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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Living now, naturally and sustainably via relocalizing
  • Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:49:35 -0700


Living now, naturally and sustainably via relocalizing
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id
=298&Itemid=1

by Dave Ewoldt
25 January 2009
Image“It is not a sign of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick
society.” -- J. Krishnamurti

Answering the question of how to live our lives right now, in the face of
global crises that cause stress and depression in all those not living in
outright denial, is the new global imperative. But to deal with this
question we must come to terms with what has caused it to be asked in the
first place if we truly desire to formulate an effective and satisfying
answer.

Many thinkers in the physical and biological sciences are starting to agree
with environmental and social justice activists who point out with
increasing frequency that the root of our systemic global and personal
crises lies in our disconnection from the natural world, and in the culture
that creates. This culture is entirely dependent upon unhealthy, exploitive
relationships based on this disconnection.

Our response is to create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom
and social justice. This goal carries with it a realization not pointed out
often enough: that the culture we have now is not sustainable.
Additionally, if lasting change is desired, it must be systemic. The
problems require more than band-aids on symptoms. Applying single issue
band-aids may alleviate immediate pain and suffering, but will not keep
them from recurring. Further, as the root of global crises grows stronger,
the symptoms will occur more frequently, in more places, and will be of
increasingly greater destructive magnitude. It’s long past time to quit
clipping branches and to put some concerted effort into digging out the
diseased root from which industrial civilization has grown.

The systemic root of our disconnection from nature can be directly traced
to the dominator paradigm which started conquering and subverting
egalitarian cultures 6-8,000 years ago, and was firmly ensconced by 2,000
BC. As detailed by author Riane Eisler, this paradigm consists of
force-based ranking hierarchies of control (humans over nature, men over
women, one race over another) that are built on and maintained by fear. The
individual is seen as more important than the group, and anything outside
of the ego is seen as other. This other is automatically assumed to be
inferior or lesser, and thus morally acceptable to exploit for personal
benefit. We end up seeing ourselves as separate from and able to control
the natural world, our own inner nature, and all the rest of our
relationships. In fact, we assume we must exert this control in order to
assure our prosperity and to further human progress.

The dominator paradigm has led to what I call the Triumvirate of Collapse.
This consists of Peak Oil, which is the end of increasing supplies of cheap
and abundant fossil fuels and the economy which depends on them to power
the Industrial Growth Society; Catastrophic Climate Destabilization
(commonly known as global warming), which is causing the collapse of global
ecosystems and shifting habitation for flora and fauna due to the abuse of
the biosphere from burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and toxic pollution
of the air, lands and oceans; and Corporatism, which is the loss of our
sovereignty to a merger of state and corporate power. It is financed by the
debt- based usury system of central banks and enforced by national
militaries and police to control dwindling resources. The purpose seems to
be to protect affluent lifestyles where overconsumption is taken as an
entitlement.

It is also important in laying this groundwork for change to come to an
agreement of what we mean by sustainability. This is important both to
ensure we're heading in the right direction, and to ensure we have a way to
measure our success. I derived the following definition of sustainability
from what experts in the field of sustainability around the globe have been
using for decades, and I boiled down the commonalities of the different
definitions into three clauses. This comprehensive definition can then be
used to evaluate decisions and policies for their adherence to the stated
goal of a sustainable future; to see if proposals are merely (sometimes
necessary) holding actions; or to see if they actually support the status
quo that we must implement an alternative to.

Sustainability is: integrating our social and economic lives into the
environment in ways that tend to enhance or maintain ecosystems rather than
degrade or destroy them; a moral imperative to pass on our natural
inheritance, not necessarily unchanged, but undiminished in its ability to
meet the needs of future generations; finding, and staying within, the
balance point amongst population, consumption, and waste assimilation where
bioregions, watersheds and ecosystems maintain their ability to recharge
and regenerate.

With the above foundation, if we’re willing to admit that the root of our
systemic crises is our fundamental personal and cultural disconnection from
nature, one common sense starting point in creating an effective antidote
for global and personal ills would be to reconnect with nature. I must also
explicitly point out here (since so many people seem to have forgotten)
that humans are an aspect of the natural world. Our reconnection to nature,
in order to be systemic, must be not only to the environment, but also be
to each other, our communities, as well as reconnecting the culturally
imposed split -- through both science and religion -- amongst body, mind,
and spirit.

Fortunately, reconnecting to nature turns out to be rather easy to do for
anyone who is open to experiencing the process. This process comes from the
field of applied ecopsychology, called the Natural Systems Thinking Process
(NSTP). It can be easily learned and taught. The NSTP was developed by
environmental educator and psychologist, Dr. Michael J. Cohen, founder of
the Audubon Society's Expedition Institute and Project NatureConnect. The
latter is the graduate department in applied ecopsychology for the
Institute of Global Education, a special NGO consultant to UNESCO.

The NSTP -- which leads to improved personal, social, and environmental
health and well-being -- works by consciously and sensuously reconnecting
all 53 of our senses to their roots in the natural world. All of our senses
have evolved with natural expectations for fulfillment, and this
fulfillment can be met by learning to follow and trust our natural
attractions in the moment. A short example of this is when our sense of
thirst makes itself known, we are attracted to water. When we satisfy this
sense, our life is supported and we are rewarded with good feelings. Our
sense of thirst is just as real as the water itself. As a natural system
with its own cycles, when our bodies are done with the water, our sense of
excretion makes itself known, and satisfying this sense also makes us feel
good. Our natural attractions are informing us of how we can gain support
in the moment if we trust them. Other senses that we share with the natural
world include our senses of community, love, color, form, motion,
temperature, and acceptance.

Attractions that we might consider to be negative, such as physical or
emotional pain or fear, are nature's way of informing us we don't have
support in the moment, and we should be seeking more positive attractions
elsewhere. Nature supplies an abundance to any species to meet their needs
as long as they remain within the carrying capacity of their ecosystem. As
a foretaste of where I’m heading with this line of reasoning, this is
just the opposite of the scarcity model that orthodox growth economics
relies upon.

Where industrialized humans get into trouble is when we allow ourselves to
get dangerously out of balance by letting only one or two senses, such as
our senses of rationality and language, assume they are the only ones that
matter -- that our intuitive and emotional senses will lead us astray or
make us appear foolish. Another common problem is finding and clinging to
addictive substitutes for our natural senses, such as substituting
television for our natural sense of creativity, trying to use materialism
as a substitute for emotional and spiritual health and well-being, and
relying on prescription or recreational drugs, or psychotherapy and
self-help programs as a substitute for healthy, mutually-supportive
relationships. As J. Krishnamurti said, “It is not a sign of good health
to be well-adjusted to a sick society.”

In the human built environment and in the social institutions we create,
the process to become sustainable -- to holistically integrate our
activities with the natural world -- is provided by a systemic concept
known as relocalization. This is the antithesis as well as the antidote to
corporate globalization. Relocalization includes the concepts that we must
rebuild our local economies to be self-reliant; recapture our sense of
place and belonging; reclaim our sovereignty; and restore our communities
of mutual support.

Relocalization entails a return to local autonomy within bioregional
networks of interdependence; the production and distribution of renewable
and non-toxic food, goods, services, and energy as close to the point of
consumption as possible; and provides an antidote to the economic
cannibalism of global growth, through the creation of steady- state local
living economies. What provides more than mere hope that this process can
actually be effective is that at its very core relocalization is based on
the way that nature works. Which means the way that we work when not being
manipulated and exploited by nothing more than stories that benefit someone
else.

Healthy ecosystems can be looked to for providing the models and metaphors
humans require for becoming sustainable and creating mutually supportive
relationships. All living organisms have the tendency to self-organize into
mutually supportive attraction relationships. This can be said to be the
prime activity of life; it creates the web of life which functions to
create more life and diversity. Using the four core Natural Systems
Principles -- mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and
increasing diversity -- to inform the process of relocalization, we can
replace the dominator paradigm with a paradigm of partnership, and we can
overcome and heal our disconnection and separation from the web of life.
But as a quick side note, also explicit in maintaining adherence to these
principles is the requirement to begin dealing honestly with the global
overpopulation problem.

Reconnecting and relocalizing. These are effective strategies that we can
implement right now that are not merely reshuffling deck chairs on the
Titanic. These strategies require neither a new techno-miracle to appear
nor an evolutionary shift in consciousness to occur. We can do this because
these twin strategies are based on the same natural systems principles that
ecosystems use to stay healthy, vibrant, and resilient.

Once we do more than rationally understand, but also sensuously experience
our connection to the rest of the natural world, we begin to enjoy
increased physical and mental well-being, improved social relationships,
and benefit from the abundance of natural fulfillment. This is a natural
and intimate aspect of who we really are, and can be used to blaze the path
to a future where we all have the opportunities to realize our full
potential for living now -- naturally and sustainably.

Dave Ewoldt is a co-founder and Executive Director of Natural Systems
Solutions, and he is a counselor in ecopsychology. He is a published
systems theorist and passionate advocate for relocalization. His
book-in-progress is titled Connecting the Dots: Reversing Our Handbasket to
Hell. E-mail: dave@reststop.net.This e-mail address is being protected from
spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Website:
www.attractionretreat.org





  • [Livingontheland] Living now, naturally and sustainably via relocalizing, Tradingpost, 01/26/2009

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