One Song at a Time

This post is inspired by the song
'Better People' by Australian performer Xavier Rudd whose lyrics raise the vital issues of ecological and social care. Rudd calls his latest CD, White Moth, 'my proudest work' and the video and lyrics reflect his ethic to change the world. The video clip starts with images of the murderous whale hunt by the Japanese, depicts giant trees in threatened wild forests, and explores global suffering from all sorts of angles. In an era of suffering of both humanity and planet, voices like Xavier Rudd's and that of John Butler raise our collective consciousness and hopefully make this place a better world.

It rained last night. All night. The river valley was grey in the drizzle but the undergrowth was alive with the darting and chirping of tiny birds as they chased each other through the scrub, relishing in play and one of the few times this year it has rained. It was as if the place was becoming slowly alive in the dampness. The birds knew it.

People, when they meet each other, now comment on the coming of rain as something special, unusual, whereas rain in Brisbane is normally a frequent event. But not this year.

On the way home I met the priest at the local Anglican church near the river. She told me about how they are becoming more aware of ecological concerns and are trying to become more environmentally-friendly. The parish is installing water tanks and wants dual flush toilets. It has taken mainstream religions in Australia some time to join these ecological changes but the urgency of the water crisis has galvanised action. The Uniting and Catholic Churches are carrying out environmental audits, and a few years ago, the Catholic Church initiated Catholic Earthcare Australia, (2002) with the intention 'to mobilize its congregation - representing one-quarter of the Australian population - on environmental issues'.

Caring for creation is definitely on the agenda of the Australian National Counci of Churches, which through its 'Decade to Overcome Violence' is raising concerns about ecological violence alongside demands for peace and justice.

In the US, things have moved faster. But, at least initially, the relationship between mainstream religion and ecology seemed to be an individual rather than an institutional affair as people like Thomas Berry, Paul Santmire, Matthew Fox, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sallie Mcfague, Mary Tucker and other luninaries laid the groundwork for changing community attitudes.

Then the institutions got involved - and some campaigns have been both innovative and successful. In 2002-2003, the Evangelical Environment Network (EEN) flushed some American TV stations with ads asking: 'What car would Jesus drive?'. Hopefully he might walk or ride a bike, but practically, a small environmentally-sensitive vehicle. EEN believes that environmental problems are moral and spiritual problems, and making a decision about which car to drive is essentially a moral decision.

Living as if the earth matters. This vital ethical approach has been a feature of ecophilosophies and ecospiritualities such as Paganism, Druidry and Goddess worship through sacred nature religion practice, as well as deep ecology and spiritual-ecofemininsm. Bron Taylor found a 'dark green religion' amongst forest activists and other nature carers and more recently has discussed aquatic nature religion, while my recent work has focused on ecological-spiritual relationships among marine activists that I frame as a 'deep blue religion'. In the end, it is about a profound reverence for the earth's dynamic and life-providing ecosystems.

These themes are immersed in the moving words of Xavier Rudd's 'Better People' who lyrically gives 'respect to the ones making changes'.

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Riverpsychology

The river has a subtle way of moving into the heart. I miss it if I can't riverwalk. It is a place for reflection and quiet contemplation about the world. But in focusing this blog around the river I wonder if it is possible to shift more into the global political, social and spiritual arena as the media is filled with the suffering and pain of people and land in pockets actoss the globe. Palestine. Sudan. Iraq. There is a human and an ecological toll.

For example, during the week (June 16) the Secretary-General of the U.N. Ban Ki-moon said that in part, global warming has aggravated the conflict in Dafur, Sudan. He points to the severe drought that has plagued the region and suggests that water shortage have provoked the fighting. 'Almost invariably, we discuss Darfur in a convenient military and political shorthand — an ethnic conflict pitting Arab militias against black rebels and farmers...Look to its roots, though, and you discover a more complex dynamic.'

Contemplating these big issues as well as possible solutions seem daunting, fraught, and yet, brave peacemakers are continually working to heal and encourage peace. On a recent visit to Brisbane the inspirational peacebuilder Satish Kumar asked what would happen if, instead of a Department of Defence and the Armed Forces, there was a Department or Ministry of Peace.

These thoughts travel with me as I muse along the river.

The rivertrail is a good place for reflection - to take time to merge with the ebb and flow of this tidal river, to watch the mangrove roots rise through the mud, to listen to the tiny olive SilverEyes chirp through the upper eucalypt branches, to breathe the musty-dusty earth and to find an internal placidity among these elements. Being connected to the river, as the light drizzle barely wets the ground, affects the physical (exercise), emotional (sense of wellbeing), and spiritual (heart) and shows me there is a correlation between being part of the river system, connecting with the watery ecology, and the way I feel.

This interconnectivity between human and ecosytem is the core of the field of ecopsychology. Ecopsychology promotes an intimate and dynamic connection between healing the mind and healing and protecting the earth.

Ecopsychology combines psychology and ecology and advances that there is an interconnection between personal crisis, societal crisis and the planetary crisis. As separate discourses, psychology focuses on suffering as an individual problem while ecopsychology sees it as a collective problem as well. The challenge, hopes clinical psychologist Sarah Conn (1995:171), is to find ways to deal with the personal issues so they are no longer seen as individual problems but ‘as microcosms of the larger whole, of what is happening in the world’. As the person works to heal themselves and rediscover joy in the world, they are also learning to contribute to the healing of the earth.

Peter Cock (1996) terms this process of encountering nature and aspects of our own natures as ‘being and becoming in nature’. ‘Being through nature’ can come about by sitting quietly in the outdoors and just ‘be-ing’. These quiet reflective moments open up a path of communication to the wider world where people can get in touch with their inner nature, through a process of becoming responsive to elements in the natural world, and being responsible for caring for self and others (human and other-than-human)

‘Becoming through nature’ assumes that the earth has something to teach us about ourselves and our relationship with it. Cock (1996:3) describes the process as one of observing and taking note of how we feel in nature, seeing ‘attributes of ourselves highlighted in the characteristics of plants, animals and elements, such as the hardness of rocks, the slipperiness of fish, the piercing eye of an eagle, the persistence of a wombat’. These metaphors then become messages for personal reflection and self-transformation.

However, there is no guarantee that this self-transformative process will lead directly or indirectly to environmental action, although the person may gain a deeper awareness about themselves and a deeper understanding of the connection that binds them to the natural world. John Davis (1998:95) maintains that either outcome is relevant as the experience itself, if practised ‘regularly over a long period of time is a potent spiritual practice’. For Davis, the process of ‘being and becoming in nature’ takes on the mantle of ritual.

Riverwalking is a ritual. Today I meet a Black Faced Cuckoo Shrike, a family of unknown largish birds I can't identify even from the bird book (they could be curlews). Later I spy a tree filled with more than a dozen resting Ibis. They look like giant white fruit and this charming sight nourishes my spirit.

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References:
Cock PH, 1996, 'Ecological Practice for Nature Carers: Work in Progress', Paper presented to the Social Ecology Colloquium: Sense of Place: Depth Perspectives on Australian Landscapes and Environmental Values, University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, Dec. 1996.
Conn SA, 1995, 'When the Earth Hurts, Who Responds?' in T Roszak, ME Gomes & AD Kanner, Eds, Ecopsychology. Restoring the Earth. Healing the Mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club.
Davis J, 1998, 'The Transpersonal Dimensions of Ecopsychology: Nature, Nonduality, and Spiritual Practice',The Humanist Psychologist, 26, 1-3, 69-100.