Seeds for Thought: an Ecopsychology Blog

cutting the grass

For a while now I have wanted a manual lawn mower. My partner was very negative, and even a guardian article about the environmental impact of lawns echoed the usual view.

"What about cutting the grass if a meadow doesn't take your fancy? The masochist's option, of course, is to push around a manual lawnmower, which is just about acceptable in a small space."

But 3 days ago I saw a little one for sale and bought it anyway. And you know what - it's lovely!

And our lawns are not stately home but not postage stamp either.

Garden of Dreams

Apparently one of the most often viewed photographs on the web right now is a lovely lichen-robed reclining woman, a sculpture entitled 'Garden of Dreams'. Designed by artists Marney Hall and Heather Yarrow, the Garden of Dreams is on display at the Chelsea Flower Show in London right now...

Therapists Just Don't Get It!

As you probably know from bitter experience, therapists get endless brochures advertising workshops, seminars, continuing education events, conferences on psychology and psychotherapy.

Almost all of them focus exclusively on the human-human relationship and nature is never mentioned.

Take the latest brochure I’ve received. It’s touting the upcoming Psychotherapy Networker conference on “The Creative Leap.” You can check it out at http://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/SympWestBro2006.pdf

The conference will offer everything from “Creativity Day” to the latest on ADHD, couples counseling etc. etc. plus words of wisdom from various gurus but only one workshop that acknowledges maybe our world and planet are in a BIG mess. And nothing on the importance of healing the human-nature relationship before we extinguish ourselves and take that big creative leap into dodo-land!

Lovelock Lays It on the Line

James Lovelock was interviewed by John Gray in Bristol on Thursday 18 May 2006. He then took questions from the audience. Below is a mix of paraphrasing and quoting of James Lovelock.

Until about just over two years ago, I knew bad things were going to happen in this century, but there still seemed plenty of time. Then in January 2004, I was invited to the Hadley Centre (which is the foremost centre for climate change in the world). The meeting brought together experts in polar ice, glaciers, the destruction of the tropical forests, and ocean ecopsystems. We all knew our own problems, but never thought of it as a top-down systems view. With Gaia, you look at the whole rather than details.

It was worse than I had imagined.

need to take a break from this blog...

... since I'm sharing shifts with my sister to look after my 90 year-old mother who had a hip operation following a fall.  She's doing well but requires care which I am very happy to provide.  Will be back in a few weeks.

Pete's Pond

Here's something fantastic! A video camera on a watering hole in Botswana...

You may need RealPlayer to see it, but you can just download it, set it on your screen in the background and share your morning with wild creatures.

The Progress Debate

Last Tuesday I had the privilege of attending a debate between John Gray, Tariq Ramadan, Ryan Appleyard, Richard Schoch and Joan Bakewell. Here are the highlights as I could best jot them down and remember them.

JOHN GRAY: The truth by which most people in society today in most countries live is that in science and technology, progress is a fact (obviously). In ethics and politics, it's a myth (which is a narrative or a story). It gives life meaning, be it truthful or misleading. We don't need a belief in progress. It's just that it's used as a form of psychotherapy: a cognitive Prozac. The myth of progress has its roots in ancient history, in the idea of monotheism and providential design. But the modern idea of progress comes from the late 18th century. Before that, no one believed the future world would be radically better than the past. (Hume was the last to believe, like the ancients, that the world is cyclical: freedom and tyranny, war and peace... all of these are just like the natural cycles.) They believed that the future would be like the past, that the best that could be achieved would be the highest of what was achieved in the past (i.e., Greeks, Romans, others like China, ancient India, Persia).

politics

Someone the other day was talking about a friend who "lived his politics" and how exhausting that was, most people just buying organic coffee from their supermarket shelves.

But don't we all really, if the personal is political. once we realise everything we do has consequences how can it not be? most of us have at least some choices.

Simply seeking self gratification is a political statement the Thatchers and Bushes would highly approve of.

Thinking it doesn't matter what we do because they (governments, scientists, god, big daddy) will take care of it is a political position.

So how can we not live our politics, we can't wear them and discard them like a hat.

Of course there is expediency. I buy organic milk unless I can't get hold of it, then I go to the corner shop. I will only buy fair trade coffee but will drink a cup of ordinary if nothing else is available. I don't eat factory farmed meat so never eat pork or chicken unless free range organic. And this one I can't break, even when inconvenient I can't bring myself to eat it.

Which consumer ethics do we have? which don't we break and which can't we break, and why?

seeking security

We all want security: be it emotional, physical or financial. But the latter is really just a means to an end. For what do we want the money? We want to make sure we can eat (well), be (comfortably) warm and dry, able to pursue particular leisure activities (which may need a lot of money), be well. Some people may take them further: like "look like a million dollars" etc, but again those are means to an end... like a lack of self-esteem and you feel like the only way you can get people to think well of you is if you have a lot of money, a lot of things that give you (cultural) status.

People need to think about the root of their needs / wants. What are you lacking, out of our very basic needs, that you think can only be fulfilled through material gain?

Ignoring our actual physical insecurity in the face of pending climate and energy crises, most of our insecurity stems from emotional needs being unmet. Think about that when you are making your purchases.

Utopian Realism

Conservative "thinkers" (not necessarily an oxymoron) characterize themselves as "realists" in opposition to those liberals they characterize as "utopians". They see the LEFT as a graveyard of grand schemes to improve human "nature" which to realists is “nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes). Conservatives feel we should deal with the world as it is and not as we would like it to be. Delusion seems to be in the eye of the beholder. It seems to me that we are really discussing the "time scale" of human "nature". We evolved neurobiologically over the last 100,000 years and the residue of the African savanna remains in our bones (especially our sinuses and flat feet.) Our cultures evolved over the last 10,000 years and "modern" consciousness is rooted in the last century where the "axis of evil" was Germany, Italy and Japan (later the USSR and Mao's China.) WE congratulate ourselves on seeing the NEW world with our postmodern sensibilities but time will validate or snub our hopes and fears with moderate predictability at best.