response to reading from Worldviews: Foltz

Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment. Richard Foltz (Ed)

Living within the land: becoming native to the land.

It has long been my understanding the indigenous peoples have a fundamentally different relationship with the land than conventional culture does.

Both the Graham and the Omari pieces speak to me a of way of living that I believe will be again, in the not so distant future. Mary Graham’s piece speaks of a mind-frame, a way of living within our lands, where Nature is teacher, and “You are Not Alone” (89). This way of living is much more gentle on my soul than the tendency of conventional civilization towards binary logic. The Omari piece inspires me in its clarity. He argues that, for Tanzanian Aboriginals, sustainable living evolves through spirituality. For them, communal land ownership, with rights and responsibilities, is foundation. Every family must have “access to the means of production” (98). These ideas I have heard discussed at length on Cortes Island, especially regarding the designing of their Community Forest.

I think it is possible that the continued denial of living on stolen land haunts our culture to a degree much underestimated. This is one area of Thomas Berry’s book that I felt was touched on too lightly, though understandably so. Lakota Sioux activist Vine Deloria further explains the theft of culture through the theft of land, which the law facilitates. Many works in the genre are taking a critical look through history, to re-tell the Stories, included the versions often omitted and oppressed.

As Thomas Berry says, “Nature abhors uniformity”, so Nabhan makes a great point about the incorrectness of a unified category of North American Native. He does make clear though that they were co-managers of the ecosytems, which is an understanding that I have long held, and I am glad to hear it affirmed, again. “Everything gardens” is a tenant of Permaculture. It only seems logical. Both quantum theory and post-positivism argue that we are indeed participatory in nature, what changes is out consciousness of the effects of our actions. Both of these discourses leave room for agency which is essential if we are to move to an Ecozoic Era.

November 1, 2006
Judiasm and Buddism


Rita M. Gross introduces her piece as working “Toward a Buddist Environmental Ethic” as “the process of working within a traditional symbol system and worldview while doing reconstructive work to eliminate certain problematic conventions” (163).

I like the way this is positioned: gardening conventions. It helps me to understand the purpose of endless scholarship.

Gross emphasis the need for to practice to accompany theory (185), as does Waskow in his description of the two strands of Doing and Being, creating the I-Thou spiral as the driving force of nature (308). Waskow’s description of the I-Thou spiral is very similar to the process I have imagined in the yin-yang.

In my own scholarship am looking for methods for transcending dualism and these cross-cultural examples are useful.

It is wonderful to see how ancient Judiasm saw the patterns of the cosmos, and how Jewish mystics explained it. ( I have read of the similarities between Buddism and quantum theory; now I am learning the language of systems theory through Fritof Capra’s The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. )

In systems theory, we have a language we can see (and therefore experience) patterns and relationships of interconnection, spontaneously self-emergent systems nested within systems, that resonates with both scientific discourse as well as spiritual; I could cite examples from all four articles.

Swearer speaks beautifully of anurak as the bodily, “intrinsic act of “caring for’ that issues forth from the very nature of our being” (184), which I know as Love, as rooted in the “ontological realization of interdependent co-arising” (184).

All of these discourses are working towards created a new language, gardening conventions, and revising our ontological Stories, as necessary to shift our way of living; only systemic change, involving whole populations, on multiple levels simultaneously, will succeed.

(The specific mechanisms that scholars use to lever discourses are what flowers are in a grey-water system: while functional and necessary, the spontaneous creativity embodied in both are fueled by the forces of generosity and discipline, which have a dual function, also inspiring joy and wonder.)

Response: Ecofeminism
November 14, 2006

This journal will be a little long as I want to respond to your comments of my Nov 1 journal, then move into my response to the four readings assigned for this week. I will begin with the response to clarify my strategy for this exercise. I perceive the journaling exercise to be an intentional engagement with the process of learning and building ideas; in order to engage with the text at the level that interests me currently, I am assuming a base of knowledge similar to my own. The 300 word target limits my ability to position my arguments in their greater context. As this is an exercise of process, I am focusing mainly on articulating useful building blocks as I discover them, as well as exercising my muscles of critique when I see good opportunity.

As I unsuccessfully tried to explain in my Nov 1 journal, the academic tendency towards seemingly endless theory and scholarship that stifles action has often irritated me, but I know that, as Rita M. Gross explains, there is great value in “doing reconstructive work to eliminate certain problematic conventions” (163).

As I come to understand power from a postmodern perspective, I can see how language is both produced by us as subjects, and that it produces us as subjects, as well as our subjectivity (Foucault).

Working through theory, through our ontological stories, our socio-cultural symbol sets, religions, and worldviews, we must ‘garden’ our conventions to incorporate the ever-emerging knowledge(s), ‘composting’ problematic conventions, and cultivating deeper understandings. In these journal responses, I have been focusing on specific strategies used by the authors which I find either wonderfully useful in creating an ontological shift, or problematic in that they somehow hinder our capacity to shift to a healthy, diverse, ecological worldview.

Rosemary Radford Ruether’s article was fantastic. It is wonderful to hear that such radical suggestions for shifting the Christian paradigm are being proposed from within. I felt that her article was deeply loyal to her Christian faith, while offering an intense criticism and radical restructuring. Her rejection of dualistic thinking leads her to use the a lot of the same language that systems theory uses in understand our complex reality. Ruether spoke of the “continuity of matter-energy dynamics” (467) and “the matrix [of]…interdependency” (469). I found useful how she and Gerbera position Jesus as an anitmessiah (470) as a way for Christians to reject our current social structure without denying their religion. Another direction I would like to hear her explore is connections between the Abrahamic 3, and an environmental ethic.

Heather Eaton’s response to Ruether I found both useful and problematic. While she expands fantastically on the possible trajectories for expanding and transforming Christian thought also using a systems understanding, she occasionally fell back on binary language.

Throughout the article she uses the phrase ‘being held in tension’ to describe the relationship between idea sets, such as nature and history, of religion and culture. The language intimates that these idea sets are discrete, separate from each other, that they are in opposition somehow, and must be brought together by effort and force. This language, I think, is exactly this mode of thinking that Ruether is challenging.

(I could go on to critique other details of Eaton’s language use, and positioning of arguments as possibly problematic, but for the parameters of the assignment, it will suffice to say that the value in doing these readings I am finding where, why, and how to be careful with our arguments and language; as Thomas Berry says, we must reinvent the human with critical language.)

I think it is very important to not see the world as made of oppositional dualities of either/or’s, but rather, as Riley says, as interdependent, dynamic processes with a “both/and perspective” (479). I understand that for the planet to be able to sustain human life, humanity must stop living in such a destructive way; there is no one strategy that is going to create this change; it will take many many strategies to succeed, as Eaton as well suggests.

The value I am gaining from these readings then is learning of different strategies and tactics, from some of the many different perspectives; learning these, I believe, will help me guide people of different religious/traditional backgrounds to deeply understand ecological and cosmological patterns in a way that allows them to continue to love their faith tradition(s).

voices from the global South: chapter 14
response

I feel I have read quite prolifically in this realm of critiques emerging from the ‘global south’ regarding the effects of colonialism, globalization, industrialism, and centralization, etc., and still, everytime, the stories make me ache.

Through reading so many papers regarding the forces and implications of social change, I am beginning to be able to articulate where I see the unity (that allows for difference) in trajectory throughout. I am continually weaving together the languages of ecology, philosophy, resistance, and love. I can take these through everything, to the domain of the everything/nothing vortex, where the intersections collapse into a black hole of ineffability, and re-emerge from the yin-yang kaliedescope, which is to say I can travel through theory, thought, poetry, spirit, and back out again. While comforting to me to have found ‘trails’, the challenge now is articulation into language that remains complex while being clear.

Language is key; what we can name, we can identify, and what we can identify then exists. As Boff (and Waring) articulate, “[w]hat is not in the marketplace does not exist” (Boff, 501). As Potigaura articulates, “Brazilian society will respect Indians only when it recognizes them as a part of its own culture, language and traditions” (520), which really means when the entangled histories are thoroughly discussed.

With this dialogue comes education, and understanding , but most importantly, the creation of consensual language, making events, people, and contexts ‘legible’ (Foucault). Being able to self-name and morph/expand/shift identities is critically important, especially for the oppressed.

Most articles end in a connection to, or plan for, action/praxis. “Eco-justice in these churches takes shape as a life style rather than a written code of conduct.” (Daneel, 512-513). On Dec. 28 I fly to Vancouver to move in with a friend and support her while she births and begins to parent. I will support her health, cradle her business, and expand my knowledge of plant medicine in regards to mothers and babes. It is comforting for me to know that soon I will shift my focus to celebratory service for a new life and for community.

“We believe that life and vivacity in its totality can be perceived, experienced, and realized only in the microcosms of community and family” (Sharma, 499).

resistance!
nov 29


The Sprituality of Resistance; I am a believer.

When I saw Derrick Jensen speak he said repeatedly, “The Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a much higher rate of survival” (Guelph, April 2006).

Again, I hear the recurrent theme of “fully engag[ing] that which frightens and depresses us the most” (557) as a spiritual and personal necessity to become fully realized, and indeed, this is often my strategy when speaking with my peers in discussion of the future.

Gottlieb raises the essential question: what do we hold on to, and what do we let go of? (556). The answer is a continual negotiation.

In Korten’s article he articulates well how the division now is no longer so much between “between northern and southern nations… it is class” (565). Indeed I have thought this for a while; it is interesting to hear his support for this argument.

Another figure he raised that I am happy to now have to cite is “that for every $1 circulating in the productive economy today, $20 to $50 circulates in the world of pure finance” (567). His conclusion is decentralization and localization, and, again, I am happy to know his argument to support mine.

Norberg-Hodge (a person I would like to meet) articulates so well the affects of globalization and industrialization. I find it very interesting that she cites polyandry as a cultural population control (574). This is an argument I am interested in researching.

The piece by James Profit is beautiful; I can relate through my similar childhood embedded in Nature, experience participating in Native ceremonies, and living intimately with the ocean. His positioning of passion for the Earth as the passion of Jesus is both useful and understandable to me. Praise be to Ignatius, all of the amazing work they are doing, and to thinkers like these.