(For the last few years, I’ve published most of the blog below on Earth Day. I’m newly inspired after seeing “The Jungle Book” a few days ago. It touched me and it was lots of fun! So I’m posting it again.)
The problem with “Earth Day” is similar to that of Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day. The day comes and goes and often our attention does the same. Earth consciousness is critically important every day, so creating a special day has its risks.
Nevertheless, setting apart a special day can potentially serve as a reminder to look around and cherish our island home. Whenever I think about honoring mother earth, I’m immediately reminded of how anthropocentrism interferes. The view that humans are the most important part of nature is a major source of its degradation.
Anthropocentrism – a most toxic form of hubris – always makes me wonder about its source. Where did we get the idea that we are so damn important?!! Sometimes it appears that we think we’re Gods! This observation leads me to explore the intersection between biblical stories and earth consciousness.
Biblical stories contain great wisdom, but as they percolated up through time and various cultures, they accumulated some interpretations and additions that were not earth-friendly. The influence of the Greeks was marked by a kind of dualism between spirit and matter that is still evident today. Spirit was seen as somehow better than matter thus creating a hierarchy of goodness. Rather than seeing that God is in matter, the view came to be that God was somehow separate from matter. Descartes reified this mind/body split even further by claiming that the body was like a machine and the mind, or soul, was immaterial and not governed by the laws of physics.
Dualism underlies the loss of our focus on the natural world as being of God and puts God into some other realm that is seen as better. The shift of our gaze to the immaterial results in our missing God’s presence right under our collective nose! Thinking of God as only in “heaven” causes a de-sacralizing of nature at least, and a form of violence against it at worst. Dualism persists today in the consciousness of modern people.
I’m not horrified by dualism in and of itself. It’s the medieval notion of the Great Chain of Being that I believe is to blame for many evils in our world. The central concept of the chain of being is that everything imaginable fits into it somewhere, giving order and meaning to the universe. First comes God at the top; then angels; then men, women, mammals, birds, fish, plants, and finally minerals. Descartes believed that only humans had minds, and there was a time when it was arguable whether or not women had souls! The hierarchical nature of how the cosmos was to be regarded mimicked the hierarchical nature of dominant cultures of the time, and even today. This belief in a God-given hierarchy would certainly serve an imperialist Christianity, support the domination of women, and cause thoughtless and short-sighted use of natural resources (non-human animals, trees, water, etc.). 
The Great Chain of Being is not so great. The Great Net of Being makes more sense to me.
nancyjfinleysd 