Why We and the Earth Must Heal Together
The Western Myth of Duality
To those who are conscientious and informed, it’s clear that two major imperatives face us in the modern age which supersede all others: humanity needs healing and care (both collectively and individually) and so does the terrestrial ecosystem we inhabit. In the context of current western culture, these are generally seen as two distinct problems, to be solved independently of each other and by separate means, but the reality is that they are inextricably interwoven, and solving one requires that we simultaneously solve the other. These processes are one and the same, and we will find that the strategies used to address one will inevitably benefit the other.
Although notions of land ownership and a distinction between spirit and matter predate Christianity, it was with the rise of Christianity in the early centuries of the common era that we saw widespread adoption of the belief that humans are fundamentally separate from and superior to the natural world, that we are the stewards of the Earth and entitled to lord over it and all the other life upon it. For most of the past two millennia, the global human population has been small and technologically limited enough that our impact upon the natural world has been relatively minimal, but since the dawn of the industrial revolution, approximately 250 years ago, that has changed.
With the invention of technologies such as the printing press, musket, steam engine, steel plough and mechanical loom, our power as a species to dominate and shape our environment began to increase beyond the imagination of anyone who had ever lived before. As we entered the twentieth century, the invention of the automobile and airplane, of the telephone, radio, television, refrigerator, washing machine, and of the achievement of space flight, the harnessing of nuclear power, the discovery of penicillin and other medical marvels, and more recently the invention of the internet and smart phone have exponentially elevated us to levels of power even we now cannot fully comprehend or control.
These technological innovations, for all the incredible benefits they have bestowed upon us, have come at significant cost. When we moved from small agrarian communities to cities in search of greater economic opportunities in the factories that began appearing in England in the 18th Century, and soon after in America and continental Europe, we began to suffer separation from our traditional social networks, exploitation by the emerging capitalist class, injuries from working with dangerous machinery and diseases stemming from industrial pollution, poor urban living conditions and diminished access to fresh, nutritious food. Certainly, life was not necessarily all sunshine and rainbows in rural, feudal societies, which is why many people were willing to accept the sacrifices inherent to urban lifestyles, but the point remains that there were substantial costs to be paid.
And industrial progress came not only at the expense of human health and community, but also of environmental degradation. Mountains were leveled to satisfy our hunger for coal, forests clear-cut to build our rapidly-expanding cities, rivers burst into flames because of industrial runoff, lakes became lifeless as nitrogen-rich fertilizer runoff from farms fed toxic algal blooms, fish and wildlife populations were depleted or driven to extinction by over-harvesting and habitat destruction, and the air became so choked up with coal-smoke and other industrial fumes as to be unbreathable.
As some of these problems became existentially threatening to human life, regulations were implemented and practices adapted. Some crises were averted, or at least mitigated - we began to see recovery of some animal populations, the clearing of polluted air and the recovery of the ozone layer. Yet many problems remained, and as new technologies have continued to emerge, so have new and unprecedented challenges, both to human and environmental well-being.
This technological proliferation has also cemented the illusion embedded in our culture that we humans are separate from and superior to the natural world. Our rapid progress over the past few centuries has, at least superficially, eliminated much of the resemblance between our lives and those of the other animals with whom we share the world, and has given us cause to believe that as a species there is no limit to our power.
And yet, since Darwin published On the Origin of Species, the secular world has come to accept evolution as fact, and we have come to recognize that, beyond any reasonable doubt, we are animals just like any other, inextricably woven into the web of life. We are certainly unique in that our particular combination of intelligence, adaptability, upright posture and opposable thumbs have enabled us to dominate the world we inhabit, but that in no way means that we are separate from it, or immune to its vicissitudes. We still suffer when it’s too hot or too cold, we starve when food is scarce, and when we die, our bodies decompose back into soil - even though we strive to maintain our separateness by interring ourselves in ornate and durable caskets. Religious doctrine and cultural convention continue to sustain the feeling for many of us that we are distinct from nature, but as the trend towards secularism grows around the world and we grow increasingly aware of the pitfalls inherent in our unchecked technological evolution, I believe that more and more of us are coming around to an intuitive and rational understanding of our deep integrity with nature.
Our Unified Reality
Most spiritual traditions previous to Christianity took the concept of human unity with nature for granted. Indeed, an oft-repeated fact is that most indigenous languages didn’t even contain a specific word for nature, as everything in existence was considered part and parcel of the whole, and there was nothing to contrast with any theoretical concept of “nature”. The ebb and flow and the cycles that characterized all elements of the world governed our lives as well, and we could not take from the world without there being an equal debt - there was an innate reciprocity in all things that kept everything in balance.
It was when Christianity was adopted by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 4th Century CE that the religion became the dominant cultural force in Europe, and the violent persecution of so-called “pagan” peoples such as the Celts and suppression of their nature-based spirituality began in earnest. This would prove to be a persistent trend, and would eventually underpin the colonization of most of the non-Christian world during the Age of Exploration. Many cultural traditions were lost to history as a result of these conquests, but some traces have lived on. We now see indigenous people all around the world reclaiming their languages, lands and traditional ways of living - what can still be salvaged, and adapted to the modern world - and, though it faces criticism for being of questionable historical accuracy (Druidic practices were transmitted orally, and were almost entirely lost during the Roman conquests) the Neo-pagan spiritual movement that has emerged among certain disparate peoples of Celtic ancestry has been a potent way of reconnecting with a lost sense of connection to our natural roots. This is to say nothing of the Romantic cultural movement of the 19th Century and the Hippie movement of the 1960s, which both explored this connection in different ways.
What people of all these different backgrounds have observed is that human life, for all its potency and power, is at the same time fragile and fleeting. We are painfully vulnerable to the forces of nature, as are all life-forms on this planet, and we experience pain and pleasure just as other animals do, at the whims of an often chaotic and unpredictable world. While to some minds, indoctrinated with the belief of human exceptionalism, this may seem like an appalling and unacceptable premise, from another perspective, it’s deeply comforting. To recognize ourselves as an integral part of nature is to understand that we belong here. This is our home, and we are family with all of the other life around us - literally related (however distantly) to every other being on Earth. From the pantheistic perspective (which may or may not resonate for the reader) the entire world - and indeed the entire universe - is unified and divine, and we are no exception to that.
Ecosystems and the Earth as a whole have a tendency towards homeostasis - that is, a default state of balance - even amidst the cycles of day and night, summer and winter, ice ages and interglacial periods, population booms and busts, and so on. When homeostasis is disturbed, whether by volcanic eruption, fire, flood, disease, or by destruction and pollution by a particularly ambitious species of ape, the impacts of this disruption touch all the inhabitants of that ecosystem.
For instance, through widespread habitat destruction and use of pesticides (along with other factors) humans have in the past few decades caused what is being called an “insect apocalypse”. An estimated 75% of insects around the world have disappeared since the early nineties, which has in turn caused a precipitous decline in songbird populations worldwide, as these birds largely subsist on insects, and has impacted populations of birds of prey which predominantly eat songbirds. Insects are also the primary pollinators of plants around the world, and their disappearance has been severely affecting a great number of plant populations worldwide. Among those plant species affected are many of the principal food crops humans depend upon. As native pollinators have been disappearing, farmers have begun to depend upon mobile colonies of domestic honey bees to pollinate the plants we eat, but because honey bees did not evolve to pollinate most of the plant species in question, their efficacy as pollinators is relatively poor (and this is to say nothing of the impact this use has upon the bees themselves). As insect populations continue to plummet, our food supply will grow increasingly fragile, and while agricultural scientists are currently attempting to procure technological alternatives to insect pollination, these solutions will inevitably be inferior to the biological systems which have evolved over countless millions of years.
We know that with the die-off of insect populations (a similar die-off of fish populations has occurred in the same time-frame due to our abuse of the oceans) and the depletion of ancient fresh water aquifers and arable soil due to industrial agricultural practices, as well as the warming and destabilization of the global climate and the increase of warfare worldwide, food and water scarcity will most likely be increasing in the coming decades. We also know that rising sea levels will displace hundreds of millions of people who live at or just slightly above sea-level within the coming century or two. The mass-migration of humans and other animal species and the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria will cause an increase in infectious diseases and strain upon already-overwhelmed medical and social services, as well as increases in xenophobic and racially-based discrimination. We are already beginning to see these processes unfolding, and these are but a few of the crises we expect to increase in scope over the coming years. So, we see that humans are profoundly affected in manifold ways by our environmental circumstances, just like all other life on Earth.
The inverse is equally true: not only are humans negatively impacted by ecological instability, our environment is harmed in all manner of ways when we are suffering and in disarray. When our needs are met and we are able to move through life with a reasonable level of fulfillment, we tend to treat ourselves, our peers and our environment with kindness and respect. We are more likely to play by the rules and abide by common standards of human decency when we feel that these rules and standards work to our advantage. However, if we are not able to meet our needs by socially-sanctioned means, or in ways that align with our internal moral sense, desperation generally drives us to methods that are manipulative and exploitative, destructive and cruel.
This can be seen in our interpersonal relationships - for example, a person feeling unloved in a romantic relationship may learn to guilt or abuse their partner to access the attention or validation they desire - and it can be seen in our interactions with broader society, which is why systemically oppressed populations, stuck in cycles of poverty and disenfranchisement, are likely to commit crime at higher levels. To an extent, they have no choice.
This pattern of distress and unmet need leading to destructive behaviour is also evident in our relationship with the Earth. Regulations designed to protect our environment are easily enforced when people’s needs are met, but as we can see in the Amazon rainforest, the poverty of farmers motivates them to illegal logging in order to profit from selling the timber and from clearing more and more grazing land for lucrative livestock. Another example is that in many parts of the world, lack of access to adequate waste disposal and recycling infrastructure leads to people throwing their trash in rivers and lakes, clogging up these vital waterways and killing off the life contained within.
One may object to what I’m describing by pointing out that the majority of ecological destruction we see in the modern world is the result of corporate greed, rather than the desperation of regular disadvantaged people. According to this argument, the executives of these corporations - the oil and gas companies, the logging and mining companies, the agribusiness corporations and so on - have greater wealth and abundance than virtually any other people in the history of the world. Surely their needs must be well satisfied?
But here we encounter one of the core flaws of society under capitalism. This economic system focuses entirely on the accumulation of material wealth, the consolidation of power by hoarding capital, and the social status that we collectively attach to those achievements. Whoever owns the means of production and can exploit the most natural and human resources wins the capitalist game, and when we acknowledge this, we begin to see the fundamental and catastrophic imbalance that exists within our culture. The shadow of our narrow focus on material success is that ours is a profoundly spiritually impoverished society. We are a people bereft of deeper meaning and of palpable connection to each other and to the rest of the world. We are alienated from a sense of belonging in the natural world and from any sense of there being a higher power in the universe, and we’re experiencing an unprecedented loneliness epidemic as this socioeconomic structure has left us isolated from one another, exhausted from working multiple jobs to survive, with mindless consumerism being the only available way of easing our suffering. Money has become our God, and consumption is the last remaining semblance of prayer in this culture stripped of its humanity.
When we come to terms with this reality, we see that corporate CEOs are in fact lacking just as much as - if not more than - the general populace. Even billions of dollars cannot fill the void left behind by the loss of truly interdependent community, deeply felt spirituality, and a higher purpose that is foundational to society. If we look at Elon Musk, currently the wealthiest and supposedly most successful person on Earth, we see an obviously fragile, insecure, lonely and widely hated man - the last we would turn to as an example of someone who is deeply fulfilled and satisfied with life.
Heal the Land, Heal the People
The more we delve into this topic, the clearer it becomes that we as human beings cannot thrive in a world in which the delicate web of life has been destabilized, and that our environment will continue to be destroyed as long as our society is defined by oppression, exploitation, alienation and wealth inequality. As impossible as it may seem at the present time, the current worldwide dominance of neoliberal capitalism must be replaced by decentralized democratic ecosocialism. We can either continue down the path of destruction that we have been following for the past few centuries, or we can transition to a more just and equitable world. This will not be easy, and humans have demonstrated over and over again that we are unlikely to change until desperation forces us to, but this is the reality we face.
When we speak of meeting our needs, we must account for all of them, even those that are less tangible. We have physical needs - sleep, nutritious food, exercise, clean air, clean fresh water and shelter from the elements - but we also have a variety of psychological, emotional and spiritual needs. These include (but are not limited to) purpose, creativity, human intimacy, emotional validation, a sense of belonging and of context within the greater framework of life and reality. If we are not able to find loving and life-affirming ways of meeting all of these needs, we will turn to destruction, to exploitation and manipulation. We have the entirety of human history as evidence for this.
So, how can we take meaningful steps towards creating this ecosocialist world, in which all of our needs are generally more or less met? Naturally, this is an incredibly complex topic, and many books could be filled without entirely doing it justice. However, there are a number of key points we can look to in order to affect change.
First, as much as we may be preoccupied by issues on the national and global scale, we make the greatest impact when we focus our attention and energy on personal, community and regional-scale transformation. This doesn’t mean neglecting to exercise our democratic responsibilities in the nations we inhabit, but it does mean prioritizing the areas where we can be most effective.
Not everyone will be aligned with our desire to build a more humane and interconnected future, but finding and collaborating with other people in our communities whose values and desires overlap with our own is essential. We are more powerful acting together than alone, and by organizing or participating in existing mutual aid networks, community action groups, labour unions, resource libraries and educational workshops, we can impact the lives of many people in our area and the integrity of our local ecosystems.
On the individual level, we can seek out mental health and self-help resources to better ourselves, including but certainly not limited to therapy. This is worthwhile for our own personal benefit, but is also essential because participating constructively in community requires a reasonable degree of emotional intelligence, resilience, the ability to self-regulate, and to not only tolerate but accept other people in all their variety, while maintaining strong boundaries. Learning to recognize where we struggle emotionally, what triggers us, where our sensitivities lie, and what we can and cannot accept in our social lives are foundational parts of existing in community.
We need to be aware of our behaviours and where they originate. What patterns of behaviour are socially-conditioned and unconscious, and which are intentionally curated to accurately represent our true values and desires? How much of what we consume actually makes our personal lives and our environment better? What proportion of the material goods we buy are packaged in plastic? How much do we drive when we could walk, bike, or take transit? How many of our precious hours on Earth are spent mindlessly consuming content when we could be creating? How much factory farmed meat do we eat, when we could obtain more of our protein from plant-based foods and buy meat more consciously from local, ethical producers? How much food do we buy from grocery stores that could be bought at local farmers’ markets instead? No one is perfect, and we shouldn’t expect perfection of ourselves, but it is important that we continuously strive to better ourselves and improve our habits.
If we have the means (ie, if we own property and have the resources to do so) we can consider installing solar panels to offset our electrical consumption from the grid, and can look into setting up rainwater harvesting systems to supplement our water consumption through the drier months of the year. This latter point is becoming more crucial as rainfall patterns become increasingly unpredictable and droughts and heatwaves become worse around much of the world.
Spend time to learn about community-building and activist efforts around the world, to find inspiration in progress that people are already making. Learn about permaculture, which is a well-established world-wide movement and system of designing regenerative human habitations based on three core ethics of Earth-care, people-care, and the fair distribution of resources. Explore where your curiosity leads you; people’s diverse interests and passions are what make our communities rich and resilient.
There are many of other ways we can step up, get involved, and make the world a better place, but focusing on these gives us a substantial, powerful foundation upon which to build. When we are accustomed to living in a deeply individualistic and alienating culture, getting started and taking the first steps in becoming engaged is the hardest part. Like anything, once these behaviours become habitual, they become much easier, and at a certain point, we find that they are second nature.
Soul and Soil is a project committed to helping people take these first steps, to overcoming internal and external barriers to action, to discovering personal values, passions and strengths, and accessing the necessary resources to step into our purpose as change-makers and engaged members of our communities and of our world at large. This is done through educational programs and project facilitation, as well as group and one-on-one coaching. If you are keen to become more active in making your life and your world a better place, and could use a helping hand in that process, I invite you to visit www.soulandsoil.ca to learn more and find out how I can help you. And otherwise, thanks for reading, and keep fighting the good fight!
