“For centuries we have regarded nature as something separate, to be exploited for our greed and endless desires. But how can we be separate from the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that feeds us? There is a knowing in our bodies, even if censored by our minds, how we are part of one living ecosystem, which we are polluting and destroying at an accelerating rate. We need to become free from the ideology of conquest, which seeks to control rather than listen, and sense what it means that the Earth is in distress and that our human landscape is fracturing. Sadly, much of our present ecological response is to continue with our technological dreams, fantasies of carbon capture or electric cars solving our carbon emissions. We do not dare to look deeper, to go beyond this story of conquest and control, of alienation from the land, of our failure to listen to its many voices.
As Thomas Berry put it, “We are talking to ourselves. We are not talking to the river, we are not listening to the wind and the stars. We have broken the great conversation. By breaking the conversation we have shattered the universe. As Amitav Ghosh writes so poignantly, “The planet will never come alive for you unless your songs and stories give life to all the beings, seen and unseen, that inhabit a living Earth.” This is the world that is waiting for us, a fully animate Earth, alive with the songs and stories we tell our children and grandchildren: the true heritage we can pass down through the generations. We always belonged to this mystery, and maybe we can begin to find our way back, even if it means following an almost hidden path, unrecognized by our rational selves. Despite the growing darkness and images of destruction, the gate to this garden is always open, and if we listen carefully, we may hear the many voices that still beckon us.” ~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee- Artwork by: Ruth Evans
