A Note of Introduction
These reflections have developed as a way of communicating with my students, in a period of our history during which it is not possible for me to meet with them in person; and as such are designed as a way to share in the vulnerability of conversation and human connection. In this way, they are not yet fully developed thoughts, and may lack the polish that comes with the years of revision that often accompanies a composition of this nature that is released into the world. And yet, our times call for us to be brave and present in the search for truth, so I hope we may make this journey together.
Memories of My Father
I remember fondly as a child living in northern Spain, afternoons during which my father would get my brother and I out of the house, for reasons I no longer remember (and perhaps never knew). He would guide my brother and I down to the local riverbanks overgrown with thickets and brush, eventually finding a way for us to meander along with the movement of the water. Days such as these have left an indelible impression on my spirit, if for no other reason, then the clarity of the memory, uncluttered with thoughts or distractions. I learned a sense of responsibility from these experiences, and some sense for dignity, as I did not want to disturb the purity available to me in these memories. The Ebro River, often described as a hidden gem of Spain, the thickets, the footsteps of my father, the visible but distant elephant-like mountain range and the ever-present sky, created a feeling for me of being at home. I have carried this feeling with me into the diverging and converging tributaries that form the river of our lives, and the unending river of time.
Reflections on the Earth
The name of the time in which we live has been identified as a geologic epoch called the “anthropocene.” Geologic epochs are defined by the dominant trait and expression of the Earth over the expanse of a few million years. For instance, the Pleistocene was defined by glaciations (“the ice age”), while the Pliocene epoch was identified with warmer weather, continental movements and the folding creation of mountain ranges. The much earlier Cambrian epochs colorfully radiated with the explosion of animal phyla and incredible biological diversity. Our era, evidenced in the name we have given it, is defined by the geological impact of human beings, and already has interrupted another epoch that barely began 10,000 years ago (Kolbert 92).
Geologians (and philosophers) continue to debate the exact birthdate of this epoch, but there is some consensus that it is the generational period of our parents and grandparents that gave birth to this transformative age. The advent of the atomic bomb is a popular time marker in our shared psychology, but the rise of the technological age (as a post-industrial descendent) has changed so many aspects regarding human capacities laden with questions as to what we value.
I think it’s interesting to note that the human population has more than tripled in my mother’s lifetime, from 2.3 billion to 8 billion (I say my mother because she is still with me, whereas my father passed on some years ago). And yet, it wasn’t even until the middle of the Industrial Revolution, around 1800, that the Earth had reached its first billion people (remember as well that the planet is an estimated 4.5 billion years old, compared to the two hundred years we are discussing here). Following the same general timeline for the population of lions, if I am reading the data correctly, it is estimated that there were 1.2 million lions in 1800, around 450,000 when my mother was born, 200,000 in the early 1970’s, and now there are around 20,000 remaining (Bauer, Hans, et. al.). Reportedly, 95% of their range has been assimilated by humans; both their home and their bodies.
The anthropocene is a period of anthropocentrism, which means that we make it about ourselves. And, it’s not that we are thinking collectively about the survival of our species. The global news should be proof otherwise that we have not yet become inclusive in this way. Rather, we center ourselves within a selfishism that is wrapped knowingly and unknowingly around our desires (and our own neurochemical experiences). Then by degrees we may extend this ethic of self-interest to include tribal/clan-like units, and sometimes forms of nationalisms, which are ultimately and inevitably always for creating separation in one way or another from some “other.” In “The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Lynn White ascribes this, at least in the West, to a Christian ethic for overcoming and suppressing nature. But it seems evident that suppression has become incorporated in the social fabric of diverse cultural ethics. (White also goes on to posit a contrasting Earth-rooted ethic in the model of saints such as Saint Francis, which he favors.)
Some scholars, such as Drew Dellinger, have also argued, convincingly I believe, that Dr. King was an ecologist, and that ecology is intricately connected to social justice. Community organizer and celebrated activist, Grace Lee Boggs, certainly engaged in this ecological ethic as a practice in Detroit and under the name of “beloved community” over the course of her lifetime (Boggs). Dellinger writes,”Reading through [Dr. King’s] consistent references to the universe and the cosmos, to interrelatedness, interdependence, and connectedness, to mutuality and participation, an inescapable conclusion dawned on me: Martin Luther King was an ecological thinker” (Dellinger). Dr. King was acutely aware of systems of interrelationship, which we now organize in the interdisciplinary study of systems theory. And in the language he used, we can also recognize a deep connection to a man Dr. King claimed as his “brother” in the world: the Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh. Thích Nhất Hạnh has written expansively on these topics, including through his reflections on the Prajnaparamita (Wisdom of the Heart) Sutra, in which he states, “to be is to inter-be” (4). This in many ways illustrates a very different network for familial association, and speaks to a different ethic for being — one not based in relativist philosophical “thought-experiments” popularized in the field of ethics, but rooted to the Earth itself.
Aldo Leopold, the forester and author, had made a bold step in the first half of the 20th century to apply the field of ethics to the Earth, as a call for conservation, preservation and stewardship. It seems prudent, though, to recognize that ethics is in fact born of the Earth, and as will be discussed in future weeks, of the universe itself. There is no human being without Earth. Human beings, quite literally, emerged from the atomic clay of the planet over the course of 4.5 billion years of planetary evolution, and continue to do so in this way each day with each molecular piece of fruit or shaped grain assimilated into the energetic exchange of matter (molecular bodies rising at least to the size of planets and stars).
My Mother’s Health
To situate the human being as separate from and able to lord over the Earth (and in opposition to an “other”), is by the essence of our own composition to deny our own body (also a topic we will continue to unfurl in coming weeks). Our body is the body of the Earth, miniaturized with the ever-important capacity for expansive self-reflection. And ethics, in my opinion, is the examination of the root and direction of our reflection.
Incidentally, my mother has been recovering from some heart diseases recently. The way we have found some common ground for spending time together for healing has been by planting summer vegetables and native seeds in her new garden.
Some Prompts to Encourage Forward Movement
- What is the direction of your attention and how does that shape the integrity of your being (holistically or otherwise)?
- How do you understand (or what is) the relationship between the evolution of your own life and the nature of the Earth?
- Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “to be is to inter-be” — how do you experience the reflection of this notion in the context of your own life? Experiences or examples of mutuality? If this doesn’t feel as present as you wish, what could strengthen your experience of mutuality?
Works Cited
Bauer, Hans, Chapron, Guillaume, Nowell, Kristin, Henschel, Phillip, Funston, Paul, Hunter, Luke T. B., Macdonald, David W., and Craig Packer. “Lions decline across Africa,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. vol. 112, no. 48, Dec 2015, pp.14894–14899; DOI:10.1073/pnas.1500664112.
Boggs, Grace Lee. “The Beloved Community of Martin Luther King.” YesMagazine. https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/hope-conspiracy/2004/05/21/the-beloved-community-of-martin-luther-king/. Accessed 10 June 2020.
Dellinger, Drew. “Mr. Luther King — Ecological Thinker.” DrewDellinger, https://drewdellinger.org/martin-luther-king-jr-ecological-thinker/. Accessed 10 June 2020.
Hạnh, Thích Nhất. The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra. Parallax Press, 2009.
Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: an Unnatural History. Picador, 2014.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac: and Sketches Here and There. Oxford University Press, 1949.
White, Lynn. “The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science. vol. 155, no. 3767, 1967, pp. 1203–1207.
