As soon as I realized that I needed to feel reverence for nature and was able Paul Chefurka’s article is a very good summary of what many people will be going through on a spiritual level, as the collapse progresses.
Of particular interest is this list of stages:
- Denial (This isn’t happening to me!) – “Those Peak Oil/Global Warming bozos are a bunch of alarmist idiots. Ignore their ravings, everything’s just fine!”
- Anger (Why is this happening to me?) – “Those bastard Arabs are selling our oil to our enemies and using the proceeds to attack us. Let’s get ‘em, boys!”
- Bargaining (I promise I’ll be a better person if…) – “I’ve put in compact fluorescents, switched to biodiesel and I bought a bike! That will help, right?”
- Depression (I don’t care anymore) – “Crap, the scale of the problem and the intransigence of human behaviour mean we’re screwed after all. Pass the bong.”
- Acceptance (I’m ready for whatever comes) – “The nature of complex adaptive systems and Resilience Theory means were not all screwed, just most of us. I’m probably screwed, but my legacy will be to put in place what I can to help those who do survive.”
And then we can go on to find reverence for nature, and start doing what we can to help repair the damage civilisation has done to nature, and learning to live in sustainable ways.
As soon as I realized that I needed to feel reverence for nature and was able to summon a sense of the sacred in the earth and all its constituents, my lingering, intractable despair suddenly vanished. What is, simply is. We have injured our Earth Mother grievously through our intentional but unaware actions. The best we can do now is to tell her (or perhaps we are just telling ourselves) that we know we hurt her, are sorry for the hurt, will do as much as we can to put it right, and will do everything in our power to ensure that it never happens again. This acknowledgment can reinforce a sense of our accountability and focus us on our responsibility to act.
I now understand that I have always been some sort of pantheist. The Gods and Goddesses of other pagan paths are still foreign to my thinking, but I suspect I will use them as metaphorical focal points or levers in my journey to a spiritual understanding of the situation. I suspect (and fervently hope) that there is about to be an enormous surge in spiritual awakening as the shape of the iceberg clarifies through the mists of fragmentary data, denial and deliberate obscurantism by vested interests. Such spiritual growth is a great boon, and should be encouraged and nurtured wherever we notice its seeds. If you notice those seeds within yourself, give them some sunshine, a little water and good compost; the fruit of that plant is extraordinarily rare and valuable beyond measure.
