The Re-enchantment of Nature by Susan Meeker-Lowry
Friday, January 8th 2010 @ 12:46 PM (not yet rated)
There was an interesting article in the Winter issue of Earth Island Journal called “World of Wonder: Toward a Re-enchantment with Nature” by James William Gibson. The article was adapted from Gibson’s book, A Reenchanted World: The Quest for a New Kinship with Nature (Metropolitan Books), which I have not yet seen but it’s now on my “to do” list.
To open, Gibson shares a few stories of people coming together to save land, some degraded, from development; of a marine biologist who wants to protect tropical grouper from overfishing because “they are as individual as dogs . . . . And quite intelligent”; and a Vermont woman who spent 15 years rebuilding osprey nests to cope with her husband’s death. I imagine there are more stories in the book. He sees this disparate collection of individual and small group efforts as proof of an “important cultural change” which he calls a movement that is “both a resurrection and a radical expansion of several that came before” citing examples including Emerson and Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Ansel Adams, Rachel Carson, and the eventual recognition of “Native American spiritualism”.
Though this culture of re-enchantment is taking place “on a grand scale, and so many people are involved it can no longer be dismissed as strange or extreme”, it hasn’t gotten much attention. Indeed, I would say it has gotten virtually no attention at all, certainly not by the environmental community. Gibson feels this is because environmentalists are reeling from the setbacks of the Bush administration – the gutting of anti-pollution laws and atrocities such as mountaintop removal mining and opening public lands for oil and gas drilling. Obama hasn’t helped, having done virtually nothing for the environment, even failing to reverse the most destructive of Bush’s policies or to support anything substantive with regard to climate change. Thus the movement (such as it is) is in despair, and “despair limits awareness.”
Gibson warns that “environmentalists must acknowledge the change created by the culture of enchantment . . . or we risk being co-opted.” Well, environmentalists are no stranger to that. Corporations have been co-opting the movement for many years now, promoting “green consuming” and hiding their atrocities behind one or two restoration projects designed to convince folks they’ve changed their ways and that we can consume ourselves into a healthier, cleaner Earth. I’d like to think people are a bit more savvy now when it comes to corporate greenwashing. However, with regard to the plethora of “green”, “eco-friendly”, “natural” products on the market I not convinced people really get that buying anything we don’t need, no matter how “green”, is still overconsumption, and part of the problem.
But that’s not my point here. My point is that, while I agree environmentalists probably are experiencing despair (I know I have my moments, for sure), I don’t believe it’s the main reason why they fail to see what’s so clear to Gibson. While I haven’t been involved in environmental activism for the past few years (unless you consider Gaian Voices activism, which I don’t), I was quite active in the 1980s and 1990s. During those years my work focused for the most part on “creating an economy for the living Earth”, and what I called Gaian Economics. “Gaian” because to me it implies life, intelligence, and spirit. I was always writing and talking about the importance of bringing spirit into our work as activists, of acknowledging that the Earth is alive, that all creatures inhabiting the Earth have spirit and a purpose separate from anything that may have to do with human beings. I was always telling people to “fall in love with the Earth” and to “listen to the Earth”. Whenever I attended an organizing meeting, whether for an event or a project or even a new organization, I encouraged people to include language that acknowledged the spirit of Earth.
With the exception of colleagues in the bioregional community and some Earth First!ers (like Jesse “Wolf” Hardin, a friend and contributor to Gaian Voices and cofounder of Anima), I was told even by those who agreed with me, that including such language would undermine our message. After all, we wanted to be taken seriously, not perceived as some weird new age flakes. It was generally believed that in order to “win” we needed to use the language of those we were fighting against. We had to be practical and rational and integrating spirit just wasn’t rational or practical. It was very, very frustrating.
Gibson uses the term “enchantment” which I like, though I imagine there are those, including many environmentalists, who might consider it a bit anthropormophic, something I’ve been accused of over the years. Certainly we can never really know what goes on in the mind of any non-human creature (or other human for that matter) but that doesn’t mean communication is impossible, or that what we sense or intuit is “wrong”. Gibson sees the potential for “profound political change” as a result of this cultural shift.
What do you think? Do you see evidence of the re-enchantment of nature in your community? Would you feel comfortable having conversations with friends or co-workers about this topic? How can we expand this “movement” if indeed that’s what it is? Please post your comments.
