I’ve spent a lot of my mental energy in the last years thinking about how humanity has ended up in this horrifying spiral of death and destruction. I know a huge part of the answer is trauma; how our brains respond to it and how it gets passed on from one person and one generation to the next (Hurt people hurt people!)
But how did the trauma start? How is that as soon as humans began to feel some power (the agricultural revolution,) that power became power over rather than empowerment—and slavery began. It’s ubiquitous in our “civilized” history. The Bible is full of it. (I am writing from the perspective of my white Judeo-Christian lineage, which is what I’m most familiar with). It was so much a part of human culture that it seemed normal for so much of our “civilized” history.
That’s power over. Empowerment enables us to care not just for ourselves, but for everything that is sacred; which is everything. I can’t help but look back and wonder when the imposition of hierarchy onto the sacred began, because it seems to me that this is what underpins and justifies our horrific abuses of the other sacred beings who live with us on earth, human and non-human alike. If we are taught that humans are in God’s image (or God is in ours,) then it intuitively makes sense that humans are “closer” to God than other creatures, who are not in God’s image. And plants? Rivers? Mountains? They are so far away from that image that we’ve been taught that it can feel confusing to think of them as sacred beings. This increasing overlay of power structure on to our understanding of the sacred allows us to perceive animals as not having feelings or wisdom (unless of course we actually interact with them in open-minded and hearted ways, in which case the absurdity of that idea becomes all too evident!)
If we recognize that we are inherently a part of the sacred life on this planet, we realize that our eyes evolved not only to see predators and prey, but also to take in, perceive, fall in love with the colors of sunset, the shape of leaves, our beloved’s face. Our ears evolved, yes, to perceive threat, but also to hear the sound of bird song, of waves breaking on the shore, of leaves singing and dancing with the wind. In fact each of our senses exists to allow us to participate in life, to be connected to all the other beings co-existing with us, in a whole variety of ways.
Connecting with our bodies, then, with our senses, with the wonder and awe of all we are able to perceive and experience and “know” (and love), is, in my view, the foundation of any way through the Climate Crisis. I don’t believe we can resolve this existential crisis through continued domination, but through respect, compassion, and love for all beings. It’s in our DNA, we just need to move slowly enough and be open enough to let ourselves experience it.