Ah, Walker ....
I read your words, and though glad your emotions are engaged (always a good sign that the archetypal zone has been reached), I realize that I must not have explained myself very well. I love the experience of wild- erness or I wouldn't have spent so many years attempting to share that experience with students. As you know, it is an incredibly rich teaching- learning environment -- that, for starters -- not to mention the aesthetic and soul refreshing qualities of the experience, and the physical benefits from the exertion required just to get our asses out there with the copious amounts of food and the kitchen sink, the snug tents and sleeping gear, etc. we seem to need to carry on our backs. And I mourn the continued political and resource pressures on these remnants of what our planet once was, as well population pressures and and the wastes from our cities slopping into these "demilitarized zones". (And at this moment, and one reason this response to you has been so slow, are attempts to dissuade the U.S. Navy from using wild- ernesses nearby, surrounding Olympic National Park, for "training in electronic warfare." As if wilderness is "empty" and expendable. One way or another, from ecotherapy to hunting to military practice, our commodity-crazed culture sees wilderness as something to get from, rather than as a place to know, let alone revere. (A shining recent exception: our beloved Elwha River now recently cleared of dams already reverting back to a mighty spawning ground for Chinook salmon.) ************************************** We embrace the concept "nature" knowing it carries multiple meanings -- layers upon layers -- perhaps "modes of knowing" connecting with our own million-year history as mammals come down from the trees, and all phases of our evolution since then. (Thus, it is so ironic that, for all this journey, "wilderness" was the dominant context of our evolution, it is only very recently that the majority of our fellow humans defines wild- erness as a commodity, psychic or otherwise.) As past or present wilderness guides we tend to equate "wilderness" with "nature" (wilderness is where you can really experience nature!) and I think this may get us off the track of what it is that really needs healing -- in us individually and in culture as a whole -- in order to reverse the continued and escalating damage to the natural systems of the planet. By saying that "dualism" is the fundamental psychological process needing healing, I've over-simplified this process and thus masked the points I'm trying to make. Yes, all civilizations (from indigenous to the now-becoming-global Western Civilization) tend to "fall away" from a unified "embeddedness" in the "pre-minded" natural systems. Note that though there have been many attempts to apply Darwinian natural evolution to social progressions, by evolution we still tend to mean the unfolding of nature at the pre-human level and thus now, with the human impact daily becoming more ubiquitous, we find ourselves "at odds" or "separate from" what we imagine to be "natural". Again, "nature" as pre-human; wilderness as the most obvious locus for that state of being. So it is "natural" that we tend to think of getting back inside that "most natural place" as the best place for our various needs to be, well, "natural". ************************************** It seems that this "falling away" (mythologized in the expulsion from the natural "Garden of Eden) is a function of the emergence of cognitive behavior in all cultures -- varying because of various "modes of knowing" accentuated at different historical epochs, and institutionalized to varying degrees in different cultures. But there is a universal "stepping back", a pause in experiencing, distinguishing differences (for most of our history necessary for survival), codifying those distinctions, interpreting them in varying ways, etc. Western Culture is unique, not in it's accuracy about human-nature relationships, but in it's penchant for pushing the distinction- making process to a point where not only is embeddedness diminished but there is a complete breaking of the common reality with context, the breaking of relationships, which spawns beliefs in different and un- connected realities. Beliefs we, "at higher planes of consciousness" -- or at levels of resistance to our culture's favored cognitive processes -- may define as false, as the distorting of the natural world, as well as human identification with that natural world. Yet as we know with increasing vividness, "freedom from context" -- a release from the awareness of our dependency with natural processes -- this sense (belief, delusion!) of separateness has brought incredible power to our species through the utilization of "that which is separate from us" -- the creation of technologies and other artifacts of awesome power and utility -- awesome, (and addictive) but cognitively separate. That is the dilemma now apparent, the destructive fruits of our dualistic posture with "the natural" -- but that is only one of a nested hierarchy of dualisms that impinge upon our mental processing, whether at conscious or unconscious levels. And further it is assumed by both evolutionists (such as, say, Wilber) and "flow cognizers" (such as, say, Whitehead), and especially by visionary anthropologists such as Richard Grossinger)-- it is assumed that this artificial break in realities creates a myopia, a kind of cataract of our senses, if not an active resistance or blocking to the inflow of information emanating from the very Cosmos -- our ultimate context, as it were. Our culture, through various assumptions, beliefs, fixing of ideologies, transposed into institutions, seems to have become very adept at nurturing and fixing at a "closed" or limited view of psychic interaction, a level of separation whereby exploitation of a separated "Other" can run amok, without the responsibilities required of an interactive relationship, let alone a kind of stewardship to be expected of our impact on the planet. Yet, this "inflow" is irrepressible, so it continues to pop out everywhere, from Mumbai slums to pristine wilderness -- especially when certain "practices of opening" are followed. It is in this "repression-of-cosmic consciousness" sense that I see the drama of overcoming this Big Delusion revealed in our understanding of dualism as a complete break with reaiity, whether with our ongoing relationship with plants in the backyard, or a forest, a food source, a wilderness; or with, say, weather, planetary events, or the stars in the night sky. And in this general (or cosmic) sense the "healing" of dualism can happen anywhere -- anywhere our bodies or minds (via imagination) can take us. I believe this is happening on many fronts (in subways and apartment towers, in slums and country estates, and so on. And given the entrenchment of a ubiquitous and dominant culture, still globalizing, this seems a project that will take hundreds if not thousands of years. It is a kind of 'bootstrapping" evolution of consciousness (or rather, the evolution of the capacity to access consciousness). Wilber has mapped this course (via Teilhard, Plotinus, Koestler, et al) as are various elements of arcane philosophy, theosophy and the like -- all with their logic and merits and comforts. It is course of recovery from Big Dualism -- perhaps an attempt to regain intimacy with the ontological framework of the universe, brought into our now vast neurophysiology, having reached a level of complexity that can imagine, if not actually access "messages from the universe" (cf, Robert Blys "New of the Universe" poetry, all of Jung's visions, and now, especially, Richard Grossinger's "The Night Sky" and other recent writings.) That's assuming that the irrepressibility of this "information" wanting to "get with us" can reach our level of functionality given our embeddedness within this culture. ******************* This cosmic evolutionary program, at the heart of which is indeed the resolution of this "loss-of-Eden" dualism that is deeply locked in to our present Western Culture, I see as a necessary direction, an orientation for individual lives, communities of fellow travelers, a so-called hope (often couched in very romantic terms) for a "Great Turning". Every single relationship we have expresses our "progress" in this regard. But meanwhile, back here on the earth, the "focused effects" of this dualistic mind-set, both spawning and utilizing the objectified "mode of knowing" that too easily morphs into a fundamentalist religion, into "scientism" to poorly name it, we know the damage to the earth's natural processes seems to be escalating. And though there are many noble attempts to resolve this, most resolutions deal with symptoms rather than causes; we are all implicated it seems; and too easily the causes seem masked. Anomie sets in. The issue for me is whether this "cosmic overcoming of dualistic belief and practice", a program wending into a distant future, also breaks down into "sub-dualisms" -- the many daily breaking of relationships within systems meant to be functioning holistically. It appears to me that, with a "cosmic dualism" "behind" all our basic perceptions and thought processes, it is understandable that in minds programmed to pull consciousness into "egoic processes" (i.e.., "need fulfilling functions), there would be many "sub-dualisms" that could actually be "treated' separately. ("Healing" thus becoming a many-levels phenomena.) And thus it would seem to me that the "split" between humans and nature -- said often to be rampantly growing -- is one example of a sub-dualism, and something that can be "treated" -- by bridging between "culture" and "nature" using many ways of "connecting" that are available to us -- whether gardening, running, horseback riding, eating, sex, sleeping, and so on -- all the myriads of things we do (mostly unconsciously) that are neither all culture, or all nature -- but a blend of both. Becoming aware of these ongoing connections would be a "healing" of one of our many "sub-dualisms" rattling around our daily-life mindedness (or not) lives. This, then, would be the crux point dividing many approaches: simplistically, (1) doing an "end run" around current culture and current culture-spawned earth damaging problems -- going straight for enlightenment! vs. (2) finding "here-and-now" "it's 'just this'" reason to daily resolve our habits of distancing, finding ways to connect in all that we do -- and since our cultural lack of connection with "nature" seems to be diminishing our opportunities for further evolution anyway, practices (including the wilderness experience) that connect make sense. Thus, going to the wilderness with the intent of "connecting" would exemplify the healing a "sub-dualism" -- along with connecting with one's neighbors, co-creating a sacred marriage, making the food process a connected one, and so on. So I praise the wilderness excursions (though I insist that they are indeed a function of a wealthy society able to set aside large tracts of supposedly "pure naturalness", and able to take the time from survival processes in order to do so). We know, and have spoken of, the need to "break the cultural hold" so a wilderness experience is not reduced to an experience of a cultural projection. And I have proposed that a "real ecopsychology" can help us in this endeavor. Basically, I've proposed, all along, that we'll learn by doing -- but that the need to get on with it grows daily. And we know -- or at least, towards the last of my work in wilderness it's the conclusion I reached -- that the wilderness (1) may or may not open to the "cosmic duality" mentioned above, and (2) reveals as much about "the opposite pole" -- the culture in which we're embedded, as it does about the wilderness per se -- though knowledge of the various systems and dynamics so beautifully found in wilderness may be of fabulous pleasure and benefit as well. For, it is the culture we carry, the culture to which we return after a few weeks "away", and even with the grip of that culture perhaps loosened to some degree, there it is, revealed by its relative absence; revealed by the contrast between a "revealed" quasi primitiveness for a short while, and the return to the rampant, burgeoning technological race to a merging of mind and artifact, rather than mind and nature. Robert Greenway Corona Farm Port Townsend, WA January 12, 2015
1 Comment
Walker writes 11/18/14:
"I think there can be an assumption that a non-dual moment must be an experience of the "One", that as subject/object duality is transcended, we enter some kind of fusion state. But obviously, the Buddha did not bump into trees as he walked around. He still knew the boundaries of his "self', but felt that self to be included within a larger "Self". I remember a curious moment with a spider, in which I felt in an intuitive and overwhelming way, that what I had in common with that spider was far greater than our differences. Rational science (ecology) of course would make that same argument very persuasively, but in this moment, it was more of a felt experience, not a deductive one." First, remember that "dualities" are not necessarily "disjunctions" (complete splits with reality). Pairings, even when there is strong tension between the "sides", are still connected. Generally, therefore, I find "pairings" (i.e., most "dualities") to be useful, or at least not showing a need for "healing". And remember we've been noticing how profoundly Western culture nurtures dualities, as well as a dysfunctional (dualistic) breaking apart of dualities. Short of a complete transformation of the culture in which we're immersed, and whose tropes, styles, even ideologies we can't help reflecting, I'd suggest it's important to "call our shots" -- be wise in focusing what crucially needs healing, and what we can live with. And I'd suggest focussing on the "real" disjunctions that are rapidly diminishing the chances that an unfettered "natural evolution" can continue: what we've been calling "the human-nature split". The very tough question for me is, just how far "into" culture is nature "natural". Is there a natural-nonnatural line that must be drawn ..... or is this it! Los Angeles as much "nature" as Kings Canyon Wilderness. Wilber, for example, sees all dualities as a function of the stages of evolution -- each stage coasting along, functioning, until it doesn't, and there's a "climb" to a higher stage, and then again, and again, through what we understand as evolutionary history. And for Wilber, immersed in various splits ("alienations", "separations", "distinctions pushed to disjunctions" , etc.) he sees the split between consciousness and "Spirit" (or what I think you're calling here a "fusion state") as the mother of all dualistic disjunctive splits, the implication that that's what we should focus on, and doing so will "heal" all these troublesome splits along the way. (This I find remarkably similar to the Christian programs of conversions -- "salvation" is present, now, with acceptance of an influx of Jesus energy. It also arouses thoughts of the Buddha Dharma -- though "enlightenment" is all present, here, now, we still have a path of progression laid out before us -- many lives in which to be incarnated before .... "fusion".) I'm all for these views, as forward references at least. Goals are great -- but I'm still immersed in the idea that "how we get there is where we're going". So, meanwhile, step by step as we progress towards ultimate salvation, or as we accept instantaneous salvation, we still, I believe, must face our collective destruction of the earth. All moral, spiritual, pragmatic, even aesthetic con- siderations would convince me of this. So, without discounting the larger "forward references", or more dogmatic here-and-now religious views, I think it right to be healing the many facets, the many disjunctions, between ourselves, and the planet out of which we've emerged. How could it be otherwise? (I'm saying, rather than occupying ourselves with doing an end run around a sickening destruction of our home planet, it is crucial that we, en masse, awaken to our delusions of free lunches, escapism, and find "transcendence" in every healing of the many, many disjunctions that comprise our sorry state of "relationship" with nature. Think of it as a path to "full enlightenment", fine; or as a necessary clearing of the decks for "bigger connections"; or as, simply, the Dharma of every- day life. And I'm asking: could "the wilderness experience" be escapism? Could the same kind of attention and "connecting" take place anywhere, on the subway in NYC? Walker also writes: "I think one of the greatest gifts of the wilderness experience is the feeling that we are part of something much bigger. Though this experience is certainly possible anywhere, I do think that it is harder to grasp when one lives completely in an environment of human fabrication. A child raised entirely among buildings, roads, and sidewalks, will inevitably come to see that context as the world. Though larger principles like Time, Space, Consciousness, Nature, Tao, God, Goddess, etc. are certainly fully present in that human-fabricated world, I think it is harder to intuit them, whereas in the wilderness, I think it is hard not to intuit them. It becomes almost self-evident that there is some vast process happening here, and the human is but a small piece therein, and furthermore, a piece like all pieces that is very much sustained by the larger whole." So yes, those of us in wealthy countries with the wherewithal to enjoy time spent in this romantic illusion of "pure nature" we call "wilderness", can find plenty of opportunity -- sweet experiences of connecting -- that shake our conformities to cultural enslavement, delusions of conquering, delusions of grandeur. And this certainly would fit my view that working to overcome (to "heal") disjunctions between "mind and nature", or "culture and nature" are worthy activities. But I think it delusional to think (1) that this view of "nature" is pure ("other than culture", as the environmental philosophers sometimes put it), and (2) that the experience taking place in cities, in buildings and automobiles, etc., is any less "natural" than wilderness. Our experiences in both realms are filtered through our culture. It is a dualism, and thus inaccurate, to think we -- our minds, psyche's, expressions of realities -- are actually separate from either realm. Both may or may not expand (connect, or "reconnect") our psyches, both may be grounds for spiritual evolution, or not. It depends on our intentions, and on the stories we are telling ourselves. I think it important for humans, from Mumbai to Memphis, to seek and find "realization" wherever they are. (One reason: if "mind" -- or "consciousness" -- is ubiquitous, and if cultures "condition" or "reduce" the experience of that consciousness to sane, manageable economic plans, say, surely healing of the separations that facilitate those reductions can happen anywhere. Any- where.) It seems to me more a manner of our privileged Western cultural histories, the circumstances we find ourselves in the West, our penchant for recoiling from the pollution and garbage of cities, the noise, our particular view of what is beautiful and what isn't -- all of these raise the stature of this romantic view of nature we find in wilderness -- to perhaps yet another vivid and trouble- some dualism we are in position to overcome. Are we (speaking generally for our species) "out of balance"? "diseased"? (a plague upon the once-heathy earth). Perhaps. I question whether we'll heal our disease, which surely involve the stories we tell ourselves about how are "minds" work , and "what nature is", by assuming that immersion in romantic views of pristine nature is "better" than .... anyplace. Anyplace! Walker ends by saying: "I think one of the greatest gifts of the wilderness experience is the feeling that we are part of something much bigger. Though this experience is certainly possible anywhere, I do think that it is harder to grasp when one lives completely in an environment of human fabrication. A child raised entirely among buildings, roads, and sidewalks, will inevitably come to see that context as the world. Though larger principles like Time, Space, Consciousness, Nature, Tao, God, Goddess, etc. are certainly fully present in that human-fabricated world, I think it is harder to intuit them, whereas in the wilderness, I think it is hard not to intuit them. It becomes almost self-evident that there is some vast process happening here, and the human is but a small piece therein, and furthermore, a piece like all pieces that is very much sustained by the larger whole." I very much doubt that when you visit the Bay Area you feel any less "in charge" than you do in "wilderness". (I think we tend to abstract out of the chaos of civilization the totemic beliefs and tools that give us apparent "power". I find the rampaging "collective" consciousness (and unconsciousness), gathered here and there, everywhere, to be as awesome and unfathomable as, say, any wilderness area. The closest I come to "control" or "full understanding" is in the practice of my "intense biodynamic" farming approach, and there I understand perhaps 2 or 3 percent of what is really going on!) And those kids on the streets -- I once advised a program designed to "get them to nature" in the country. They were terrified, but became very resonant with the idea of their own selves as "wildernesses", when shown the billions of organisms that naturally exist all over their bodies, inside and out. No, Walker, you know how much I love the wilderness, those years of ex- perience immersed in it. I would still find it "healing", a good place for yoga and for releasing our infinite share of consciousness from the culture-shaped need-crazed ego. And yes, if humans are in some way showing increasing evidence of massive "mental disease", and if that disease is indeed concentrated in urban centers, and around delusionary tools of control -- still, even there, even now, healing is present. It has to be! There would be no "wilderness" if it is only path to recover balance between human minds and natural processes. And I didn't mention "ecopsychology" once -- though I think it a worthy tool to apply to healing the human-environment relationship, anywhere! I'm glad we're talking about non-duality, though I think that term easily mystifies many people, if not outright scares them away.
Beyond poets, who of course I'm fond of, the philosopher Freya Mathews (For Love of Matter) has for me done a remarkable job of articulating into this subtle area. She refers at times to Taoism, and its use of the terms the "One" and the "Many". We find this also in Emerson (the "One" and the "All"). In both cases, the "One" is not necessarily privileged over the "Many/All". I think there can be an assumption that a non-dual moment must be an experience of the "One", that as subject/object duality is transcended, we enter some kind of fusion state. But obviously, the Buddha did not bump into trees as he walked around. He still knew the boundaries of his "self', but felt that self to be included within a larger "Self". I remember a curious moment with a spider, in which I felt in an intuitive and overwhelming way, that what I had in common with that spider was far greater than our differences. Rational science (ecology) of course would make that same argument very persuasively, but in this moment, it was more of a felt experience, not a deductive one. I think Freya Mathews would be a strong proponent of the "I-Thou" realization you bring up, as opposed to the strictly unitive one. In the non-dual moment, we can still be in relationship to something(s), though that relationship is now felt as immense, profound, sacred, and other such descriptive terms. I think one of the greatest gifts of the wilderness experience is the feeling that we are part of something much bigger. Though this experience is certainly possible anywhere, I do think that it is harder to grasp when one lives completely in an environment of human fabrication. A child raised entirely among buildings, roads, and sidewalks, will inevitably come to see that context as the world. Though larger principles like Time, Space, Consciousness, Nature, Tao, God, Goddess, etc. are certainly fully present in that human-fabricated world, I think it is harder to intuit them, whereas in the wilderness, I think it is hard not to intuit them. It becomes almost self-evident that there is some vast process happening here, and the human is but a small piece therein, and furthermore, a piece like all pieces that is very much sustained by the larger whole. So I want to suggest that a non-dual moment can be as simple as this felt sense that we are part of a bigger whole, and furthermore I'll suggest that most people can feel this relatively easily. One doesn't have to "become" that bigger whole in some kind of massive samadhi unitive state, though I think certain intensive practitioners of meditation may achieve exactly that. But even the everyday feeling of love marks some measure of the non-dual, because it carries connection with it, as opposed to separation. So I can summarize by saying that for me the non-dual implies feeling "what I have in common" as opposed to "what I have exclusive". It implies feeling I am "part of" as opposed to "separate from". I think I look to the ecofeminists and their recurring emphasis on feeling ourselves as members in the "family" that is the living earth. Certainly, the Native American rejoinder "We are all relatives" comes into play here. I guess what I'm saying is that if we assume a non-dual moment requires the feeling/realization "I am everything", then it is going to seem very rare and elusive. But if we reframe it "I am not-other than everything", it becomes more approachable. For example, a single epidermis cell in my left pinky is not "me" but it also is not "other than me". It gets a little trickier if we ask about a single carbon molecule in my left pinky. Well, that's "not me" either, but it also is not "definitively other than me". But since carbon molecules are constantly coming and going between "me" and "the world", it becomes harder to say that even a carbon molecule outside my body is "other then me". So there are levels and levels of this. Turtles all the way down, right? But I'd like to see our ecopsychology be generous in our understanding of non-duality and encourage people to see that when in their everyday lives they feel love, connection, belonging, "part of", and "not-other-than", then they are indeed experiencing some level of non-duality and are already transcending some of the harsh dualistic assumptions of our culture. I want to end with another plug for the wilderness moment. I am remembering Marshall McLuhan: "the medium is the message". In the medium of an entirely human fabricated world, the message is "we are in charge here; we have the right to be in charge here". You can read as many ethical texts ("messages") to the contrary as you want, but it won't make much difference, because the medium is really controlling the dialog. Correspondingly, in a wilderness moment, the medium says "we are not in charge here; Vast Cycles are happening, and we are part". I think this is why so many indigenous cultures couldn't quite buy into the Western worldview. As long as they are still living within the "medium" of wild earth, any "message" condoning human domination and exploitation just won't make sense.
Let's take for a moment the function of Greenway Ecopsychology. What is its purpose? Clearly it is more than just idle or self-referential theorizing. It wants to accomplish a goal, be a contribution to human culture and thereby perhaps be a benefit to all beings (by supporting a more harmonious human interconnection with the whole). You wrote: "So we're working on a map that might at least participate and enhance a very subtle, often hidden, but huge worldwide effort -- to overcome dualistic modes of thought....."
But we also have your example of Antoinette (from "Robert 4"), in which we saw the rigorous and carefully choreographed two-year program that guided her through the study and practices necessary to build up to the potential transformative realizations. So we have a possible challenge of implementation: how to reconcile "worldwide" with the simultaneous recognition that apparently to reap the benefits of the "map", one must apply oneself in a very focused and particular way. It is also a fairly scholarly path, as Antoinette's reading list is extensive and demanding, and of course, it is almost all in Western material, which will impede "worldwide". But I am very struck by your beautiful description of a transformative moment, in which one has "overcome dualistic modes of thought": in every situation (not obsessively, but as often as is comfortable) the "psychology" and the "ecology" are considered as constant guides for processing experience. ("I am now ....." '' it is now....") and, in time there is a "we" that emerges, even an "I-Thou" emerges, and the experience begins to transcend the separate self walking into those mighty "resources" over there. "We" are in each other's presence. For me, this is getting to the heart of the matter. Perhaps we can expand it. Though the map is huge and vast and requires an abundance of words to adequately express itself, when we start getting into the territory of a non-dualistic moment, the words thin out. But I suspect you can say more. So perhaps for a moment let's leave the "how to" aside, and just try to explore the moment itself. What is it? What does it feel like? How might it change our relationship with the world? Note from Walker: Robert has responded with an initial review statement, and then he has chosen to respond in a paragraph by paragraph manner to my previous blog entry. So when you scroll down, you will see my previous comments in this black ink, while Robert's new words will appear in this beige (?) ink.
............................................................................................ Since I'm a ten-steps-forward-nine-steps-back kind of person (and in a way, you are too, only you call it an "Interlude") -- I'll loop back before lurching forward: seeking to be on the same page with you! Why are we doing this? My answer to this rhetorical question is that we have done much the same work in a major part of our lives, only with differences in practice and description that may (or may not) be important to reveal and discuss. We have learned from each other, and seek to continue that fortuitous process. And now you see me challenging "eco- psychology" ("EP") (my baby!) and you wonder what I'm up to. You know I've spent much time and energy "mastering" Ken Wilber's amazing "map of everything" "Integral Psychology and "AQAL") and you appear to be doing so too -- and you wonder if that map applies to the critique and revisions of current EP practice I'm making. We agree, I believe, that the entire global mind-set of humans continues to reflect assumptions about the human-nature- relationship ("HNR"), or at best are simply myopic with regard to this relationship, such that we as humans continue to damage the planet's "health" -- to the degree that our future is in peril. With regard to the critique of EP -- I say it has become broad and vague, and that it assumes a kind of colonizing priority over many ancient and current expressions of the HNR -- and thus is not useful as a map -- a map for action, or for psychological and social change. Again, I advocate juxtaposing a trans- personal psychology with real ecology, claiming that this holds a strong potential for a more useful map, and/or at least might enhance existing maps. And all this seems important -- saving the "efflorescence of life" as Thomas Berry puts it; continuing the process of evolution, not necessarily as an end in itself, but to see where it wants to go. The key assumption here is that "spiritual evolution" is beautiful, but can't continue without our home base, the earth. So we're working on a map that might at least participate and enhance a very subtle, often hidden, but huge worldwide effort -- to overcome dualistic modes of thought, perhaps; from which to create models of alternatives that are "sustainable". To open to perspectives -- "higher" or "larger" or "deeper" or "more accurate" -- so our efforts will be in alignment with all that we know, and with the vast mysteries that surround about which we distort, or about which we have not yet learned. Many of our students and colleagues admonish us to stop navel gazing, to stop nit-picking about philosophical issues, about "underlying assumptions", and do "actions". We do actions, but I argue, and hope you agree that this is also a crucial time to become more fully aware of the assumptions underlying actions and practices; and a crucial time for a stronger analysis and diagnosis at the shape of this "dis-ease" that seems to be pushing us in a catastrophic direction; that questioning and improving our maps might help insure that our actions are healing rather than smoke and mirrors. And so on. So, we wonder what a "more rigorous" EP map might look like, and what it might do for us. And now, I suggest, we have raised the issue of "maps" -- and must ask what they are, how they work, and indeed what might be needed. So "maps"! Maps are not "the territory", though often confused as such. They represent a territory, usually implying that such representations guide us to that territory. It is nice when they can be held in the hands, and folded up and put away; nice when they can be trusted -- trusted because they are based on the experience of many others -- past explorers, those able to see patterns, to have tried out various routes. Nice when they are accurate -- when they get us far into where we wish to go, rather than back at the cars, back to our starting point. But too, maps are often speculative, often couched in the specialized language of a certain which, as I've argued, has been caught up in various cultural eddies and points "back", not into "the promised land", but into our all-embracing culture -- its tropes and hopes, its veneers, love of easy solutions, tendencies towards imperialism and colonization, and especially it's deeply-engrained habits of "dividing and conquering" -- what I often sum up as "our addiction to dualistic modes of thought". So, we're looking for a new and better map, a map that leads us to a mental-cultural state we can only vaguely envision -- some kind of place where we're in "alignment" or "in cooperation with" that billions-years-old program of evolution that has produced ... us! We see maps on all sides -- many of which aggressively propose their utility: from the massive Wilberian "Integral Ecology", to the "it's-all-about-expanding-the-self" Deep Ecology, to eco-feminists "recovery of the Feminine" maps, to no-map-is- better-than-false-map adventurers (and "stay off the trails!") to maps leading into unbelievably immense and complex jungles, from which people who have entered confidently are never seen again. And I have so-far argued that the juxtaposition of psychology and real ecology is a map worth developing -- based on what we can glean from lives spent trying out many other maps, and from our own explorations, in wildernesses, in cities, on farms and in the Hinterlands. Real ecology, juxtaposed with (let me qualify it a bit now) the kinds of psychology that are wholistic, introspective, and transpersonal. OK -- that's my "interlude" -- now, on to commenting on your comments! (Walker from 10/3):This elaboration from you, Robert, really helps my understanding of what “Greenway ecopsychology” is all about. Thank you. It’s becoming clearer and clearer as we go along. And I’m happy to report that I find myself pretty much in full agreement with what you say. It makes a tremendous amount of sense, which doesn’t surprise me. Let me comment a moment on the “Interlude”, which will also lead us into other matters within your “Response 4”. I did not mean to privilege poetry over other modes of knowing or expressing. I agree with you wholeheartedly (and with those Buddhists you cite) that there are countless ways up the mountain, all valid. I will be the first to attest that my poetry is built upon a background of reading lots and lots of non-fiction, including most of the books you recommend in your list of “10” and also many of the books and fields of study you cite as part of “Antoinette’s” education. Yes, I understand and agree. Sources of poetry are endlessly discussed by poets and critics and philosophers -- sources ranging from fully rational clusters of words, to the memories of experiences; from the rational "algebraic dynamics" of similes, to the mystical rooted-in-nature sources of metaphor. So, you say you are pretty rational and read a lot (!), and I know you to be a "deep ponderer", via which, I assume, you're accessing all sorts of ancient and modern myths, what the Jungians would call the various archetypal upwellings that carry us back perhaps a million years into our species' roots. And you like "parsimony" and "serendipity". And your poetry is beautiful, and, it appears to me, reflective of your deep scholarship on the one hand, and years of experience guiding students "into the wild" on the other. (Good work!) However, I was trying to get at something that may have significance in our further conversation. Namely, (using Wilber) the difference between Right Quadrant and Left. I'm not sure how many of our readers (do we have readers?) who understand Wilber's AQAL (All Quadrants/All Levels) map. You summarize it a bit below -- I'll let that stand for now -- but yes, I find his map extremely useful, and I place "ecoposychology" within that map, as you are suggesting here -- as well as all those other expressions of the human-nature relationship. (It is important to point out, however, that the AQAL map is in need of the what a strong ecopsychology might bring to it: the linkage between perspectives (i.e., "Quadrants" -- like between the objectified exterior (the Upper Right Quadrant, and the human "mind" -- the Upper Left interior Quadrant. Just how does that "linkage" or "juxtaposition" actually work? Wilber (and the authors of Integral Ecology) do not answer this, to the best of my knowledge, referring only rather vaguely to the presence of "intersubjectivity" or "resonance" between the quadrants. So though the quadrants seem accurate and very useful, exactly how they might interact is missing -- and this is precisely the kind a strong EP might shed light on!) (And precisely, by the way, where "languages" of music, poetry, dance, narrative, etc., might help bring the map -- or any map of the HNR -- to completion (at least, temporary "completion"!). The science of ecology is a Right Quadrant activity. It is an observer perceiving and detailing other objects. As Wilber has gone to great lengths to show (perhaps excessively) as regards writers like Fritjof Capra or Joanna Macy who use quantum mechanics or systems theory (ecology) to argue for humans as not-separate from everything else, that type of scientific argument is not in itself the realization of non-separateness. Our science has for a long time now made very clear that humans are “but one strand in the web” (good old Chief Seattle), and yet, that science has not yet been enough to influence our culture as a whole to behave from that non-separate understanding. Yes, I believe this to be accurate. And I believe that this, and past maps -- and especially the diverse mish-mash of EP maps -- aren't convincing because they are incomplete. It's like you've got a detailed and beautiful map of the Yolla Bolly Wilderness, even the trails laid out to our Sacred Shell Mountain, and the map doesn't show you where (and how) to cross the Middle Fork! We're going to "get inside" the wilderness, and we think that (finally!) we'll be able to feel our way into being one strand of a "whole environment" we can fully trust -- and then, some- how we're not fully "inside" -- we're half in, half out -- still under the powers of the dualistic mind. How do we get across the river? So yes, I'm agreeing with you! And, to bring the UL ("mind") and UR (objective data about environment) together, as I mentioned we have mathematics and statistics from those giving privilege to the UR Quadrant; and poetry or dance (or humming) to those privileging the UL Quadrant; and from those privilege "experience over language" we might have .... what? silence, and exemplary behavior? And from those familiar with boundaries dissolving through mind-altering substances, we might have those privileging, well, ritual and the like. But the "transmission across boundaries" -- presuming the map of these boundaries is based on some correspondence with reality -- is, in my view, the essence of what is needed. It is "the next move" towards healing the human-nature relationship. Think of all our various relationships: can we do better than chance to find the "dynamic" of how a non-dominant or non-exploitative relationship might work? Wilber argues that the actual realization or experience of non-separateness, of belonging to the earth, of being interconnected with all other beings, even "one" with them, happens on the Left Quadrant. Therefore, it is really Left Quadrant “skillful means”, rather than Right Quadrant elaborations, that most directly lead to the experience of connectedness. You can have all the Right Quadrant elaborations in the world, but it doesn't automatically jump over to Left Quadrant realization. If it did, we'd merely have to be told there was a Singularity, there was a Big Bang, and we'd feel to the very core the non-duality that is implicit in that cosmology. Well, this is interesting, but I don't think I quite agree (perhaps more from my own interpretation of Wilber, than a strict adherence to his map). Each of the four quadrants are always in play in every situation. It is a rational act of the UR Quadrant to see the quadrants as separate at all. My scientist friends (and my own love of ecological science) is aflow with aesthetic, interior (Upper Left Quadrant) feelings; my under standing of, say, solid data from the UR (with regard to, say, a river watershed into which I'm moving) is based on Lower Right (objective-consensus) language from the scientific community that studies such things; and the Lower Left "subjective" inflow of, say, "the collective unconscious" -- the upwelling of archetypes into consciousness, via dreams, via reverie, and so on -- all are in play, though yes, I may indeed by favoring the "objective measurements" of the Upper Right perspective. The point is, leaning into one or the other of the Quadrants is always -- always-- a matter of emphasis, not a separate locked-in isolated mode of looking at things -- although, yes, it may seem that way when listening to the fanatic measurer, the fanatic data-hound; or the narcissist enraptured only with her interior emotional pleasures. As with Jungian therapy (with his own interesting quadrant approach to personality), the practice of such things is to balance -- to invite the non-dominant perspective into discourse. (And this, by the way, would underlie my long-standing argument that there are aspects of "the wilderness experience" that can only be done in groups, other aspects that can only be experienced when alone.) (And the difficulty of this kind of "intersubjective" flexibility -- this kind of "interactivity" between the quadrants -- is perhaps rooted in the very deep-level dualistic grip that our cultural matrix embeds into as our developmental processes (multiple lines of development!) flow through it!. Without some kind of "deep" self analysis (or perhaps psychoanalysis) one rarely is aware of such things as dominance patterns in relationships, say, or in privileging this or that "mode of knowing" (or privileged perspective of one of Wilber's map's Four Quadrants.) Like you, I am all for rationality ("fully engaged"). But it must be seen for its limits. Rationality is the ego perceiving and measuring things outside itself, and studying associated cause and effect often from its own self-centered needs and perspective. As such, duality is fairly implicit in, and inextricable from, rationality. Well, sort of. In my view, "ego" -- our "executive function" for getting needs -- any and all felt needs -- may or may not involve rationality. And rationality may or may not be absent or present with regard to "the dualistic tendency" embedded in our Western culture, and thus in our psyches. (I take my definition of dualism from both Stan McDaniel, my colleague from Sonoma State, and from Ken Wilber as well. There's a continuum from the perception of a distinction, all the way to the pushing of that distinction to a complete splintering of reality. So "pairs" (and paraxoxes, and "two-things" -- "the dual") may or may not be dualism. It is clearly conceivable to have the "dualistic process" fully guided by, or "operationally paired" with "rationality". Now I certainly do not rule out that the study of natural history can lead to many moments of deep awe at the sheer intricate way nature works, or that a profound knowledge of ecology can in a “vision logic” moment lead to a very deep understanding of non-duality. Perhaps we could liken this approach to “Jnana Yoga”, the use of thought and knowledge to transform fundamental worldview. But by including "vision logic", we are moving into the lower rungs of all the "trans-rational" levels that Wilber describes. And I believe he would maintain that rationality itself as a "stage" cannot experience the non-dual. In fact for him, the "rational" is in some ways the most "alienated" stage, with both pre-rational and trans-rational containing more experiential feelings of connection. No, I don't think so. (I apologize for not taking the time to look up Wilber's voluminous writings on rationality, extolling it as a stage -- advocating, even, it's perhaps crucial utility even now, as the world lurches towards destruction- born-of irrationality. But yes, the point of his "all levels" aspect of AQAL) is that we proceed through rationality, on our way to the full non-dual. And it's not as if we leave rationality behind, it's "transcended and incorporated" -- what I take the Vapassana meditation teacher Jack Kornfield means in one of his books' titles: "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry".) Fortunately, your “Greenway ecopsychology” balances ecology (Right Quadrant) with psychology, and psychology, as we know, is concerned with what happens in the Left Quadrants. This balance is something I admire in your system and which makes it very encompassing and applicable all through AQUAL. And I know you are in particular a proponent of "trans-personal" psychology, which further shows your valuation of the trans-rational stages I'm referring to. Yes! I am reminded a bit of a difference between Emerson and Thoreau. Thoreau “wanted to get to know his neighbors”, so he spent a lot of time running around the Concord area looking at plants, animals, watersheds, weather and seasonal patterns, such that he came to be someone we would think of as a very good naturalist (and something of an ecologist, though that full science had yet to come into its own). Yes, and this reminds me of a couple of things: the incredible understandings (of, we'll call it, "the human-nature relationship") that Thoreau, Muir, Emerson, and so many others, may or may not have understood, didactically, what we now call "ecology". But they, and most if not all of those developing "soft" ecopsychologies, or these many human-nature-relational studies I keep mentioning -- they all have that sense of acute perception into the "dynamics" of the natural world; and their "interior" emotional love was aroused. That is very close to what I'm calling "real ecopsychology" -- both sides of the equation are in play. Again, I'm just saying that, now, with the tools of "real ecology", and of an appropriate psychology, we can get to that same place, perhaps, even, to a "deeper place". But, fortunately, through myriads of ways, this "experiencing of nature" along with serious self understanding, as alive and well on many many fronts. (I'd further need to add, however, that I define "rationality" separate from "ego" and "ego-as-motivational force" -- we'll save that for another time.) Emerson, on the other hand, explicitly warns against “a too trivial and microscopic study of the universal tablet” (nature). He talks about “relaxing the despotism of the senses” (Right Quadrant activity) and allowing what we might think of as a more intuitive or contemplative mode to arise (Left). Yes, a point made by all the great teachers (especially those extolling The Middle Way) -- our egoic (need-oriented) mind has a passionate tendency to latch on to one or another of what Wilber is calling AQAL -- the quickest, easiest map. Since these maps don't seem to be working, we now seek a map to a deeper place -- or perhaps a completely different kind of map altogether (consider, music!) (smile) Perhaps poetry, music, art, dance, could be likened, in contrast to “Jnana”, as more of a “Bhakti Yoga” approach. This would be oriented toward the feelings of love, reverence, celebration of our connection to nature. So, one practitioner (Emerson-style) of “Greenway ecopsychology” might read and study a little less of ecology and a little more of the poets and mystics, while another practitioner (Thoreau-style) might be out there devoutly with hand lens and binocular, and more rarely with Mary Oliver or Rumi. Both are acceptable paths, and I'll give them equal "certificates of completion" if you will. Absolutely, and a good point -- as long as we don't fall out of traffic with all Four Quadrants, and into the false simplicity of a favorite mode. I see it as a matter of emphasis, not a move towards the isolation of one or the other of the Quadrants. Seems really complicated -- and, well, changing one's worldview takes some energy! But it's really simple when one "practices" .... There's a "to each his/her own" feeling about the overall map, though; and a beautiful sense that however one might place emphasis, the other aspects of the map, when invited, are there to expand and enhance -- and hopefully sooner rather than later, be more convincing to more people -- even to our very frightening political structures continuing to dominate "the fate of the earth". Here's something that is always so interesting to me: why did Thoreau become Thoreau and Emerson, Emerson? Why will one student within the same two-year Greenway ecopsychology program become an absolute expert in ecology but quite mediocre when it comes to composing a poem or carrying a tune? Since we both subscribe to the idea that no path up the mountain is better than another path (though a path not going up the mountain – connection; non-duality; intersubjectivity; querencia – might be questioned), then it becomes a matter (and a mystery) of each individual finding their own way. This I think is where "good psychology" could help us. I think the answer to your question rests within the multiple "tracks" of development that every human now goes through: motor development, moral development cognitive development, and so on. There are "lesions" along every path of development -- different balances between ever individual. Different patterns of needs, different ways of fulfilling those needs; different ways of "connecting with -- or dealing with -- the mysteries in which we're all immersed, and so on. (I remember, when leading wilderness trips, I sometimes would "sense into" a group, and feel almost overwhelmed with the differences-of-levels that comprised the group. It is why I often turned to singing, as a way of finding "common ground' amidst huge differences of developmental levels.) I look to Joseph Campbell here (“follow your bliss”) and Carlos Castaneda (“find a path with heart”). I even look as far as James Hillman, Bill Plotkin, David Whyte and their radical perspective that we aren’t blank slates but arrive in birth as “souls”, and that our delicious life-task is to discern and harken to the very particular callings of our soul. You would enjoy (probably already are familiar with) James Hillman's writings on development as "Soul Making"-- which, to say it simplistically, means opening to the unconscious, ancient archetypal "knowing" that we do indeed come into the world with. (Yeah, not hard UR science -- but lots of UL "interior" work!. Or better, LL-- the social component of the interior -- that brought into consciousness via collective ritual -- an ancient practice, alive and ... maybe not so well ... into the present.) OK, to wrap up, I am saying nothing that Bateson didn't say years ago, but more succinctly: "the map is not the territory". You explicitly call your EP a "map", and it uses a "fully engaged" rationality to lay itself out. That's all very good. I think we need maps – they help guide us in a direction we want to go (up that mountain), and in cases of insight or peak experience, the map helps us make sense, orient, and incorporate that new perspective. But ultimately, it's the "territory" we want, not the map. I think my Interlude was trying to say that sometimes for me a poem, or let's take the example of a Zen koan, can prod or seduce me into an actual glimpse of the territory more than, say, a book length treatment of cybernetics. But to each their own! (It was Korzybski not Bateson who started this "the map is not the territory" business -- I had thought it was Marshall McLuhan at first thought. ) But, after much reflection, I'm not sure that that the famed statement is inaccurate, if not dualistic. Sure, there are differences between "the model" and "the reality". But to be dualistic they'd need to be disconnected. And "the map" is beautifully connected with the territory -- or certainly should be! For me, I'm not sure I want "the map" to be absent from my territory -- not as a crutch, or as a substitute, but as, well, a very aspect of the territory I'm moving through. And remember, as you know, "the map" may have many manifestations: the moss on the north side of a rock or tree, the differences in sounds along a river as temperature cools, lichens hanging from trees -- these experiences are both "just there", but also signs ... "messages" -- part of what it feels like to experience mind (even... careful here ... a rational mind) in juxtaposition with one's environment! What I'd like to ask you now, with the "map" having become more clear, what have you found in your years about how to foster that mysterious leap from map to territory, from Right Quadrant explanation to Left Quadrant experience, realization, transformation? Well, a beautiful question. Simple to say, much harder to practice. There is of course a penchant (some of us, crazy enough to have) to "just do it -- figure it out later". One charges off into the wilderness, starts farms, explores into the shadows, or not. But, though they are usually intended to lead into the pre-cultural or non-rational, maps themselves are rational constructions, and at times, when it's taking you where you want to go, are worth following with care. Me, I take ecology very seriously -- I think it is a beautiful "higher" stage of understanding of the "dynamics of the natural world". And though I find it confusing and a mess and widely misused, I take certain psychologies seriously as well. And when both are "full activated" in life (especially in certain situations where all Four Quadrants can be fully in play), amazing and beautiful things happen: "peak experiences", as Maslow called them; "kensho" experiences as the Z'en folks say. Epiphanies, is the world Jung used -- and saw these experiences as serendipitous, synchronous at times, and potent windows just a little further into the mysteries that surround us. The crisis our civilization is facing, the danger to the health of our earth and all life on it, is never far from our minds. But even so, the practice of the mind (as best as we can understand "it") brought together with the context in which we find ourselves (as best as we can understand it) -- may expand the maps, reveal some "better" trails, help us reach perspectives that are more convincing to our fellow humans than those we now have. Back to poetry. Mary Oliver writes: "the path to heaven doesn't lie down in flat miles. [map?] It's in the imagination [Left] with which you perceive this world and the gestures with which you honor it." Nice! I won't even try to top that! Thanks, Walker. I appreciate this. This elaboration from you, Robert, really helps my understanding of what “Greenway ecopsychology” is all about. Thank you. It’s becoming clearer and clearer as we go along. And I’m happy to report that I find myself pretty much in full agreement with what you say. It makes a tremendous amount of sense, which doesn’t surprise me. Let me comment a moment on the “Interlude”, which will also lead us into other matters within your “Response 4”. I did not mean to privilege poetry over other modes of knowing or expressing. I agree with you wholeheartedly (and with those Buddhists you cite) that there are countless ways up the mountain, all valid. I will be the first to attest that my poetry is built upon a background of reading lots and lots of non-fiction, including most of the books you recommend in your list of “10” and also many of the books and fields of study you cite as part of “Antoinette’s” education. However, I was trying to get at something that may have significance in our further conversation. Namely, (using Wilber) the difference between Right Quadrant and Left. The science of ecology is a Right Quadrant activity. It is an observer perceiving and detailing other objects. As Wilber has gone to great lengths to show (perhaps excessively) as regards writers like Fritjof Capra or Joanna Macy who use quantum mechanics or systems theory (ecology) to argue for humans as not-separate from everything else, that type of scientific argument is not in itself the realization of non-separateness. Our science has for a long time now made very clear that humans are “but one strand in the web” (good old Chief Seattle), and yet, that science has not yet been enough to influence our culture as a whole to behave from that non-separate understanding. Wilber argues that the actual realization or experience of non-separateness, of belonging to the earth, of being interconnected with all other beings, even "one" with them, happens on the Left Quadrant. Therefore, it is really Left Quadrant “skillful means”, rather than Right Quadrant elaborations, that most directly lead to the experience of connectedness. You can have all the Right Quadrant elaborations in the world, but it doesn't automatically jump over to Left Quadrant realization. If it did, we'd merely have to be told there was a Singularity, there was a Big Bang, and we'd feel to the very core the non-duality that is implicit in that cosmology. Like you, I am all for rationality ("fully engaged"). But it must be seen for its limits. Rationality is the ego perceiving and measuring things outside itself, and studying associated cause and effect often from its own self-centered needs and perspective. As such, duality is fairly implicit in, and inextricable from, rationality. Now I certainly do not rule out that the study of natural history can lead to many moments of deep awe at the sheer intricate way nature works, or that a profound knowledge of ecology can in a “vision logic” moment lead to a very deep understanding of non-duality. Perhaps we could liken this approach to “Jnana Yoga”, the use of thought and knowledge to transform fundamental worldview. But by including "vision logic", we are moving into the lower rungs of all the "trans-rational" levels that Wilber describes. And I believe he would maintain that rationality itself as a "stage" cannot experience the non-dual. In fact for him, the "rational" is in some ways the most "alienated" stage, with both pre-rational and trans-rational containing more experiential feelings of connection. Fortunately, your “Greenway ecopsychology” balances ecology (Right Quadrant) with psychology, and psychology, as we know, is concerned with what happens in the Left Quadrants. This balance is something I admire in your system and which makes it very encompassing and applicable all through AQUAL. And I know you are in particular a proponent of "trans-personal" psychology, which further shows your valuation of the trans-rational stages I'm referring to. I am reminded a bit of a difference between Emerson and Thoreau. Thoreau “wanted to get to know his neighbors”, so he spent a lot of time running around the Concord area looking at plants, animals, watersheds, weather and seasonal patterns, such that he came to be someone we would think of as a very good naturalist (and something of an ecologist, though that full science had yet to come into its own). Emerson, on the other hand, explicitly warns against “a too trivial and microscopic study of the universal tablet” (nature). He talks about “relaxing the despotism of the senses” (Right Quadrant activity) and allowing what we might think of as a more intuitive or contemplative mode to arise (Left). Perhaps poetry, music, art, dance, could be likened, in contrast to “Jnana”, as more of a “Bhakti Yoga” approach. This would be oriented toward the feelings of love, reverence, celebration of our connection to nature. So, one practitioner (Emerson-style) of “Greenway ecopsychology” might read and study a little less of ecology and a little more of the poets and mystics, while another practitioner (Thoreau-style) might be out there devoutly with hand lens and binocular, and more rarely with Mary Oliver or Rumi. Both are acceptable paths, and I'll give them equal "certificates of completion" if you will. Here's something that is always so interesting to me: why did Thoreau become Thoreau and Emerson, Emerson? Why will one student within the same two-year Greenway ecopsychology program become an absolute expert in ecology but quite mediocre when it comes to composing a poem or carrying a tune? Since we both subscribe to the idea that no path up the mountain is better than another path (though a path not going up the mountain – connection; non-duality; intersubjectivity; querencia – might be questioned), then it becomes a matter (and a mystery) of each individual finding their own way. I look to Joseph Campbell here (“follow your bliss”) and Carlos Castaneda (“find a path with heart”). I even look as far as James Hillman, Bill Plotkin, David Whyte and their radical perspective that we aren’t blank slates but arrive in birth as “souls”, and that our delicious life-task is to discern and harken to the very particular callings of our soul. OK, to wrap up, I am saying nothing that Bateson didn't say years ago, but more succinctly: "the map is not the territory". You explicitly call your EP a "map", and it uses a "fully engaged" rationality to lay itself out. That's all very good. I think we need maps – they help guide us in a direction we want to go (up that mountain), and in cases of insight or peak experience, the map helps us make sense, orient, and incorporate that new perspective. But ultimately, it's the "territory" we want, not the map. I think my Interlude was trying to say that sometimes for me a poem, or let's take the example of a Zen koan, can prod or seduce me into an actual glimpse of the territory more than, say, a book length treatment of cybernetics. But to each their own! What I'd like to ask you now, with the "map" having become more clear, what have you found in your years about how to foster that mysterious leap from map to territory, from Right Quadrant explanation to Left Quadrant experience, realization, transformation? Back to poetry. Mary Oliver writes: "the path to heaven doesn't lie down in flat miles. [map?] It's in the imagination [Left] with which you perceive this world and the gestures with which you honor it." RESPONSE FROM ROBERT ....
Walker's "brief poetic interlude" First, Walker's "brief poetic interlude" (aha! attempting to slip that in!) makes a good case for poetry as both a facilitator of human-nature relating, and as a very potent mode for communicating such experiences. There is one phrase that stops me, however. When Walker says "rather than talking about the human-nature relationship" -- implying that that's all ecopsychology does or can do -- especially my version, adopting a return to the inclusion of "scientific ecology", etc. And I believe that viewpoint demeans the potential of science, of rationality, of serious ecology, even of most psychologies! (Not to mention that it implies that poetry is above all that, and is not "about" things!) As I hope we can demonstrate over time -- yes, in words and concepts, stories, myths, and "pointings-to-experience" -- ecopsychologists and naturalists, even resource managers have transcendent experiences as frequently as do poets, musicians, and dancers-on-tops-of-mountains. We're discussing differences in routes up the mountains, as the Buddhist's describe different spiritual paths. The issue isn't who gets there first, or who gets higher than the folks on a different trail, but can we all make the peak of "Mt. Transcendence" (i.e., non-duality) whichever path works for us. So Walker! dampen the bias -- this isn't a lecture, but a pointing to a experiences that were nestled within the earliest forms of ecopsychology, got lost in the rush to embrace all modes of human-nature relating (including poetry) as "ecopsychology", losing over time a potential worth joining with all the many other routes to the summit. "Interlude" ... yeah, right! Another view of Walker's "interlude" statement Yes, the dominant culture within which we are all embedded is a juggernaut of reductionistic, materialistic, objectified (and increasingly technologized) basically dualistic Mode of Knowing. So, to paraphrase the bumper sticker, "I'd rather be doing music". But I believe the tragedy of dualism can be overcome by didactic means as well -- like, an extrapolation that utilizes fully rational (in this case, scientific thought) in a full-on embrace of ecology, coupled with a wide range of experiences depicted via both "findings" and metaphorical analysis (a psychology), and find depth and potential solutions -- to at least compliment those other modes that seem to many students "easier" or perhaps less affiliated with the Dominant Culture via the Academy. Perhaps we can find a synergy that moves the healing process, moves our understanding, facilitates the essential evolution we need out of which solutions to the massive environmental crisis can be found. So again, a strong ecological- psychological juxtaposition as ecopsychology ("EP") isn't being presented here as an alternative to poetic consciousness (e-gads!) but as a complimentary path. Such a didactic path isn't for everyone, just as not everyone can carry a tune, but before hardening up the resistance, think for a moment what a beautiful surfboard a fully developed EP might provide for the singing surfer -- or a base for very expansive poetry -- similarly to how Deep Ecology provided Gary Snyder with such rich insights into his own experiences of "wilderness" and "nature"; or that enhanced (according to her) the powder-snow skiing skills of Dolores la Chapelle! Further comments on Walker's "Interlude" comments With regard to the "psychological" and "physical" wilderness boundaries of wilderness areas -- yes, I've always found it easy to enter physically, very hard to bring the mind fully along. Harder now than when I began crossing the wilderness border many decades ago, in these days of minds cluttered with the billions of culture-bits. For the "wilderness experience" to be more than a brief interlude in one's cultural life, or a place for cheap therapy (the exploitation of wilderness, seen as resource for the broken, distorted psyches of our time, or a projection of Disney-like fantasy -- strong preparation, strong practices, rituals, and time -- a long time -- is needed. (And perhaps less Gore Tex and duplications of one's urban cuisine.) And your other "interlude" comment -- that it is easier to "drop the cultural flood" alone, rather than in the group -- I don't think I ever said that, nor do I believe it. I've found that there are some discoveries "in wilderness" that can only happen in groups -- and some only alone. It is as easy to avoid being fully present in the wilderness alone as it is in a group. A ritual, for example, say, built around tuning into the fire with a group of people is potentially as strong a channel into the wilderness as is sitting on a mountain peak, alone, for a number of days. (I DO believe that the so called 5-7-day "Vision Quest" activities in wilderness frequently have difficulty escaping the cultural forms whether alone or together -- not enough time.) ............................................................................................................................................................................. So Now, "Into the Wild", with Real Ecopsychology as Map So, now, let us (temporarily, I hope) drop the joys of poetry and music, and see what a "strictly constituted" focused EP (including both psychology and ecology) wilderness trip might look like. And be used as a map. First, a Couple of Caveats: (1) It's hard to say, from my current age, looking backwards in time, whether I too would just relax, say "forget it", and enjoy "poetry in the wilderness", or just, "zen" (and dance -- and ritual, a Bone Game or two) -- singing, fires, beautiful physical exertion, swimming in icy streams, baking on hot rocks, camaraderie of a group depending on each other for survival, the storing of exquisite (and sometimes scary) experiences that will "never stop giving" throughout life. I mean, isn't that enough?? (2) I also have difficulty finding full justification for such pleasures, given the state of the world and the fact that we live within a delusional bubble of privilege -- that wilderness, that would be a place to search for food for about 1/3rd to half of the world, exists for healing disease born of our culture. Do our wilderness discoveries and pleasures -- does "the wilderness effect" -- indeed filter down into the level of value- and wide-spread-opinion change? etc. So we push that aside, and we'll focus on dear Antoinette, a junior and in the last quarter of a two-year Greenway Ecopsychology Program at Walker University, which, if she survives, will culminate in a certificate of completion, good to hang up in the employees room of the local chain coffee house, her interlude while sending out applications for "wilderness work" and "ecopsychology" adjunct teaching jobs, honing her skills at attempts to participate in The Great Turning, she hopes, so that if this civilization can't be saved, the next one, growing from the Remnants, might start with the best possible non-dual oomph. As required for the two-year ecopsychology program, she has so far: - studied the 10 basic books of the ecopsychology canon (cf., earlier blog) -- required to scope out the various assumptions about the human-nature relationship either proclaimed, or more likely hidden, in the various books; - explored 10 other (other than ecopsychological) approaches to "the human-nature relationship" -- ranging from poetry and literature, art, dance, music, science, tantric sex, and food (cooked or raw). (The exploratory use of psychedelics, not officially allowed, has drawn frequent involvement with a third or so of the students in the program.) - diligently done the required meditation and yoga practices, has had several surprising "Kensho" experiences while sitting "Vapassana", and a rather severe Kundalina energy crisis at the end of too many "downward dogs"; - prepared for the two first-year wilderness experiences; -- the first of those led by a NOLS instructor -- mostly to learn how to travel lightly, "leaving no trace" etc. in the back country, and to tie tarps in hurricane-force winds while avoiding nearby lightening strikes. ( -- the second trip, following a human-nature journal-writing and "great nature-books" protocol, as well as introducing the psychological effects of sitting around fires into the night while avoiding texting and other electronically-assisted noospheric experiences, deepens the first wilderness experience class, and prepares for the one to come; - studied the philosophy of dualism and it's effect of isolating heretofore integrated aspects of the psyche, the culture, reality, as well as secondary effects and aspects of dualism, such as projection, anthropomorphism, various bi-polar psychopathology, and difficulties between genders, and humans and cats. She will have read Emerson, Dewey, Bateson, some Wilber, and poetry of Jeffers, Snyder, Abel, Oliver, etc. - passed the difficult test, the assignment, of "achieving intimacy with another species" -- without anthropomorphism -- and has developed a way of communicating this experience of intimacy with others; - carried her pack, with 50 pounds of books in it, for over a year. ( Most of the campus either believes she has a food-consumption problem, or is a hunchback. She doesn't care, thinks of the pack as a badge of honor, and as payback for being so addicted to books as a kid); - delved deeply into the courses in ecology -- learning what "ecological thinking" is, undertaking serious ecological study of a portion of the campus, and, on a larger scale, of the local bioregion (including culture and weather) -- learning to choose between various approaches to ecology, and the basic language inherent in the field -- able to define such terms ecologically as: resilience, sustainability, energy flows, principle of critical factors, succession of forms, and, most of all, relationships between all forms (observed, or hidden). She has been able to come to the conclusion that "ecology" is not the only way to access one's environment (whether acculturated or "nature") -- but that it is a way to develop insights not available via other modes of knowing; - surveyed the field of psychology, in a culture awash in pop-psychology and psychotherapy, and now understands how this massive psychobabble has entered into many forms of ecopsychology as "ecotherapy" -- which she finds as an interesting though sometimes ridiculous phenomenon, including "wilderness therapy", human-horse therapy, dogs in hospitals, gardening, and scientific studies of whether or not parks are good for one's health. The course requires that she either choose one of the many psychologies, or to draw from various psychologies, adopting and adapting as many aspects as she wishes, but is required to prepare a clear summary of her own psychology and present to the EP students, including at least, specifically, the use of psychology as a tool for understanding in a general way (at least) human learning and development (what "stage of development" will she be in (and will her fellow students be in) when she next makes the journey into the wilderness); an understanding of dreams, archetypes, Maslow's "hierarchy of needs", group dynamics, cognition, "self psychology" and especially such terms such as "ego" and "ego-development", and "intersubjectivity" -- all expected to be part of her basic understanding. ("Peak Experiences" will be a pleasant attribute of her knowledge and the source of endless jokes among her colleagues.) Antoinette has pulled all this together over the past almost-two years, with two wilderness journeys behind her, high wilderness-survival-skills level, and so on. She knows what others do in wilderness, and for what reason; she knows the history of wilderness-as-idea in American Culture, and especially of the unique privilege of having wilderness to visit, and the luxury of time to do so. She is aware of the loss of wilderness, even in Western America -- and the instructors' promise to find "deep solitude" for the group. With the mixture of "preparation" now underway for almost two years, Antoinette has learned to not just adopt concepts (and especially not adopt information) without linking them to her own experience, or her rapport with others' experiences through the arts. Thus, an "idea of wilderness" -- as a cultural artifact, for example -- is already interactive with her own deep discoveries (joyful, to say the least) in wilderness excursion's she has already made. But when she ponders the goal of the wilderness experience and in general the goal of adopting the "map" to the experience that the ecopsychology she is constructing provides, she continues to be skeptical as to whether two fields, so conceptually laden as are "psychology" and "ecology", will move her to that non-dual place -- that place of "querencia" -- that her instructors frequently speak of, and which she feels more and more able to access via her yoga and mediation (and occasional entheogen) experiences. Why adopt such a rigorous "ecology-psychology" amalgamation, when there are so many other ways that seem to work -- to achieve the course's intention: to reach a "higher" stage of consciousness??? Her teachers argue that doing so isn't an alternative to the other ways, but (1) a parallel approach that touches places not touched by "the other ways", and (2) an approach that will deepen her own experiences -- especially in a way that "bridges" the masses in the dominant culture, including the growing army of techno-crazed people who think they can give up on "nature" altogether. So, out to the wilderness. Our Antoinette, along with her fellow students, have justified their use of petroleum and awesome vehicles by pledging carbon exchanges, and mitigation processes. Their gear is loaded, they bid goodbye to loved ones, make sure the electricity is turned off, and that the dog and/or cat will be cared for ..... and it's racing through an early morning, whizzing by farms and malls, telephone poles, noise of engines and radios ... and then silence, relative silence, that for some, though already experienced at least for the two earlier wilderness trips, is rarely or never experienced. It is jolting. Immediately "awakening" for some. They divide food ("just enough"), leave all books and writing material behind -- anything unessential -- circle together by the cars to promise each other that there will be no accidents, receive instruction as to how to walk in silence -- leaving space between each person. The essence of entry psychologically, physically, and spiritually into the wilderness, they are encouraged to understand, is analogous to an encounter with a lover. To what degree and in what instances will this ecopsychology "map" serve as a guide for achieving the intent of the trip, and of the entire program? The ways vary, and are legion. Here are a few possibilities (most been tried, some are speculative). Ecological Considerations: - overall, ecology helps "see into" the health of the wilderness -- if one knows where to look and what to look for. Physical damage from too many "boots on the ground" is obvious, near trails, or in fragile mountain meadows, for example. Lack of large carnivores is typical, with attendant signs of over-populated sub-populations. Or insect infestations, signs of disease in forests or other plant life. The health of fish populations along watersheds -- all this compared with studies of earlier times, or comparisons with earlier trips. - with more limited-area observations -- say a particular bend in the river, a square laid out in a meadow or along a ridge, with student's able to make full ecological assessments -- from ground insects, nocturnal animals and insects -- all carefully observed. Such observation might be fully "ecologically oriented", and yet mesh well with an "alone-time" period (see below) - with interrelationships (apart from humans, at first) carefully observed. What signs of, say, bear or coyote or river otters from close observations of scat, or markings on trees or rocks. Holes in the ground, nests, etc. -- study what animals are eating ... other animals, insects, plant life; what is "perturbing" the area chosen for study, etc. - an "ecological survey" might be based on studies of vegetative succession that follows rises and falls in altitude (or -- from past studies if available, showing seasonal changes, historic changes. - An ecological viewpoint might also include weather, moon cycles, shifts in sun patterns, even more cosmic events. The ecological approach is to see that all levels are to be studied as one interactive system. Psychological Considerations - Wilderness excursions are known to arouse strong psychological effects -- or at least to provide time and space for existing psychological states to become conscious -- either through day-time awareness, or through the consciousness arising in dreams. Most psychological input during the space wilderness provides is repetitive (no need to grasp at them, they'll come again!). Most reflect -- as always -- the history of a person, the wounds carried, the strengths and weakness, the ability to process, to not over-process, to observe (both externally and internally -- both objectively and subjectively). - The key to "healing the human-nature relationship" (presuming this to be the -- or at least one - of the foundational intensions of the EP program and the wilderness experience within that program) is to be able to experience relationships in expansive and healthy ways. What this actually means emerges over time with practice. The ground for the relationship will be the encounter with one's " psychological knowledge" (about oneself and others) with one's "ecological knowledge" -- developed both before a wilderness trip and especially during one. - The few ecopsychologies that have both "psychology" and "ecology" tend to jump into the process of their juxtaposition too soon. Extended stays in the wilderness allow time for such "relating" to take place. It can start in a formal manner ("here's my mind, flowing with tree-archetypal images -- from Jung, Hillman, etc.") "here's my curiosity about the life (and wisdom? and interest in me?) of the tree", all sorts of detailed questions might arise; "here's my need to feel the tree ... to wonder at its life". Our student Antoinette wonders all these things, feels unpleasantness at the distance from the object of her curiosity (or awe, or affection) and decides to hug the tree, pressing against it, feeling, not the warmth of a fellow human, or the terror from the embrace of a large carnivore who might see her as dinner, but something, apparently, unresponsive. Here, her "rational ego" might draw from her memory of botany (tree) studies, their incredible relationship with soil fungi ("mycorrhizae"), their water and food transport systems, their need for many trees around them, the water they tap into; and (perhaps a key) a relationship forms as her knowledge opens her mind -- from her needs to the trees -- and then (if lucky ... perhaps over time) the growing awareness that here she is, and here is the tree: two beings, alive, in some very very subtle ways interacting. By doing this (again and again) Antoinette can begin to sort out the cultural projections commonly emanating from humans to trees, etc. - these are psychological concepts I have found crucial as a base for joining psychological language with ecological knowledge: · the ego, as need-fulfilling function (an heuristic, but a useful one); · the ego functioning in accord with Maslow's hierarchy of needs; · the degree to and patterns by which consciousness enters into the human-relating process -- whether via perception, intuition, other levels of awareness; · the ability to focus for long periods of time; · the distortion of reality - the penchant for dualistically splitting the world (and the mind, and all things) into separate (and separated spheres). · The "lesions" that might exist due to blocked "lines of development" that still spin out ego-shaping energies. (Here I tend to draw on the work of Ken Wilber -- his crystal-clear gatherings of thousands of "findings" -- in order to track on the lines of development; and to put those lines of development into the four major "realms" of how people look at the world: I. Individual Subjective, II. Individual Objective; III. Collective Subjective; IV. Collective Objective -- his four-quadrant summary of "domains" that shape the mind, when, added to multiple "lines of development" -- with everyone at different levels of development, with different "lesions" along those lines, tending to use as a "center of gravity" this or that of the four major perspectives -- result in his now famous and exceedingly useful "AQAL" map. Within this, the above connections or "modes of relating" arise at many points; Wilber's "Integral Psychology" tends to touch on most or all of them. This, or other "transactional-" or "self-" or "holistic-" psychologies can result in a bewildering array of sometimes contradictory concepts. Antoinette, through personal reading, personal explorations, and guidance through dialogue with teachers, has put together her own (tentative) psychological "map". This she brings with her, into a wilderness with which she seeks relationship, via ecological studies -- a relationship meant to be one of equality. - And (finally!) -- during initial walk-in, during times around a fire, encouragement to avoid chattering, especially about "the other world", times moving along trails, times exploring, time alone, perhaps ritual times -- in every situation (not obsessively, but as often as is comfortable) the "psychology" and the "ecology" are considered as constant guides for processing experience. ("I am now ....." '' it is now....") and, in time there is a "we" that emerges, even an "I-Thou" emerges, and the experience begins to transcend the separate self walking into those mighty "resources" over there. "We" are in each other's presence. (and again, the group experience of this uncovers interesting differences than the individual experience -- simply because the experience itself (group vs. individual) is profoundly different, though the "channel" into "the center" ("querencia") often gets to the same place. Summary: minds – fully engaged rational ordering of knowledge – fully engaged projections of acculturated and romanticized assumptions – filtered out Antoinette finds her place in her context in ways she has never before experienced. First the experience, then the poetry. .......................................................................................................................................................................... Explanatory note: querencia a beautiful Spanish sound -- has grown from many experiences, such as "being at the center", or reaching "the stillpoint", or the "moment of truth" long noticed in the bullfight, when the animal-human relationship reaches some kind of balance, prior to death (of the animal, of course). I have several friends, working deep within Jungian psychology, who resonate with the word -- meaning for them something like "synergy", the place where synchronicity occurs -- the place of "an expanded consciousness". I like all of the above, and would add, from an ecological perspective: every "system" seems to have a "center" -- what poets might call "the motif" of the system. (And, an aside, note that our galaxy swirls around a "center" -- which happens to be a black hole -- but we won't ... go there. "Querencia works for that center as well ....) And so, in a true ecology-psychology EP, querencia becomes that motif, that center, arising when the two systems (the psychology, and the ecology) are meshing (like those collisions far off in the universe when two galaxy collide, and come to share a common center!) And the experience of finding that center (common in meditation and yoga practices) can also happen in a true ecology/psychology EP -- "peak experiences" ... "kensho" ... "the numinous experience" .... and so on. And, here's the pitch, it tends not to happen when EP slights ecology, and wraps itself in the confusions of psychology alone. While we wait for Robert's next response, I thought I'd insert a brief poetic interlude.
For those that know me, and which may be obvious on this web site, I consider myself more of a poet than a prose expositor of ecopsychology. I do my best with that latter mode of expression, but so often for me, a poem gets to the heart of the matter more efficiently. As we all know, rather than talking "about" the human/nature relationship, a poem can aspire to be an actual "expression" from a particular (and preferred) quality of that relationship. Some poems may serve as emissaries or ambassadors from another way of being, and they show us something gently, rather than lecturing us. They often may choose to draw us toward something in the human/nature relationship, rather than tell us where we are lacking or wounded. My house itself is in what most would consider a quite remote location, and yet I am still surprised at how even a short backpack into a wilder location can alter my perceptions and feelings. I'm a proponent of that, though evidence seems to be that fewer and fewer are actually going backpacking these days. Furthermore, I'm a proponent of going alone sometimes. To briefly use Greenway terms, there is something he calls the "psychological wilderness boundary". He says it is very easy to cross the physical boundary, but more difficult and subtle to let go some of our cultural conditioning and enter wilderness in some kind of "healed" way. In any case, a group Greenway trip usually includes some Alone Time, because he notes that it is very easy in company to carry the culture, and some more chance for it to drop away when we are left alone in the more-than-human. So this simple poem gets at these ideas a bit: But Three Miles In Grass and oak trees, river below. Couple days of rain life is fine under tarp. When color fades at dusk stems with sheen of water shapeshift to pure silver. Oaks are silent as their roots and silent the mountain clouds move. Only three miles in there’s a place so big lift one leaf, it’s uncovered. |
AuthorDiscussion between Walker Abel and Robert Greenway. Archives
January 2015
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