[This paper isn't due until Monday - I finished it Thursday night. Enjoy!]

Executive Summary: Impediments to Establishing Global Sustainability

Ron Khare

The purpose of this paper is to identify and clearly explain the single largest challenge to the establishment of global sustainability.

Our working definition of “global sustainability” is the perpetuity of natural resources. The definition of “civilization” is ever-increasingly complex urbanization. This is distinctly different from “community,” with which it is often confused.

Summary

The only real factor that prevents global sustainability is civilization, or more specifically, the cities upon which civilization is based. Civilization’s basic structure is exploitative, destructive and unsustainable. The continued rise of civilization is the only true source of the destruction in the natural world. No amount of topical solutions will fix its fundamental need, which is to take, by any means necessary, the resources it cannot provide for itself.

Primary Threat: Civilization Itself

Civilization is marked as the shift of mankind from nature to city. As far as human pursuits are concerned, this may be for the best – higher concentrations of people and access to the benefits from the resulting greater division of labor have led to some amazing advances of arts and sciences.

Cities, by design, have one deadly flaw – they cannot support their dense populations with the resources contained within them. In order to survive, then, resources (like food) must be brought in from their surroundings.

Historically, the resource base for a city was strictly limited to what could be walked in by carts or by beasts of burden. The needs of these cities were fewer and simpler – food, primarily, followed by raw resources to be used by craftsmen.

This may seem innocuous at first, but the system of violence, imperialism and oppression is already firmly established in this model. The city relies entirely upon the ability of farmers to farm significantly more than they themselves need, and then expend the energy necessary to transport those heavy, time-sensitive goods to a city center. What follows is a list of the inherit problems with this system.

Resource Redistribution and Loss

In a sustainable agricultural model, most (if not all) of the nutrients in the soil stay on-site, and are eventually re-incorporated into the soil. The nutrients that cannot be recaptured can be replaced by drawing on established wild areas – leaf litter from forests, for example.

Pushing the lands to their limit for exportation to the city destabilizes the soil. The nutrients leave the farm in the form of produce, only later to be discarded by the city-dwellers in the trash or down a sewer system – never to return to the farm. This one-way flow of nutrients means the farmer becomes increasingly reliant on external fertilization means – the farmer becomes a threat, in turn, to the wild areas as his need to replenish the soil increases.

Soil is just one example of the problem with city consumption – any and all natural resources are subject to this one-way flow. The cities take these natural resources and produce ever-increasingly sophisticated and specialized items for human needs – or may lead to better knowledge, science and art. In any case, the resources themselves are never returned to the land from which they came.

The Rise of Civilization is the Death of Nature

Cities, by their nature, are unsustainable – although it is possible that a small city working with the people who live on the nearby land can last for a very long time. However, a successful city (by the common understanding of success) will become increasingly sophisticated, efficient and, in all likelihood, grow.

The city lifestyle is removed from natural processes, even while understanding of those processes may increase from higher learning and observation. Cities are lit up at night, creating an unnatural daytime effects. Roads and sewers are built to efficiently funnel traffic and sewage to predetermined locations. Soil is covered with stones or concrete. Waterways are straightened, and rainwater is flushed away. Views are obstructed by large buildings and walls. Sounds and smells are all of human origin. Animals are either slaughtered for food, domesticated as pets, or killed as pests. Vegetation, if it is allowed, is contained and cultivated for aesthetic properties. City gardens are typically herb gardens or small supplemental plots. As a city expands and increases in infrastructure and sophistication, it further removes those living therein from the natural world. At the same time, it continues to put increasing demands on the surrounding “wild” resources – and those who gather from or farm them.

Eventually, the needs of the city exceeds the yield limit of the immediate land. While it is possible that the city could take efforts to reduce its population, this is almost never the case. Instead, the answer has always been to reach father out, gathering resources from most distant lands.

It may be that those nearby farmers may have some sort of allegiance to the city based on economic or defensive purposes that could justify the loss of their resources. The farther you travel from the city, however, the harder it is to offer benefits that offset that loss. When the city realizes it must have those resources in order to survive and prosper, all too often the answer has been to take them by force.

There is no logical reason that someone living off of a piece of land should voluntarily create a one-way stream of resources off that land. Either those living on the land must be indoctrinated with an established set of illogical principles that support resource exploitation, or those resources must be taken by force. Either way, those living on the land that has city-valued resources is on the losing end of the deal – true sustainability precludes the perpetual exportation of resources.

Symptoms are Not Causes

Every threat to civilization Lester R. Brown mentions in his book Plan B 4.0 is symptomatic of an underlying planetary disease. The problems with climate change, war, water usage, agriculture, energy generation, transportation, peak oil, over-population, failing states and the like are merely the result of a firmly established “civilized” mindset. Resource extraction has advanced to the stage where many people can no longer live on their land – half of the world’s population have followed the flow of their resources to the cities. (source)

Civilization has had a few thousand years to perfect its justification for existence, downplay or re-word resource extraction, and so far remove people from nature that many people today believe that our only hope for sustainability is in the further development and refinement of civilization itself. One-way resource extraction and the exploitation necessary to continue that flow will abate, people say, if we can advance civilization just a little bit more.

Yet, in all the thousands of years that mankind has been developing cities, there has never been a satisfactory way to resolve the fundamental issue: too many people on too little land to support them. There is no guarantee that, if techno-idealist visions of “eco-cities” are realized (making even the largest mega-cities fully self-sufficient) that humanity will abandon the long-entrenched goals and values of civilization itself.

More importantly, even if every symptom of civilization was solved through the application of miraculous new technology, the disease of civilization will only continue to grow. New resources will be found vital to further development, leading once again to extraction, exploitation and scarcity, resulting in more advanced problems in sustainability that we’ve yet to fathom.

Reading: The Efficiency Dilemma (which you can read HERE!)

The better (more efficient) we are at doing something industrial (using coal power, increasing miles-per=gallon), the more we end up doing it. That is, rather than see an overall decrease of gasoline consumption due to more efficient motors, we see a net increase in fuel consumption – more people driving more hours. The more electricity we can squeeze out of coal, the more plants we build, the more power we use.

Here's a picture of Jimmy Carter, for some reason.

There’s just one small neuron that makes this link happen in the brain. Just one tiny bit of information – the better we are, the more we are – is the turning point for the rest of society and civilization. You’re heard me repeat the adage: “If you’re driving to Mexico and you actually want to go to Canada, just slowing down won’t actually help.” That is, if we need to become a sustainable society, simply minimizing non-sustainability won’t actually help – at the very best, you’ve just postponed utter destruction for a while. Where we need to go is in the exact opposite direction, and the only way we’re going to get there is by stopping entirely, turning around, and going the other way.

With the addition of the Jeavons Paradox, we see the worst of it: by simply slowing down, we actually speed our trip up. By conserving fuel, we can drive longer and get more cars on the road, increasing this mass migration to Mexico while Canada slips farther and farther away.

What do you think?

To me, it says one thing: An unsustainable system cannot be retrofitted to sustainability. The very system itself must become something completely different. Anyone who totes themselves as a “green” or “environmentalist” or anything like that, and is all in favor of increasing the efficiency of our current systems needs to stop, read this article, and think very seriously about the wisdom of making a bad machine better at what it does.

In the meantime, the only author I’ve read who actually understands the repercussions of what I’ve just said is Derrick Jensen, and even he stops short of instigating the full-scale revolution that’s needed.

Ah… will I, when that day comes?

The obscure we always see sooner or later; the obvious always seems to take a little longer. – Edward R. Murrow

I’m rather fortunate – a few days before the block started, a friend had picked some some sustainability-themed books at a local second-hand store and gave them to me. Among them was Natural Capitalism, which I think I should read from front to back soon.

While some fundamental assumptions about our civilization’s basic structure and momentum (specifically, their need for complete overhaul) aren’t addressed (at least, not in these readings), taken in their own light they are, again, head-to-desk obvious. Really, knowing these things, and then seeing how the mass of humanity continues to stumble about in such gross and offensive inefficiency would drive anyone borderline mad, and make you wonder if mankind’s truest curse is his own stupidity.

However, the authors don’t seem to apply a completely holistic systems-thinking in their approach. They stop their systems at the building itself, in relation to roads and parks surrounding it… one or two more layers should bring that system into completion – with the planet itself, and all life living upon it.

Indeed, as Joel Kovel mightily suggests in his book The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World, the very foundations of our societal structure may be the largest destructive (i.e. inefficient) element in any design process. And while, yes, we do need to live in super-insulated homes and use 90% less energy to do everything, those basic capitalistic drives towards more and more seem unaddressed – encouraged, even, by the “gained” energy in those ultra-efficient designs.

So I’ll read this book, at some point, and I’ll come to a more complete conclusion - I’ll also have to read The Enemy of Nature and see if I’ve done it justice. In the meantime, no matter where you are, the basic elements presented in this book make a lot of sense and should be embraced.

 [We apparently have to have a talent show for our Permaculture class. Being rather talentless, I was somewhat inspired to write a poem (in a poor imitation of Blake). I don't write poems often (or at all), and again, this is obviously the first draft of a rough idea... but here ya go!]

Machinated man-made wretched wasteland wrestled my weary mind
and turned my awkward feet towards freedom’s golden lands
heavy, old, unfortunate man-made-man I came to find
no freedom’s land left to find, only dunes of golden sands

Distraught and downtrodden I sat my ass upon a rock
and asked the bright burning solar light above,
‘Where may man find relief for his flock
and enter in God’s sheltering love?’

Sun came down, hard and heated
and spoke not, nor cared
but by degrees my skin beaded
and I to more agreeable company dared

I climbed a sheer cliff face
where cold stones reached the sky
where wild wooly Winds raced
and, unchecked, should cause me to fly

‘Winds,’ I asked, while tears began to streaming,
‘to where should we now turn our heart?
What comfort’s home now opens to being?’
The winds raced on, on and nothing to impart.

Bruised and bleeding, no less in spirit
I came across a tiny cave in a shaded nook
the way dark, I decided not to fear it
and tumbled in, the world forsook.

Cool, not cold, the darkness embraced
the ground soft and supportive
the sheltering cave my spirit encased
and gave me relief from my motive

Enjoying some well-deserved shut-eye
I awoke in a start, surprised by the time
and found myself embraced by
something serpentine

The snake, not fat by fortune’s grace
thin and black and keen and dread
was no less long than a mile’s pace
and held me wrapped from foot to head

‘Sir,’ said I through strangled lips, ‘you’ve much imposed
the length of your body, it holds mine still.
If this is your cave in which I dozed
I throw myself on your goodwill.’

‘If it pleases you to let me go
though my trespass should warrant death
then I alone shall know
that a serpent’s love is best.’

The snake raised it’s skinny head
its eyes dark in the low light cave
its tongue flickering as it said
‘Stupid human, but brave.’

‘Tell me then, I must know,
by who’s love is your measure?
Tell me how you came here below
it would give me some pleasure.’

‘Certainly,’ said I, and began to recall
man’s cruel wasteland, beset by vulture’s stare
the Sun’s indifferent fireball
and the Wind’s callous air

My story seemed to sway the snake
a tear ran down a scaly cheek
and he said ‘Yes, my heart aches
for the world of man is bleak.’

He stood for a time, thinking
and presently loosened his hold
and composed himself, unblinking
among his many folds

‘Mankind cursed snakes,’ said he
‘For some original sin, I guess,
and forever after we are forced to flee
or face our eternal rest.’

‘If some serpent caused the fall,
to which your Jesus paid the price
why live you in wastelands all
and not regain Earthly paradise?’

‘We would’ said I, ‘if we knew the ways,
but at every step we seem to falter
we pray and pray for better days
but our knees bloody upon the alter.’

‘Then let this serpent make amends
for our previous transgressions!’
So saying, the snake took many bends
and made ready his mind’s possessions

Opening his mouth he began to hiss
and sway and swing and dance
and sang a song just like this
which held me in a trance.

‘Contrary to human belief
and may it be of some relief

that man’s greatest effort made
comes from a soil spade

misaligned he pulls apart
what was once nature’s art

but nature’s wisdom now allures
to bring together what occurs

and in sacred wildness find
the truth for all mankind

that a man must break his back
when he his functions forget to stack

and all of nature’s promenade
comes to him, ready-made

and all he has to do is bask
in the sunlight, simply ask

‘What, I wonder, is nature’s plan?’
and in finding answers, simple man

does not push, nor pull
nor take away from nature’s rule

but let’s God own design win
observe, step back, give a grin

for all your work is already done
be smart, design well and have your fun

Permaculture is the key
to mankind’s immortality.’

Thus sang the serpentine snake
slithering along the floor
his simple words put my mind to bake
as he gently showed me the door

Again outside, against the dew
the sun rose up out over yonder hills
my outlook changed, perceptions new
my body shook in wondrous thrills

unfettered, unshackled, fluid and sly
up those steep stone steps skipping
I sang my serpent song to the sky
and danced among the wild wind’s whipping

the hot golden sands I turned to run
between the boulders and dust so fine
I sang my serpent song to the Sun
and soaked in strong, sensuous shine

machinated man-made made ready my early arrival
mind at ease, awkward feet no longer stumbling
I carried with me now Nature’s Bible
and the force of tectonic rumbling

There’s a deeper power in all of this
much more than plants and maps
unending planetary justice
bringing greed to its collapse

Be joyful, friends, but please be wary
bear the serpent’s song in mind
the darkness is not ours to carry
so in wisdom’s light do shine.

I’ve been asking myself this since I started: What is the Sustainable Living Coalition? What does it do? Why does it exist? Who benefits? How do we fit into the larger picture? So let me ask you….

Is the SLC:

1) An Educational Organization, with the primary purpose of providing workshops and classes for the benefit of the community?

2) A Center where start-up, off-grid businesses can start?

3) An Educational Campus, where interns from around the state and country can live and learn about Sustainability?

4) An Umbrella network, which connects various Sustainable Organizations with the community?

5) An extension of Fairfield’s Go-Green Initiative?

6) An extension of MUM’s Sustainable Living Department?

7) An extension of Eco-Village?

8 ) A Showcase of various permaculture  design and natural building techniques?

9) All the above?

10) None of the above, or some sort of mish-mash?

I’ve been asking myself these questions for a while now. I need to know the definitive answer – the exact, concise purpose of the SLC – before I can move forward on any of the hundreds of projects that need to be done around here. There’s a nearly-unlimited amount of things to do, and because of that, I must know where my time, energy and skills will be put to best use. More to the point, I must know what the SLC truly is, and what I can do to help it achieve those specific goals.

Everything is up in the air with me right now, as I try to sort through the vast amount of information that has come my way. I spent over four hours talking to Steve Cooperman, Brian Robbins and Jim (uh… I forget how to spell his last name), just going over things – incorporating my research into the Board Group emails, what various Board members have told me, plus talking to Briggs, Ashley and several other people.

I was asked to take control of this place and run it like I would if it was mine… and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing, just as soon as I figure out what it is.

Hello Board and Blog,

1C(2): Develop an internship program targeting local and state-wide programs and resources.   — “Design a community internship program for students majoring in SL – Coordinate with… other Iowa colleges to develop the internship programs in concert with the Community Coordinator.” I’m the loneliest intern!  The program design due date was December 2009, and things have changed somewhat radically since then. However, I do gather it is our intention to increase the internship program – but, again, in order to do that we’ll need our water and some significant improvements to our infrastructure – both physically and educationally. This ties back into our need for/lack of solid curriculum.

It's time to let it go.

Final Paper for Deep Ecology, Part 1: Personal Myth

Ron Khare

This is who I was:

When the imagination of the Great Unmanifest stirred and brought forth the potential for all of Creation, I came into existence. I am, or was, the expression of pure geometry, crossing lines inside a perfect circle. For a moment I simply existed, one design out of the nearly infinite possible designs. Then the Creator breathed life into the world, and I began to vibrate – I became alive.

This design is called, among other things, the “sun cross.” Like the sun, it has a radiant center that spreads energy outwards, intense and unrelenting. From a distance, or when it is small, it gives and nourishes life. Embedded in every design was motion; underlining each of my brother and sister shapes were unexpressed values of energy. Mine looks something like this:

The sun cross is a repeating design – at mathematical intervals the circle and cross reappear. Exponentially.

As I became alive, more and more alive, I expanded and grew. My power grew with me, as I began to crowd out my brother and sister designs. Each jump to a larger form expanded my vision – I started smaller than an atom, and soon grew to the size of an ant, the ocean, the planet, the sun, the solar system. My vision became cosmic as I kept growing, expressing my inherit nature, being who I was. My energy became radiant, effulgent, intense, burning. Stars became grains of sand as I hummed, burning brighter. I began to see the edges of Creation, but I grew on – growth was the only thing I knew. I was the Ever-Expanding Sun Cross, and I would destroy all darkness, and with it, Creation itself.

I was close to the Edge, a boundary I had no concept of, when Shiva appeared. He stood, dark and radiant, a terrible and serene mountain, looming like a giant before me. He stood outside of Creation, like it was hardly worth His notice.

I watched in awe – the Divine, the faint light in nothing. He raised his foot and stepped down upon me, like I was nothing more than a tiny pebble or patch of dirt. I was pressed down, down, down…. When He lifted His foot I was the size of a dinner plate. I had become this:

I was stuck! The mandala structure prevented my energy from re-forming in ever-expanding circles. I had known nothing but expressing that value of growth before, but now I simply existed, static but still alive.

I cried, shaken and horrible, and I cried. I went to Shiva and asked to be free of this horrible cage. Why had He done this? What wrong had I committed? I only expressed the potential inherit in my design – if that was wrong, then the fault lay with the Creator, not His Creation! Why should I suffer, being bound forever, for the sins of God?

Shiva sat in silence, absorbed in the Self, and did not hear my cries.

Confusion clouded my being. I no longer knew who I was, and I became muddled. I fell from that lofty realm and began getting mixed up. Who am I, then, if I cannot be who I was? Am I this? Am I that?

I fell into ignorance, and began to incarnate. I passed from rock to rock, plant to plant in what seemed like a blur of lifetimes, each one yielding just one bit of wisdom: “not this.” I lived a lifetime as every plant, and then moved through tiny bugs, ants, spiders.

Each life lived provided more insight, more wisdom: Not this, I’m not this, I’m not this. I moved through the animal kingdom like a joyous race, shedding the skins of misconception. I was not an alligator, not an ape, nor an elephant. I became human after an instant of millions of years, and progressed through humanity, from a crazy beastly person to ever-growing radiance, exploring the darkness of evil and the brightest light of goodness.

I used the last few lifetimes to pierce the veil, to look back upon myself beyond the superficiality of Creation. I explored the forms of the Circle, the Wheel of Dharma. I studied the mysteries of the Cross. I found, in different ways and manners, a way to get back to what I had lost, my Self beyond form. The mandala had prevented me from expanding, so I used my remaining freedom – I turned within.

This could be my final incarnation, as I’ve found my “true” form again. But unlike the mindless expansion when I was young, I carry with me knowledge, experience and wisdom. I have seen this Glorious Creation from every angle, and from the perspective of every living Being.

My lesson, it seemed, was to understand my place and purpose here. I could expand to absorb everything in Creation, but to what end? If Creation brings joy to the Creator, then I should dance in that purpose – I can add to this life by communicating rather than conquering, by playing instead of dominating. Within my form I hold many more, forms that I can nourish and protect inside my circle-with-lines, which is blessed inside of Shiva’s gift.

A coronation occurred when Shiva’s foot pushed me down. My prison was actually a crown, and like a crown it is a symbol, useful but not necessary. The sun cross can safely live outside those boundaries now – I take my proper place among the decorations at Shiva’s glorious Feet.

Final Paper for Deep Ecology, Part 2: Ecosophy Sun-Cross

Without knowing exactly who I am, how can I be expected to know where my place is in the cosmos? Of course, this begs the question: How can you truly know yourself as an independent entity? Arne Naess’ Deep Ecological argumentⁱ about the importance of intrinsic relations between one thing and another (to the point where, without that relationship, those two things are different) seems woefully lacking in the most basic way – that is, what is the relationship between our individual selves and the Unmanifest – the transcendental field, pure consciousness?

Answering such a question is beyond the scope of this paper, but I must insist here that my form, as the sun cross, can exist outside the boundaries of manifest relationships. Now, it does have a relationship with every manifest thing in Creation: Using Naess’ idea of identity-by-relationship, the sun cross has a nearly infinite number of things it could be. Its relationship with the unmanifest, however, shows its purity, and can be summed up thus: “the form is.”

By being confined and made ignorant, and having passed through all the levels of existence (and all the various way of experiencing), the form has matured (or expanded, if you will) into an trans-universal entity. The active memories of being all things may not be present. However, the “proof is in the pudding,” as it were – the design works within itself, radiating power and goodness in a gentle-yet-powerful manner, in harmony with Creation. The fact that such a powerful design has not destroyed the universe is testament to some form of wisdom and self-awareness.

So what does that mean for me? Where do I fit in the human world, and the “more-than-human world?”ⁱⁱ My place is to simply be – radiate light, destroy darkness, protect and nurture the forms I hold inside me, play with those outside of me. I make no real distinction between the natural world (“Nature”) and any other place – Nature is Creation. Man has influenced every bit of the natural world, to greater or lesser degrees – but even then, the sterile lab and the most remote wilderness mountaintop are still Nature, still part of the Creation. Why should I adopt a new “mode of being” between them? Should I be any less myself, or any more myself, in the human or natural worlds? Nonsense.

Understanding this brings me to the true amoral state. The circle is present, fully, in every direction – up, down, left, right, light, dark, good, evil, life, death. Kant’s “beautiful action”ⁱⁱⁱ is beautiful for the Taoist ideal of “wei wu wei”^iv – that is, flowing with the Tao, effortless action. It does not guarantee any particular action, and that is precisely why it makes a terrible basis for solving large-scale societal problems. It’s not anarchy in the truest sense – every individual is bound to the laws of their own hearts. On just the societal level, however, it is pure anarchy.

If I am only bound by my undeveloped sense of self, then I grow to consume the universe. It took an externally-imposed restriction to further my development of self. This external, objective “morality” turned out to be a great blessing, both for Nature (as I would have destroyed Nature without it) and for myself – the universe would not be enjoyable if I was the only thing in it. A similar parallel can be drawn between the undeveloped individual and those externally-imposed ethics as expressed by cultural norms and laws.

The unexpressed morality embedded in trans-personal ecology fails to address this point: some beings are designed, from the start, to kill, to dominate, to grow, to destroy. It seems to be missed on Naess, who, while speaking in Australia in 1984, said “I’m not much interested in ethics or morals. I’m interested in how we experience the world…. Ethics follows from how we experience the world. If you experience the world so and so, then you don’t kill.”^v (emphasis mine) The assumption that we can achieve anything “better” in society than what we have right now by personal “growth” willingly ignores the vast potential in humanity. That is: “I experience the world as such-and-such, and now I kill.”

This is why I agree with Murray Bookchin’s statement: “Nothing could seem more wholesome…. than this “we are all one” bumper-sticker slogan. What the reader may not notice is that this all-encompassing definition of community erases all the rich and meaningful distinctions that exist not only between animal and plant communities but above all between nonhuman and human communities.”^vi This distinction between things is the very essence of life and Creation – everything is One at the Source, so why should we try to merge things together (in a trans-personal sense)? The only reason Creation started at all was to express and explore the concept of duality, of separateness! Laws don’t drive a wedge between man and nature – they serve to highlight the differences.

I believe that we can do more for Nature by strengthening and celebrating these differences, rather than trying to merge and unify under the umbrella of goodness-through-identification. “…it’s certainly possible to provide equality while also living true to your masculine or feminine core.” writes David Deida in The Way of the Superior Man. “For sexual polarity, you need an energetic polarity, an attractive difference between masculine and feminine.”^vii To truly embrace our humanity, however, we have to embrace that destructive tendency to rule and dominate. We have to embrace our isolation, our terrible burden of being Kings and Queens of Nature, if we are to live up to our duality and celebrate Creation as enlightened beings.

Plotkin’s use of Nature as a metaphor for human development seems unfortunate – while we can try to describe an animal’s development in human terms, it always seems somewhat silly, because those descriptions seem to lack a clear understanding of what it is to be that animal. A young cat is just that, not “going through a human-teenager stage of development.” So to describe the transformation process in late adolescence as a “cocoon” may be a somewhat demeaning attempt to artificially merge humanity to the “natural world.” We can use human terms to describe human things.

Humanity is a part of Nature, as much as anything, and I believe it is a disservice to try to fill a perceived lack of connection by attempting to “merge” on a superficial level. The attempt is noble – this is ecology, after all, and we are trying to save the natural world. But moving the heart and mind to a level of identification with the natural world is throwing away our only gift – our very separate and unique individuality.

It is only once this entity we call “me” is strengthened and refined by contrast to the natural world that we come to a place where we can help preserve it. Nature naturally provides the almost endless possibilities, the Other, the vital “I’m not this, I’m not this.” We must fight to preserve the diversity of the natural world – otherwise the ever-expanding humanity will learn the lesson I learned long ago, as Shiva’s foot comes down upon us.

Reading: Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin, chapters 1, 3 and 7

“A man walks down the street   It’s a street in a strange world   Maybe it’s the Third World   Maybe it’s his first time around   He doesn’t speak the language  He holds no currency   He is a foreign man   He is surrounded by the sound  The sound  Cattle in the marketplace   Scatterlings and orphanages   He looks around, around    He sees angels in the architecture   Spinning in infinity    He says Amen and Hallelujah!” – You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon

Despite the size of the reading, and the author’s tendency to say more when less would do, I thoroughly enjoyed and identified with this reading, and am purchasing the book.

I identify with this adolescent stage, the Wanderer in the Cocoon, as a very real and visceral stage of being. I know exactly when I made the transition from the previous stage (almost down to the day, back in 2002) and I can feel or see when I will step out of this stage (about two years from now). I can see when I embraced the urges of my soul (the world traveling, joining a monastery, turning inward and studying the mystical and embracing the darkness), and I can see when I fought against it (trying to establish a career and publishing too soon, swimming against those currents in my life). I have designed rites of passage that excited me, if for no other reason than I felt their profound lack in my life – rites that require a community built around them, that acknowledge and hold sacred these journeys and ceremonies. I have designed entire civilizations in my mind to fill that deep void inside.

Story: When I first arrived on American Purusha, I awoke one night bathed in terror. Demons were out to get me, I could feel their evil presence, and there was no safety in my room. In a panic I got dressed and ran outside, hoping to get to the only place I might be safe – the Stapatya-Veda correct Meditation Hall. I ran up the street, shivering, swinging my walking stick as I felt “them” get too close, heart pounding. The thickets seems alive with malevolence, and I was so, so vulnerable.

I made it to the building, which was locked, so I walked up the side stairs and sat on the upper balcony. I calmed down, as I sat under the stars, and reflected. I don’t really want to say what revelations I had up there (partly because I can’t really remember).

What I can say is that, after spending some time in that “sacred safe-zone,” some part of me came to terms with the darkness. In that acceptance I no longer saw evil demons, I simply saw the night, like day only darker. I walked back to my room in a peaceful state, seeing for maybe the first time the dark woods at night for what they really were – beautiful, serene, lovely. This did not rule out the idea of demons, or angels, or anything else – they may have be real, and drove me up that building to help me reach this new state of understanding. Or maybe I just reached a spot where my projected fears manifested in my mind. Whichever, whatever – the experience was gained, and the difference was almost literally night and day: I now saw the day in the night – like we see shadows at noon and reach for them for release from the crushing day, the night was that blissful release spread over this side of the globe.

Experiences like that are a dime a dozen in this wandering cocoon phase of life.

Reading: Warwick Fox’s “Towards a Transpersonal Ecology” pages 215-243

I understand, perhaps more than people realize, just how important it is to get to the real cause of problems, and once getting there, finding effective and permanent solutions. In my view, that approach to life is the only valid one – while relieving superficial symptoms definitely have their place, every true healer knows the difference between alleviating symptoms and true health.

While some Deep Ecologists may debate it, we can clearly see that a good segment of humanity retains an unhealthy relationship with the natural world, in that their actions (whether consciously or unconsciously) are directly driving the Sixth Major Extinction Event and wholesale ecological destruction, in nearly every biome on the planet. Clearly, something must change.

The answer, if there is one, does not lie in Transpersonal Ecology. Here’s why:

1) The very concept of “trans-personal” is highly suspect, given that any individual can only have a subject experience – even if that experience is of a larger-than-self type. By that I mean, we have no way of verifying the validity of the trans-experience. If this is true for simply human-to-human transpersonalization (yeah, I made the word up), then how much more of a stretch is it so claim a “trans-eco-personal experience”? The truth is, even if such experiences are wholly valid, they do not guarantee any particular actions, because…

2) Sometimes, people hate. People hate their family, their friends, and sometimes people hate themselves so much that that engage in self-destructive behaviors. A man who abuses his family could, after expanding his sense of self to include the natural environment, continue to express that hatred on a larger scale. You wouldn’t think so, because….

3) There is an inherit bias deeply embedded in transpersonal ecology towards unexpressed values of “right and wrong.” They’ve spend a lot of time trying to distance themselves from the formal morality and ethics that the more “shallow” ecologists espouse as a method of saving the natural world, vying instead for Kant’s “beautiful action” Taoist ideal of spontaneous right action. However, the enlightened, self-actualized actor works from a place of spontaneity, which by its very nature contains the entire range of action – good and bad, right and wrong, life-supporting and death/killing. We have no ability to claim this “enlightened” sage, who identifies with all the natural world, will do what we consider right – in point of fact, this person may destroy the natural world in an even deeper way than before.

4) Moreover, the transpersonal experience is not limited to the natural world – there are many other objects and entities that one can transpersonalize with. For example, a man could expand his sense of self to include his business, which is strip-mining – a horribly damaging thing that he sees as “good” or “right,” and works naturally in accordance with. His ever-expanding sense of self grows to include the economy that supports ecological destruction, and the government that, in turn, supports the economy. If there are 100 things that can be incorporated in a growing sense of self, the natural world is only 1 – which means that someone could have a nearly universal sense of self, identifying with 99% of Creation, and still not have those “beautiful actions” towards that natural world.

I could go on, but these few points cover most of what I’m getting at. We cannot depend upon people actively trying to “enlighten” themselves as the only means of saving the natural world from destruction. While education and a radical new way of looking at the world are needed, without a clear set of ethical guidelines to steer humanity’s actions NOW, all the transpersonalization in the world will not be enough to curb the dangerous tendencies of our domination-based capitalistic systems.

Reading: Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology: A Challenge for the Ecology Movement, by Murray Bookchin.

(read it here: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/socecovdeepeco.html )

I was once contracted to transcribe audio files to text, and the file I received was a talk from the  man who’s mission had been the eradication of Guinea worm. Outright, wholesale destruction of this terrible parasite, which once afflicted most of Africa. Due to dedicated efforts from the Carter Foundation and the World Health Organization, however, transmission rates steadily decreased, and now the final goal (zero cases globally) is within reach: http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/mini_site/index.html

This is almost universally considered to be a good thing, by nearly every individual and group, with the exception of Deep Ecology (as our reading has pointed out) and other nutjobs: http://www.deadlysins.com/guineaworm/index.htm <— These people are fighting to save the worm, even asking for volunteers to host (or “nurture”) the worm inside their own bodies. By what right do we, as humans, choose who lives and dies?

Should we just let nature “take its course?” The elimination of Guinea worm comes primarily from filtering drinking water – by that alone the worm would be extinct. As it turns out, there was a lot of social bias in rural Africa regarding purifying drinking water – I wish I had the source to refer to, but story told in this speech went something like: A man traveled from his remote village to the city for business, and while there learned about the worm and how it can be prevented by filtering drinking water. He returned and started to do so, but faced extreme prejudice, to the point of threatened violence, from the other villagers. They believed that by filtering drinking water he was “offending the Gods,” and would invite Their wrath upon the village. This, to me, sounds like Deep Ecology at work – a mystical supernatural force that was incompatible with rational common sense. It took the testimony of converted shamans, priests and high-profile political leaders, working together, to dispel these idea and get people to filter the water they drink.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that the supernatural (or any spiritual or religious) can be disregarded in a theoretically “pure” scientific, or even social, ideology. I only see a clash of ideals when the above happens – suffering needlessly out of fear or ignorance. The point here is not one of denying the spirit, but rather one of regulating it to its proper place – as a framework for personal experience and spiritual growth, and NOT as a method of approach to our current ecological crises. Whether or not humanity, in all its complex social glory, is a product of the natural world or not is irrelevant; we have the power to influence “first” nature with our “second,” and that alone is enough.

Of course, Bookchin’s understanding of the distinction between Self and self is woefully lacking – I’m not surprised, as I don’t believe anyone from the Deep Ecology camp gets it either. What I believe, as I pointed out in class, is that any discussion of the spiritual unfolding of self into Self is a useless one; enlightened behavior is, in no way, externally different from unenlightened behavior. To base a movement of thought and action around a state of being that is both poorly-understood and behaviorally like any other state is a very bad idea.

This same mistake plagues Taoism, which Murray was quick to scorn, in that Taoist texts provide a description of the state itself, and offers no real methods for achieving it. We can, by proximity and osmosis, gain insight and feeling, and by those means possibly move closer to the goal, but it is like being given a road map of Manhattan while one lives in Iowa – you’re not there, but you get an idea of what it could be. To base a movement, or a social structure, on these descriptions is a terrible idea – and yet, one of the central points of Deep Ecology is expanding this sense of self into the larger Self! This is either mood making, delusion, or enlightenment. If we could really expand ourselves by just thinking about it and wishing it were so, I would have been enlightened a million freaking times by now.

Personally, then, I base my actions on an overwhelming sense of proper, normal, common-sense conduct. Within this common-sense framework are my ideologies, my religion, my spiritual experiences, and the like. These factors, however, are limited to their proper spheres – I don’t kill people, even though I believe in reincarnation and the like, because that would be horrible. On the other hand, I naturally feel a sense of superiority over the rest of nature in those things I am good at, namely cognitive thinking. Individual facets of nature are “better” than me in every physical manner – running, swimming, endurance, sex, seeing, hearing, and so on. But my ability to think and act on those thoughts far exceed anything else in nature – why not celebrate this fact? Why not embrace the power that this provides? If we are the products of nature, we have been set as Kings and Queens on the top – as a democratically elected King of Nature, it would be an insult and disservice to not act with the authority that position provides.

And, as may be the case, our abuse of that position may result in our overthrowing, a defenestration of King Man – Man, in this case, being our social structure, the collective activity all of us contribute to. Here Murray is exactly right – it is our social structure that must be fixed, not how we see ourselves. Humanity already has enough compassion and empathy with nature IF we allow for it to grow in society. By structuring ourselves in a manner which denies this basic goodness to each other, how much more difficult to find basic goodness towards anything non-human? That is the vital flaw of Deep Ecology, if it is true – we must “be excellent to one another” on all scales, in all counties, and among all people if we are to truly address the Why of our ecological destruction. To appeal to the spiritual gods of nature, and merge with them, while advocating death and destruction to our families, is both counter-productive and truly terrible.