Just came across this short article from 2009. It's simple, but I found it very touching and relevant and wanted to share it here--particularly in light of Willi Paul's invitation to those of you interested in Ecopsych to join his new Alliance group, "New Global Mythology"--which I hope you'll do. Willi is very dedicated to his topic and his attention and focus are so meaningful in this moment.
In this article, James Hillman echoes this focus, saying:
"It is almost as if we need a huge revolution of thinking, and I don't think it's a spiritual revolution either. It's something else. It's that feeling of being hurt when those cows are gone and you walk past that place and you see those houses stretching to the horizon. How do you present that in the cosmology that rules the world, whether you call it bottom line thinking or administrative language, whatever system you want to call it, that rules the world, all the world?"
Hope you enjoy: Read it here: Ecopsychology 101: James Hillman and the pain of community loss
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“Have you ever sat near a roaring brook and felt refreshed, been cheered by the vibrant song of a thrush or renewed by a sea breeze? Does a wildflower’s fragrance bring you joy, a whale or snow-capped peak charge your senses? You did not take a class to learn to feel these innate joys. We are born with them. As natural beings, that is how we are designed to know life and our life. Dramatically, new sensory nature activities culturally support and reinforce those intelligent, feelingful natural relationships. In natural areas, backyard to back country, the activities create thoughtful nature-connected moments. In these enjoyable non-language instants our naturalse the attraction senses safely awaken, play and intensify. Additional activities immediately validate and reinforce each natural sensation as it comes into consciousness. Still other activities guide us to speak from these feelings and thereby create nature-connected stories. These stories become part of our conscious thinking.”
– On Connecting with nature: An Interview with Mike Cohen
Thanks for the link Bonnie. Christian's comment on the role Buddhism, as a philosophy, could play in the emergence of a new sense of community, and connection with our Mother Earth, resonates strongly.
The Abrahamic religious traditions seem to have lost their way; in emphasising Humanity as the ruler and heir-apparent of Creation, rather than as co-creator and participant in a global community of Life, we've almost succeeded in truly de-valuing our only home: Earth.