Simply Walking, Thoreau wrote: “I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.”

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Predation by "Civilized" Humans More Ruthless than Killing in the Wild?

photo: public domainThe worldview of MultiEarth civilization embodies a highly-polarized and confusing attitude toward wildness. On the one hand, it perceives wildness in the natural world as a threat to suppress and defeat; on the other, it intentionally channels a type of wildness when it wages war, produces TV reality shows, and intimidates and tortures other humans through various enforcement and intelligence agencies. MultiEarth civilization, ignoring its own extensive use of primal wildness in violent actions, makes much ado about the wild violence in Nature. Phrases like “red in tooth and claw” and “the law of the jungle” underscore MultiEarth’s jaundiced view that predation and killing are to be expected in the dangerous, brutal Wild. “It’s a jungle out there” is the same kind of phrase about the predatory behavior of people competing against one another. Perhaps we understood the predation in Nature with more balance when we had to kill the meat we ate. Now that most of our meat comes already prepared or in sterile packaging, it’s as if killing never had to happen for us to eat burgers, pulled pork, sushi, or chicken. Rarely does it cross our minds that every plant we eat has to die.

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Sharing Space with Wild Critters; Being Together in One, Living Community

Juanita, my spouse, Tyler, our grandson, and I packed up our camping gear before sunrise the day we left the Grand Tetons and headed for nearby Yellowstone National Park. For us, tent-camping increases our intimacy with wildness. Even the “inconveniences” of camping help us experience more deeply our interdependence within Nature. In Yellowstone, we shared living space with bison, wolves, grizzlies, black bears, birds, and insects. We saw and felt steam from Earth’s magma where it pierces the ground, forming geysers and springs. We witnessed the wild water and falls, treacherously beautiful, and flowing out of control with snowmelt after a winter with 200% normal snowpack. Many moments reminded us that we were in spaces where we were not in charge. We were welcome, but, clearly, we needed to learn the etiquette of relationships with the species and forces inhabiting these wild spaces.

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Was There a Wild West That Needed Taming? Luther Standing Bear (Sioux) Answers

Stories of taming the Wild West lie deep in the mythology of how the United States came to be. But what does it mean to call the West “wild?” Did “white people” tame it? Does the Wild even need taming? The First Peoples who lived in the geographies of the Wild West tell a story quite opposite to American mythology. Luther Standing Bear (1868-1939) was chosen as chief by the Ogalala Sioux in 1902. He authored books and articles that continue to be on college reading lists in anthropology, literature, history, and philosophy. Standing Bear says his people did not think of the West as wild.

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Our Heroic Journey to Keep Earth Livable—(to be released February 6, 2017)

February 6, 2016, is the release date for my next book. Currently, in the final stages of rewrites, edits, and then indexing, I’m getting excited about its release.

If you’re feeling that the ecological crises of climates, land depletion, ocean warming, population explosion, species extinctions, and greenhouse gases are bigger than our species can correct, I hope you’ll read this book. Read it too if you’re wondering, “What more can I do?”

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Eden for the 21st Century

Eden has so many connotations, many in the past tense. Using the word may have more risks than promises. I decided to risk that it’s a useful, juicy symbol in this century for our efforts to keep Earth livable. That’s why I call the trilogy of books I’m writing, “Eden for the 21st Century.” The first book, Blinded by Progress, was indie published in 2013. The second book, From Egos to Eden, will be published later this year, 2016. I’m not interested in some “return to Eden” motiff, but I do believe that we all have an archetypal Garden in us that can guide us to keep Earth livable in the 21st century.

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