THE ROLE OF SPIRITUALITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ECO-CENTRIC CULTURE

PHILIP COSTIGAN WITH PATRICIA ROSE AND MARY TINNEY

Abstract A spirituality which envisions the Sacred as intimately embodied in the earth and the cosmos brings into force powerful emotions of reverence for all life and commitment to justice for the earth. A deep bonding with nature, and recognition that humankind is only one element in the whole interdependent web of life, underpins this type of spirituality. Ecospirituality can offer a solid ideological and theological base for the current environmental movement. Because it taps into deep-rooted motivations and commitments it has the power to challenge radically, and change fundamentally, the destructive culture that exploits the earth, and transform it into a culture that is life-enhancing and eco-centric. The ecospirituality put forward by Earth Link encompasses a comprehensive set of experiences, beliefs, rituals and actions, and is one attempt to formulate a spiritual framework for living in ways that are more ecologically sensitive. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the face of the threat of the ecological destruction of the planet, humans are challenged to undertake a major work that involves the very transformation of their society. The future of the planet requires a move from an industrial age where the collective forces of science, technology, industry, economics and religion contribute to the exploitation and destruction of the environment, to an ecological age where humanity assumes a presence on earth that is affirming for both humanity and the planet. Thomas Berry (1999, 1) believes that this transition is the Great Work of our age, involving a move from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner. Joanna Macy (1998, 58) calls this the Work that Reconnects which helps people uncover and experience their innate connections with each other and with the systematic, self-healing powers in the web of life, so that they may be enlivened and motivated to play their part in creating a sustainable civilization. This work of transition requires a transformation of the accepted values of the society: a cultural change. These contemporary values, which centre on the dominance of humankind and its right to exploit all of nature, are so engrained they seem to be fundamental and unchangeable. These values, however, must change and move to ones that underpin a more meaningful universe and a more functional cosmology than the consumerist exploitative ideology of the inherited patriarchal culture. There are many forces within a society that can bring about cultural change. Economics and politics are major ones. However, it could be argued that one of the most powerful forces for cultural and values change is spirituality. Spirituality focuses on humanitys aspirations for the good and the true - what is of value - and can tap into strong emotions and motivations that can lead to transformation both in the individual and in the society. A spiritual encounter often begins with an overpowering experience of ecstasy, awe, peacefulness or cosmic gratitude. For many environmentalists, similar life-changing experiences are found in their immersion in nature. Thus the environmentalist may be predisposed to be attracted to an eco-spiritual stance. The physicist Fritjof Capra (in Porritt 2005, 300) claims that [u]ltimately, deep ecological awareness is spiritual or religious awareness believing that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest sense. Ecospirituality has the potential to bring together spiritualitys capacity for reverence and wonder with ecologys capacity to explore and describe the reality of nature. The environmental theorist and activist John Seed (1995, 35) sees the connection in this way: Deep ecology is a philosophy, an ideology, a gateway to the transpersonal and an impetus to action. The eco-theologian John Cobb (1995, 240) stresses the interdependent and unified character of the ecosystem as a whole. ... To this whole, a strong sense of sacredness attaches itself: to its violation, a strong sense of evil. What is needed today is an attitude to the earth that is both ecologically sound and humble and reverential. The deep emotions and commitment aroused by spirituality rarely remain at the theoretical, ideological level, but frequently find expression in political and ethical action which can be a catalyst for the transformation of a societys values. Roger Gottlieb (1996, 524), commenting on this outcome of an effective ecological spirituality, states: Spiritually, this means that basic values such as life and death, identifying with other life forms, a sense of connection to and participation in ones place, 41

Social Alternatives Vol. 26 No. 3, Third Quarter, 2007

may begin to inform not just spiritual reflection and wide appeal for environmentalists. The Buddhist Joan mystical experience, but our prophetic political demands. Halifax says: Silence is the context where communion Further, if a new cosmology embraces the sacredness and communication with the world is born. This silence and interconnectedness of all beings in the universe, it has a voice. From it issues [sic] the many songs of Earth will necessitate the adoption of a new (1992, 153). Aboriginal Miriam-Rose ethic. The fundamental ethic, the Spirituality focuses on Ungunmerr, coming from the ecological imperative for action on Indigenous Australian spiritual tradition, humanitys aspirations explores the concept/practice of behalf of the earth that is at the heart of ecospirituality, flows from a for the good and the true Dadirri. She defines it as [i]nner, deep heightened awareness of the strong yet awareness - what is of value - and listening and quiet, stillplaces one in delicate inter-relation of all people and (Stockton 1995, 179). It can tap into strong beings: an acute sense of being an attitude of receptiveness to nature. embodied in this interconnected planet Ungunmerr gives a simple yet profound emotions and earth (Christ 1997, xv). exposition of her contemplative Ecospirituality can offer a motivations (leading) to approach to listening to, and awareness positive worldview. It can present a of, the land. transformation comprehensive vision which is not Central, also, to the spirituality of simply about what is wrong but about what can be right, Earth Link is the belief that bonding with earth is best not just about living with less, but about living an done in a particular place, or places, that are significant, authentic and ultimately much more satisfying form of or sacred, for the person. The bonding is not only an life (Gottlieb 2006, 13). The Earth Link spirituality team attentive listening but a holistic physical, emotional and has developed an ecospirituality that springs from the sensory experience as one enters into an intimate transformative experience of deep bonding with the earth. relationship with a particular part of the earth. The This spirituality provides a spiritual ecological framework relationship will develop and deepen in a very personal for living which, in turn, leads to the transformation of way as a person bonds with earth; as one specific human values and behaviours. bonds with one particular part of the earth, with ones Earth Links spirituality begins with experience own special place. the experience of listening to the wisdom of the earth. Earth Links spirituality is real, immediate and Humankind is called to open itself humbly to the age-old tangible; a spirituality in which the human body is called wisdom of the earth - its elements, plants and animals, to be in dynamic contact with the earth, profoundly seasons and changes. Humans must learn to play a grounded in the realities of the earth and the body (Tacey secondary role and consider themselves not primarily 1997, 245). It is a spirituality which invites us to emulate the active agents in this process. They are to be receptors, John Seed (1992, 279) for whom the closest thing to open to have wisdom and insight revealed to them. meditation for me now is to lie down in the forest when Jenny Crawford (2003, 211) believes that its dry, cover myself in leaves, and imagine an umbilical ultimately the solution to the environmental crisis can cord reaching down into the earth. This is not an abstract only be found by seeking soul. This soul is especially spirituality that can be practiced from afar in a universal, captured through attention/mindfulness/awareness/ esoteric, transcendent way; it is a very specific physical wonder. It is receptivity, it is a kind of negative, or spirituality, an interaction between body and earth. In deconstructive effort that holds us in openness, so that the ecospirituality of Earth Link our particular place the object of our attention might reveal itself (Crawford is, of necessity, an actual geographical location where 2003, 216). Later (217) she states: I think that many of we can interact, in a physical way, on a regular basis, the approaches to nature that have given rise to with the natural environment. environmentalism have their roots in the wonder and The spiritual experiences gained through a deep love that an attentive meeting with nature generates. bonding with the earth are not isolated happenings devoid A contemplative stance is essential to an Earth Link of any wider spiritual context. They necessarily give rise spirituality and is common to the cosmic contemplative to strong beliefs about the spiritual cosmology that traditions of many of the worlds religions. For example, underpins the experiences. Reflection on the Christianity has the legacy of the nature mysticism of its transformative experience of deep bonding with earth medieval contemplatives as an inspiration: Hildegard of has led Earth Link to the belief that this is an experience Bingen, the twelfth century German Christian mystic, of the Sacred, and that earth and cosmos constitute a saw the greening of the trees, the grasses and the lush primary revelation of Ultimate Mystery. Being open and earth as creative expressions of the sacred greening of attentive to the earth, and grounded in our own bodies the divine spirit (Fox 1985, 30-33). Similarly, Buddhism, and place, we create a readiness to encounter the Sacred with its contemplative approach to the natural world, has in the whole interdependent web of life. As we reflect 42
Social Alternatives Vol. 26 No. 3, Third Quarter, 2007

on our experience, we affirm our belief that the cosmos space for a time and to experience other, and sometimes and earth both embody, and are meeting points for this deeper, aspects of the Sacred, the numinous, the mystery, encounter with, the Sacred. that can break through in these moments between the Religious systems need revision and worlds (Rountree 1998, 292). Some of the formal rituals transformation in order to rearticulate the relationships of an earth-sensitive spirituality include those that honour between the Sacred, the earth and the human, between the Sacred as it is manifested at summer and winter religion and spirituality, and between religion and science. solstice; at autumn and spring equinox; in the phases of Such a process involves the retrieval of scripture and the moon; in the daily cycle of dawn, daylight, dusk and commentaries, symbols and myths, rituals and prayers darkness; in the story of the cosmos; in the life cycle of and the reevaluation of particular beliefs and practices plants and animals; in the sacredness of particular places, (Tucker 2004, 36). Foundational to this revisionary and so on. process is the critique of a human-centred or As much as ecospirituality is concerned with anthropocentric world view and theology, and the experience, place, belief and ritual it is also about action. development of an ecocentric or life-centred world view The ethical imperative that springs from the experience and theology, built on the recognition of the intrinsic value of, and belief in, an interdependent web of life, within of earth and cosmos, and their value because they which the Sacred is present, calls for right action. Humans embody the Sacred. The nature of the Sacred and its must live in right relations with all, honour the intrinsic relationship with universe and earth is the subject of much value of all species, and work for justice for the earth. recent theological writing. The scientific evidence from An effective spirituality leads to the demand for change cosmology and evolutionary biology challenges theological in social, economic and political values. assumptions about the nature of the Sacred and its Earth Link puts forward a number of indicators relationship to the earth. If one starts from the premise by which the rightness of relationships may be gauged. that the cosmos is unfolding according to principles The first indicator is that right relationships are based on inherent within it, (autopoeisis), then the imaging of the the belief that the universe is a communion of subjects, Sacred moves from being omniscient, omnipotent, and not a collection of objects (Berry and Clark 1995, 96). transcendent to one that envisions the Sacred as These are subject-subjects relationships. They require embodied in life, nature, earth and the cosmos. that everything we know is to be viewed not in a subjectHumans respond to the Mystery that is the object way, where the knower alone is alive and active, Sacred in the web of life in a variety of non-rational but in a subject-subject way, where both the knower and ways: with emotions such as reverence, humility, awe the known are interacting actively and reciprocally. This and wonder; and with a desire for closer physical and type of outlook draws on the I-Thou model of relationship spiritual connection for, as explored by Martin Buber. Sallie Starhawk (1989, 26) says, [T]he Being open and attentive to the McFague (1997, 95) believes that mysteries of the absolute can we understand ourselves earth, and grounded in our own if touch with others weto be never be explained only felt and in will bodies and place, we create a have taken an important step intuited. Structured, scientific language expresses this mystery towards an ecological model of readiness to encounter the in a limited and imperfect form. being, a model that says that we Sacred in the whole The depth and profundity of the exist only in interrelationship with mystery of the Sacred in the web other subjects. interdependent web of life. of life can only be fully expressed Secondly, relationships are through myth, which seeks to capture in imagination, participatory, flowing from an acute sense of oneness poetry and story this mystery that is beyond the rational within the web, and a sense of respect for the whole mind. earth community. The basis of ethics is the feeling of Humans concretise and express their response to the deep connection to all people and all beings within this myth through rituals, symbols and symbolic processes, the web of life (Christ 1997, xv). There is a heightened and through holistic living, which provide platforms for awareness of a strong yet delicate inter-relation of all honouring the Sacred. To honour is to show deep respect, people and beings, intercommunion of living and nonto express high esteem; it is a reverential action which living components - an acute sense of being embodied in conveys the emotional and physical commitment of the this interconnected planet earth. one who honours and acknowledges the integrity of that Thirdly, relationships are life-centred not human which is honoured; in this case, the Sacred in the web of centred. They involve a shift from an anthropomorphic life. to an organic perspective. According to Berry (1995, Ritual is a conscious, structured, formal expression 105), the ecological imperative [is not] derivative from of this honour. It aids us to stay in a designated sacred human ethics. Rather, our human ethics are derivative
Social Alternatives Vol. 26 No. 3, Third Quarter, 2007

43

from the ecological imperative. Humans need new Oxford: Oxford University Press. ethical principles which recognise the absolute evils of Habel, N.C. 2000. The Challenge of Ecojustice biocide, the killing of life systems themselves, and Readings for Christian Theology. Pacifica 13: 125geocide, the killing of the planet (Berry and Clark, 1995, 141. 100). Halifax, J. 1992 . The Third Body: Buddhism, Fourthly, relationships are focused on partnership Shamanism, and Deep Ecology. In Gaias Hidden and not on domination. According to Habel (2000, 126), Life: The Unseen Intelligence of Nature, eds. S. they are relationships of mutual custodianship: Earth is Nicholson and B. Rosen. Wheaton: Quest. a balanced and diverse domain where responsible Macy, J. 1998. Coming Back to Life: Practices to custodians can function as partners with, rather than over, Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. Gabriola Island: Earth to sustain its balance and a diverse Earth New Society. community. Matthews, C. 2001. Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom, The spirituality of Earth Link is one attempt to Bride of God. Wheaton: Quest. frame a new spiritual cosmology for the hoped-for McFague, S. 1997. Super, Natural Christians: How coming ecological age. This cosmology encompasses a We Should Love Nature. Minneapolis: Fortress. set of experiences, beliefs, rituals and action that has as Porritt, J. 2005. Capitalism: As If the World Matters. its premise the sacredness and Sterling: Earthscan. interconnectedness of all beings in Religious systems need revision Rountree, K. 1998. Magic the cosmos. Commitment to this Places: The Symbolic framework for spiritual ecological and transformation in order to Construction of Sacred Place in living is a powerful instrument that Contemporary Goddess Rituals. rearticulate the relationships can result in personal In Australian International between the Sacred, the earth transformation. If it, or a similar Religion, Literature and the ecospirituality, is adopted by a and the human, between religion Arts, eds. M. Griffith and J. Tulip. growing number of people it has Centre for Study of Religion, and spirituality, and between the potential to lead to an ecological Literature and the Arts, Sydney. religion and science. transformation in contemporary Seed, J. 1992. The Rainforest culture and values and contribute As Teacher. In Gaias Hidden significantly to halting societys slide into ecological Life: The Unseen Intelligence Of Nature, eds. S. destruction. It is a significant tool in accomplishing The Nicholson and B. Rosen. Wheaton: Quest. Great Work of transition that still needs to be done. Seed, J. 1995. A Voice from the Wilderness. In The Future of God: Personal Adventures in Spirituality References with Thirteen of Todays Eminent Thinkers, ed. S. Berry, T. 1999. The Great Work: Our Way into the Trenowerth. Alexandria: Millennium. Future. New York: Bell Tower. Starhawk, 1989. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Berry, T. and Clarke, T. 1995. Befriending the Earth: Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. San A Theology of Reconciliation Between Humans Francisco: Harper. and the Earth. Mystic: Twenty-Third. Stockton, E. 1995. The Aboriginal Gift: Spirituality Christ, C. P. 1997. Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding for a Nation. Alexandria: Millennium. Meaning in Feminist Spirituality. New York: Tacey, D. 1997. Spirit Place. In Sense of Place Routledge. Colloquium II: The Interaction between Aboriginal Cobb, J. 1995. Ecology, Science, and Religion: Toward and Western Senses of Place, ed. J. Cameron. Alice a Postmodern Worldview. In Readings in Ecology Springs: University of Western Sydney. and Feminist Theology, eds. M. MacKinnon and Tucker, M. E. 2004. Worldly Wonder. Chicago: M. McIntyre. Kansas City: Sheed & Ward. OpenCourt. Crawford, J. 2003. Seeking Soul: Exploring Ground for an Ecofeminist Dialogue with Spirituality. In Authors Changing Places: Re-imagining Australia, ed. J. Philip Costigan, Patricia Rose and Mary Tinney are Cameron. Sydney: Longueville. members of the spirituality team of Earth Link, a Fox, M. 1985. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen. community environment centre located at Ocean View Santa Fe: Bear. in south east Queensland. Earth Link encourages deep Gottlieb, R. S. 1996. This Sacred Earth: Religion, bonding with earth, and envisions a future where there Nature, Environment. New York: Routledge. is respect, reverence and care for earth. It offers Gottlieb, R. S. 2006. A Greener Faith: Religious educative and reflective programs, and it models Environmentalism and Our Planets Future. processes for sustainable living. 44
Social Alternatives Vol. 26 No. 3, Third Quarter, 2007