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  • From: Paul d'Aoust <paul@heliosville.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] 'resurrecting' the thread about spirituality and permaculture
  • Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:09:59 -0700

On Tue, 2007-20-03 at 08:27 -0700, Sean Maley wrote:
> There is an important distinction to make here. There is no gift.
> Such a gift implies property and having power of life and death
> bestowed upon humanity. To me, monotheism completes an imaginery
> separation of humanity from the wild and bestows as some gift an
> exageratedly dangerous and imperfect wild. No matter how much we
> believe this hubris, we can not truley be separated from Earth, unless
> we go extinct. All life deserves equal "ownership" in the food web,
> which entitles all of us from bacteria to animals to nothing more than
> participation in any niche available. We are a part of Earth, not the
> owners, or stewards, of Earth. What we destroy is a part of
> ourselves.

Maybe I should clarify my feelings on the issue of 'gift'. I do believe
that the earth is a gift to us, but I don't make the supposition that
that means we own it or have special claim over its resources, if that
makes any sense. When I say 'gift' I don't mean that God said, "here you
go; it's yours; do whatever you want with it." I picture him saying,
"here you go; I made this and I'm letting you live in it." I believe
that the universe exists simply for its own sake, and in its own right,
so we have to approach it with an 'ours and yet not ours' attitude.

If I weren't a Christian, I'd probably be an animist. Everything is
suffused with sacredness for me, and that gives me a deep respect for
the natural world. Coming from that point of view, I realise I don't
have the right to touch Zone 5 -- it'd be like blowing up a statue of
the Buddha like the Taliban did a few years ago. All I'm saying is that
there are proper places for Zones 1 to 4, and that's where our
'stewardship' role comes in.

I guess I just don't see how monotheism is the logical (or even de
facto) precursor of that separation of humanity and nature that you
speak of.

> Perhaps you hear the call of nature, not god.

here's the animist in me again, but -- what if they speak with the same
voice? What if nature speaks with the voice of its progenitor? Because
everything you're saying (except the monotheism bit) resonates with me
so strongly, and yet I still don't feel the desire to abandon
monotheism, I would say the two are not only compatible but intimately
linked.

But maybe my attitudes are rare among Christians. I dunno.

> The chorus (Mother Nature) will be louder, as you leave your garden
> towards the "wilds", which is why monotheism (Mother Culture) made
> such things forbidden and scary.

Hey, maybe this is why our opinions diverge. I don't identify monotheism
with culture. I see it as above and beyond culture, nature, fears,
ideologies, opinions, etc. And maybe you're talking simply about the
culture that has developed around the monotheistic philosophy? Because,
to be honest, most Christians don't really think long and hard about the
whole "the earth and all its fullness is the Lord's" line. If, in fact,
the earth is God's, then there is no opportunity to paint the
'wilds' (and the wonderful spiritual feeling you experience in it) as
evil. Yet Christians often still try to anyway.

Quite frankly, I don't trust our culture. It should be obvious that I
even have serious problems with the Christian culture that I'm
supposedly trying to defend. But to incriminate a belief based on the
culture that has attached itself to it, I think, would be a mistake.

Just some more food for thought.

Paul





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