The Mystique of the Earth (Thomas Berry) - toward a new Earth Democracy

[Dover]

Excerpt from The Mystique of the Earth
Thomas Berry's vision for an Earth Democracy
recognizes the unity between humans and the planet.
He is interviewed by Caroline Webb
Caduceus, Spring 2003, Issue 59


...We have all grown up with the indoctrination of industrial processes and we don't know anything else; we are captured by this pathology. We present our whole industrial process as benign, as a benefit, as the only way to go, when it is obviously so inhuman. It distorts education, political life, economics and all aspects of the community's existence.


What I am proposing is the development of an integral human order within the order of the planet Earth: that we begin to think of an integral relationship of every aspect of existence with all other aspects, because in the design of Nature things are inherently supportive of other things.


It's a question of developing a qualitative relationship instead of a quantitative one. We are so quantitatively oriented that we see the planet Earth as a natural resource to be used. That's the basic distortion of modern times that comes from Descartes who said there is only `mind' and `matter' -- with humans being the only ones with `mind'. So the idea arose that there is no living principle in living organisms: it's just a mechanistic process that biologists would say is an `emergent property' of matter. And if there is nothing `there' then obviously it is something to be used. But as soon as the person begins to think of living beings as ensouled beings and thinks of the planet as a qualitative presence, to be communed with primarily, not simply as a natural resource to be used, then we can restore the key element in human-earth relationships that has been distorted in the West ever since the 16th and 17th centuries.

cont'd

http://www.thegreatstory.org/Berry-Webb.pdf



SPIRITUALISM
THE HIGHEST FORM OF POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

THE HAU DE NO SAU NEE MESSAGE TO THE WESTERN WORLD

The Hau de no sau nee, or the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, has existed on this land since the beginning of human memory. Our culture is among the most ancient continuously existing cultures in the world. We still remember the earliest doings of human beings. We remember the original instructions of the Creators of Life on this place we call Etenoha -- Mother Earth. We are the spiritual guardians of this place. We are the Ongwhehonwhe -- the Real People.

In the beginning, we were told that the human beings who walk about the Earth have been provided with all the things necessary for life. We were instructed to carry a love for one another, and to show a great respect for all the beings of this Earth. We are shown that our life exists with the tree life, that our well-being depends on the well-being of the Vegetable Life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged beings. In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics.

Ours is a Way of Life. We believe that all living things are spiritual beings. Spirits can be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter. A blade of grass is an energy form manifested in matter -- grass matter. The spirit of the grass is that unseen force which produces the species of grass, and it is manifest to us in the form of real grass.

All things of the world are real, material things. The Creation is a true, material phenomenon, and the Creation manifests itself to us through reality. The spiritual universe, then, is manifest to Man as the Creation, the Creation which supports life. We believe that man is real, a part of the Creation, and that his duty is to support Life in conjunction with the other beings. That is why we call ourselves Ongwhehonwhe -- Real People.

The original instructions direct that we who walk about on the Earth are to express a great respect, an affection, and a gratitude toward all the spirits which create and support Life. We give a greeting and thanksgiving to the many supporters of our own lives -- the corn, beans, squash, the winds, the sun. When people cease to respect and express gratitude for these many things, then all life will be destroyed, and human life on this planet will come to an end.

cont'd

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/6nations1.html#part1a



To think that we can have a viable human economy
by destroying the Earth economy is absurd!

Indigenous people still live in a universe, but we don't;
we live in an economic system.

- Thomas Berry, The Mystique of the Earth.

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/mystiqueOfE.htm

[azndndude]

1. links are dead

[Dover]

2. I posted an alternative link in the OP. See if that works.n/t

[LiberalEsto]

3. This is really important thinking

It relates closely to the Unitarian Universalist principle
"Respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part."

Thank you for posting this. I look forward to reading Berry's work.

[OneBlueSky]

4. Matthew Fox refers to Thomas Berry as a "geologian" . . .

for his important work linking spirituality to the Earth and the environment . . . he's a great thinker who more people should read . . . recommended . . .

ps . . . that third link still doesn't work for me . . .

[Dover]

5. Third link is basically the same web site as the link just above it.

but for some reason I can't get that link to connect me to the specific Berry articles on that site, so you'd have to just go to the home page and look around for it, I guess.
http://www.ratical.org is an interesting site, which is where I discovered both articles. Have a look around there.

Or go here: http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/index.html

[Dover]

6. 3 articles by Thomas Berry at this link >>

The Mystique of the Earth, Interview with Thomas Berry, 2003
The Spirituality of the Earth, by Thomas Berry, 1990
Thomas Berry's Earth Spirituality and the “Great Work,”, by Andrew Angyal, Spring 2003

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/index.html