This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 8 of the author’s bookPaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion.
Thomas Berry has said that we need to understand that the challenge of our time – that is, the apparent planetary siege by the human, is not just an outcome of the last few hundred years of Western scientific thinking. It is not just Cartesian, it is not just economics; this moment, he says, has required everything. He calls the challenge of this moment, “meta-religious”[1], and that we, as a species and as a planet, are in a “moment of transformation”. It is my understanding that part of what that means for humans, is to realize that we are not in control – we never have been, and never will be. While it is true that we participate, that we are in it, that it is our Story, that we co-create it, we are not the Story. It is Gaia’s Story. We are participants through whom Creativity proceeds … whether consciously or not, whether as compost or new growth, we participate, we make choices, and She proceeds with Her Creativity.
Thomas Berry lists three rights of all creatures: the right to be, the right to habitat, and the right to fulfill its role in all existence[2]. These three rights correspond to the three qualities of Cosmogenesis that he and Brian Swimme decribe in The Universe Story[3]: it is an ethics based on the creative impetus of Gaia, an ethics that may enable life as we know it and as we don’t yet know it, to proceed. Intrinsic to it is a balance and a recognition of, love of self, love of other, and love of All-That-Is. It is based in a balance and recognition of, urge of each being to unfold, place to be in the web of life, and participation in subjective space[4]. Deep in the present moment, all the Creativity that is necessary, is present.
I notice in myself and others who continue to participate in the seasonal ceremonial celebrations, an opening to subtle perceptions and sensitivities that do enable and evoke a passion for adopting everyday changes to our domestic lives; that is, how we relate to the water we use, the food we eat, the methods of transport we choose, the social and cultural context. It seems that as each actually feels what Charlene Spretnak calls “the unitive dimension of existence”[5]– as one may in ceremony over time, as one feels themselves to be “a node within a vast network of creative dynamics”[6], becomes more mindful of flux, wonder and awe[7]– as one may with artful practice of this cosmology; that we do in fact begin to devise strategies for change in our lives. The strategies for change are ones whereby we may be more authentic in our relationship with this expressly sentient Earth and Cosmos. Some participants have given up their cars, found ways to reuse water, are learning how to garden organically, relate more consciously with the flora and fauna around them – care more, and feel that their small care does make a difference.
This translates on a broader scale to an increasing ability in the hearts and minds of participants to step outside the anthropocentric frame, as increasingly each one becomes more conscious of an “Earth Jurisprudence”[8]: that is, that Earth Herself has innate wisdom and integrity. It is a wisdom that ceremonial particpants can sense and come into relationship with, that is primordial, as they do constantly express and enact in the ceremonies. There is in participants more humility about the place of the human in the scale of things, more willingness to step back from the human impress on the planet and other beings, and to reframe more inclusively.
There is nothing comprehensive about this particular “re-inventing” as I have described it so far herein – it is a beginning, as other participants and I are aware. We are novices, most of us. Each year that I celebrate the Seasonal Moments, I understand a little more. And it is new as well as old. In these times, any of us comes to it all with different minds than our forebears did – this is somewhat of a disadvantage, but the novice has a freshness too.
References:
Mike Bell, “Thomas Berry and an Earth Jurisprudence”: http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/106
Berry, Thomas. “The University: Its Response to the Ecological Crisis”. A paper delivered before the Divinity School and the University Committee on Environment at Harvard University, April 11 1996. htpp://www.ecoethics.net/ops/univers.htm
Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005.
Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. SF: HarperCollins, 1993
Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.
NOTES:
[1]Thomas Berry, ”The University: Its Response to the Ecological Crisis”, a paper delivered before the Divinity School and the University Committee on Environment at Harvard University, p.8.
[2]Thomas Berry defines these in a talk he gave on June 4 2000, at the Center for Ecology and Spirituality , Port Burwell Ontario. It was a 5 day colloquim on “The Cosmology of Religion”. He also suggests them in ”The University: Its Response to the Ecological Crisis”, p. 5.
[3]Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.66-79.
[4]These three characteristics and qualities of Cosmogenesis are developed in PaGaian Cosmology, by Glenys Livingstone, Chapter 4 in particular.
[5]Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22.
[6]Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22.
[7]Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22.
[8]Mike Bell, “Thomas Berry and an Earth Jurisprudence”: http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/106