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by
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D.
 No
one can doubt we live in
a time of unprecedented ecological destruction. The fabric of life on this
planet is being degraded at an ever-accelerating pace, accompanied by
massive loss of animal and plant diversity and escalating threats to human
health and well-being. Evolutionary biologists tell us that there have
been numerous episodes of worldwide extinction before, including five
major "spasms" involving the loss of up to 90%
of existing species -- the last one being the cataclysm 65 million years
ago that brought the Age of Dinosaurs to an end. What is unprecedented
about the present situation is that it is the actions and technological
productions of one species -- the human -- that are bringing about this
biosphere meltdown. Increasing numbers of people have therefore come to
the conclusion that it is in the hearts and minds of human beings that the
causes and cures of the eco-catastrophe are to be found.
This is the basic reason why a psychologist like
myself is concerning himself with the imbalance
in the human-nature relationship, and how it can be healed. If the
imbalance exists because of certain mistaken or delusional attitudes,
perceptions and beliefs, then we can ask the psychological question of how
this came about, and how it can be changed. As a psychotherapist, I am a
member of a profession that deals with psychic disturbance and pathology.
Cannot what we have learned from working with troubled individuals and
families help us deal with this collective psychopathology, this profound
alienation of the human psyche from the Earth? These are some of the basic
questions of "green psychology" that I wish to address in this book.
I prefer the term "green psychology"
to "ecopsychology", which is presently gaining considerable currency,
largely due to Theodore Roszak's brilliant work in The Voice of the Earth.
The reason is that those of us in this field (including Roszak) do not
mean to advocate the creation of a new sub-discipline of psychology, to
join clinical, social, developmental, etc. Rather we are talking about
a fundamental revisioning of what psychology is, or should have been in
the first place, a revision that would take the ecological context of
human life into account. As Roszak says, "psychology needs ecology and
ecology needs psychology." The absence of any consideration given to the
ecological basis of human life in textbooks and theories of psychology
is startling: it's as if we lived in a vacuum, or a space capsule. Interestingly,
some of the earliest and profoundest contributions to an ecological psychology
were made by non-psychologists: the ecologist Paul Shepard (in Nature
and Madness ), the theologian Thomas Berry (in The Dream of the Earth),
the philosopher Warwick Fox (in Transpersonal Ecology), and the historian
Theodore Roszak (in The Voice of the Earth).
The kind of fundamental revisioning
called for by ecologically minded, "green" psychologists parallels similar
movements in other fields. Philosophers in the new field of environmental
ethics have been working for twenty years on the philosophical and moral
aspects of environmental problems, and how ethical considerations can
be brought into discussions of public policy. A small but growing number
of ecological economists have been investigating the thorny problems involved
in revisioning conventional economic theory to take the ecological basis
of all economic activity into account. Unlikely as it may seem, even the
field of religious studies has undergone some significant soul-searching,
under the stimulus of devastating critiques by environmental philosophers.
Conferences have been held in which representatives of the major organized
religions have examined their traditions in response to a call for religious
consideration of ecological issues. Together with major paradigm shifts
in the natural sciences -- primarily from the mechanistic, atomistic framework
to a systems view of nature and the cosmos -- these revisionings amount
to the beginnings of an ecological or systems worldview.
Ecology has been called the
"subversive science", because by making relationships and interdependencies
the central focus of its concerns, it subverts the traditional academic
tendencies to specialization and fragmentation. Ecopsychology within a
systems worldview therefore would of necessity have to consider questions
traditionally dealt with by philosophers, economists, biologists, theologians
or historians from within their respective paradigms. As an educator,
I have wrestled for twenty years with the problems involved in teaching
ecological perspectives to students who don't see the relevance of these
issues to their interests in the human psyche, or in self-development.
I can't say that I have found any certain answers to this educational
dilemma, but the essays in this book point to some possible approaches
that I've found useful.
A new understanding of the
role of the human in the biosphere is urgently needed. Philosophers dating
back to the European Romantic movement and American Transcendentalism,
have identified the domination of nature by humans as the root pathology
of Western civilization. In the 20th century, as the pace of worldwide
ecological destruction and the loss of species diversity has accelerated
under the relentless onslaught of technological industrialism, such critiques
have taken on a tone of urgency verging on desperation.
A distinction can be made between,
on the one hand, those environmental movements that focus on improved
legislative control over pollution and waste, and scientific ecosystem
management; and, on the other hand, those movements of "radical ecology"
that challenge the very foundations of the modernist industrial worldview,
and the ideologies of domination associated with it. Radical ecology movements
include deep ecology, ecofeminism, social ecology, socialist ecology,
eco-justice, bioregionalism -- and perhaps ecopsychology, if considered
from a holistic or systems perspective.
The radical ecology movements
emphasize one or another form of domination as the core of the interlocking
systems of domination that characterize the modern world.The deep ecology
movement has as its central focus the replacement of anthropocentric,
exploitative attitudes towards nature by non-dominating, eco- or biocentric
values and paradigms. Ecofeminism links the domination of nature with
the patriachal domination of women. Social ecology critiques all forms
of hierarchical order and domination, whether of class, ethnicity or gender.
For socialist ecology the crucial diagnosis is via the critique of capital
accumulation and the profit motive. The eco- or environmental justice
movement focusses on the links between racism and the human domination
of nature. Bioregionalism involves a critique of convential political
and economic approaches to places and regions. Green or ecopsychology
could also be considered "radical" -- insofar as it posits a fundamental
re-orientation of human attitudes towards the totality of the "more-than-human
world".
In addition to these radical
revisionings of fundamental paradigms and value systems in the social
sciences, philosophy and religion, there has also been an increased openness
and receptivity to indigenous and archaic forms of knowledge. As the environmental
devastation wrought by the industrial model of development increases,
the realization has grown that indigenous societies (those that have survived)
have in fact often preserved practices of sustainability that we are now
desperately trying to re-invent. As the generally negative or neglectful
attitudes towards the environment enshrined in the major organized religions
has become more obvious, many concerned individuals have found themselves
turning toward the animistic, polytheistic religion of their "pagan" ancestors
-- the pre-Christian "country-dwellers" who recognized and respected the
spiritual intelligences inherent in nature. As the spiritual emptiness
and moral shallowness in many religious and psychotherapeutic systems
has become more and more evident, thousands of seekers have turned to
shamanic practices such as the "shamanic journey", the "vision quest",
or the use of hallucinogenic visionary plants -- in order to cultivate
a more direct psychic, conscious connection with the natural world.
These are some of the major
themes in this work. A brief outline follows: In chapter 1, The True,
Original First World, I describe how a trip to the Lacandon Maya in Chiapas,
Mexico, and my participation in a ceremony with their traditional intoxicant
balche', led to a radical paradigm shift in my thinking: the multinational
industrial empire based on economic and military might cannot be considered
the "First World". That appellation should belong to the historically
oldest and primary layer of civilization -- the world of the indigenous
tribal peoples. In chapter 2, Gaia's Alchemy: Ruin and Renewal of the
Earth, I explore how the symbolic language of alchemy, the medieval science
which concerned itself with the transformation of matter, can be used
to understand the massive biospheric transformations taking place in our
time. This essay is followed by an account of my participation in a traditional
"vision quest" in the California desert. Through this, I came to a much
deeper appreciation for the role of such earth-honoring rituals.
Chapter 4, Mystical Greenness:
The Visions of Hildegard von Bingen, discusses the astonishing ecological
spirituality and nature mysticism of the 11th century Benedictine Abbess
and visionary prophet, a prime exponent of what some are calling the "creation
spirituality" tradition within Christianity. In chapter 5, I discuss the
historical and potential future role of psychoactive plant medicines in
systems of transformation such as shamanism, alchemy and yoga. In chapter
6, I review some of the diagnostic metaphors from psychopathology that
have been proposed to account for the collective pathology of the human
relationship to nature -- concepts such as autism, amnesia, addiction,
dissociation and others. In chapter 7, I discuss some of the historical
roots of the split between humans and nature, particularly its origins
in the rise of mechanistic science, and further back in the ascendancy
of transcendental monotheism.
Chapter 8, Sky Gods and Earth
Deities, traces the split even further back into pre-history -- into the
long-drawn out struggle between the invading nomadic Indo-Europeans with
their sky and warrior gods, and the aboriginal matricentric Goddess cultures
of Old Europe, with their earth, animal and feminine deities. In chapter
9, The Black Goddess, the Green God and the Wild Human, I explore the
some of the key mythic figures of our pagan ancestors -- the gods and
goddesses that personify our relationship to the Earth, to the plant realm
and to the world of animals. Chapter 10, Re-Unification of the Sacred
and the Natural , argues that the current revival of interest in the sacramental
use of visionary plants can contribute to a healing of the split in our
collective psyche.
With the last two chapters,
I return to the present: chapter 11, Transition to an Ecological Worldview,
summarizes in as condensed a fashion as possible, the main distinguishing
features of the ecosystems worldview, as it is emerging in many disciplines
simultaneously out of the inadequacies of the modernist worldview with
its associated techno-industrial excesses. Finally, in chapter 12, The
Place and the Story, I show how in such an ecological worldview, a new
yet ancient perspective on human identity can arise. Traditional people
had a much closer relationship to place; we need to learn to understand
ourselves in relationship to a place, and to the story of that place,
and ultimately the story of the universe. 
The Green Earth
Foundation
P.O. Box 327, El Verano, Ca 95433
Is an educational and research organization
dedicated to the healing and harmonizing of the
relationships between humanity and the Earth.
Our objectives are to help bring about changes
in attitudes, values, perceptions, and worldviews
that are based on ecological balance and respect
for the integrity of all life-forms on Earth.
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