Sometimes this commitment to be in the world with eyes and mind and heart open also greatly challenges me. As my consciousness, my deep connections, and my circle of caring continues to expand and grow, so too does my awareness of the suffering all around us and within us as living beings. And waves of grief ebb and flow for so much — for the uncertain futures for my children and grandchildren and all children everywhere, for the species who are going extinct today and every day, for the growing number of people who right now are losing their homes to flooding and tornadoes and other catastrophic consequences of human caused climate disruption, and on and on. It is so much to try to hold. But try I do.
Not infrequently I bring this grief to my therapy, as I did today. And my therapist affirmed my experiences and the tender strength of my heart that gifts me and us with the capacity to bear witness to so much. At the same time, he reflected how it is not possible to be happy when we are disconnected from the Earth of which we are a part of — and how much the suffering and the threats to a habitable planet are rooted in this disconnection with the Earth. Doug went on to tell me about Theodore Raszak and his book, "The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology"... Shortly after our session, I was at Powell's Books in Portland and they had one used copy of this book that had just come in and wasn't yet on the shelves. Written in 1992 but remaining deeply important and relevant to today, this is now my newest book, a gift I already treasure. Deep bow of gratitude.
And gratitude for all the teachers who grace my life with their infinite courage to not turn away. So many just blow me away with the depth of their bravery and caring. And again and again these are the ones I am drawn to because I am a able to recognize the depth of the wisdom and love that emerges for those who have for so long been in the world with their eyes, hearts, minds, and souls open. I think of Joanna Macy, Grace Lee Boggs, Bill McKibben, Dahr Jamail, Howard Zinn, Riane Eisler, and countless others — these are my heroines and heroes. They model and inspire how to root ever more deeply into a path with heart, a healing path into wholeness and with deep roots in the Earth, a path which embraces both the beauty and the suffering in the world, a path which brings us to our own knowing of what our role is in creating a healing world which holds all life in reverence.
Today I've adopted Theodore Roszak as yet my newest teacher. Deep, deep bow of gratitude to him and for each and every soul who helps us to remember what we have forgotten. May we seek and listen to and be inspired by these voices of wisdom and love. They help us remember and to bring forth our own deep capacity for wisdom and love. Blessed be.
With love and deep caring for us all...❤ Molly
The Earth's Cry for Rescue
Excerpted from the preface of The Voice of the Earth:
Ecopsychology — A Reconnaissance
In the century since psychology was first staked out as a province of medical science, we have learned a troubling lesson. The sanity that binds us one to another in society is not necessarily the sanity that bonds us companionably to the creatures with whom we share the Earth. If we could assume the view point of nonhuman nature, what passes for sane behavior in our social affairs might seem madness. But as the prevailing reality principle would have it, nothing could be greater madness than to believe that beast and plant, mountain and river have a "point of view." We think that sanity — like honor, decency, compassion — is exclusively a social category. It is an attribute of the mind that can only be judged by other minds. And minds exist, so we believe, nowhere but in human heads.
While sex and violence continue to smolder in the depths of minds that do reside in human heads, the anguish of what I will call the "ecological unconscious" has emerged in our time as a deeper imbalance. At this level, we discover a repression that weighs upon our inherited sense of loyalty to the planet that mothered the human mind into existence. If psychosis is the attempt to live a lie, the epidemic psychosis of our time is the lie of believing we have no ethical obligation to our planetary home.
These days we see the prefix "eco" affixed to many words. Ecopolitics, ecophilosophy, ecofeminism, ecoconsumerism, even ecoterrorism... The result is not always graceful, but the gesture is nonetheless significant as a sign of the times. This tiny neologistic flag flies above our language like a storm warning meant to signal our belated concern for the fate of the planet. Its often awkward connection with words from many sources — politics, economics, the arts — reveals our growing realization of how many aspects of our life that concern will have to embrace.
This is an essay in ecopsychology. Its goal is to bridge our culture's long-standing, historical gulf between the psychological and the ecological, to see the needs of the planet and the person as a continuum. In search of a greater sanity, it begins where many might say sanity leaves off: at the threshold of the nonhuman world. In a sense that weaves science and psychiatry, poetry and politics together, the ecological priorities of the planet are coming to be expressed through our most private spiritual travail. The Earth's cry for rescue from the punishing weight of the industrial system we have created is our own cry for a scale and quality of life that will free each of us to become the complete person we were born to be.
*****
Theodore Roszak quotes: Deprived of bread or the equal benefits of the commonwealth, the person shrivels. Obviously. And that is a clear line to fight on. But when the transcendent energies waste away, then too the person shrivels — though far less obviously. Their loss is suffered in privacy and bewildered silence; it is easily submerged in affluence, entertaining diversions, and adjustive therapy. Well fed and fashionably dressed, surrounded by every manner of mechanical convenience and with our credit rating in good order, we may even be ashamed to feel we have any problem at all.
The more people have time to experience the joys of creativity, the less they will be consumers, especially of mass-produced culture. I see that as a kind of new wealth that counts for more than owning material things. I also see art as something people will do rather than consume, and do it as a natural part of their lives; creative endeavors are a form of profound spiritual satisfaction.
All revolutionary changes are unthinkable until they happen — and then they are understood to be inevitable.
*****
A review of The Voice of the Earth:
What is the bond between the human psyche and the living planet that nurtured us, and all of life, into existence? What is the link between our own mental health and the health of the greater biosphere? In this "bold, ambitious, philosophical essay" (Publishers Weekly), historian and cultural critic Roszak explores the relationships between psychology, ecology, and new scientific insights into systems in nature. Drawing on our understanding of the evolutionary, self-organizing universe, Roszak illuminates our rootedness in the greater web of life and explores the relationship between our own sanity and the larger than human world. The Voice of the Earth seeks to bridge the centuries old split between the psychological and the ecological with a paradigm which sees the needs of the planet and the needs of the person as a continuum. The Earth's cry for rescue from the punishing weight of the industrial system we have created is our own cry for a scale and quality of life that will free us to become whole and healthy.
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