Seeds for Thought: an Ecopsychology Blog

ever so thankful

I moved around all of my life. Age 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32, and 36. Apart from that my time at university (17-21), the most recent place I lived was the longest (32-36). It was my first time as an adult (maybe ever) really connecting with the people and the place around me.

Various personal crises motivated me to move yet again. To get away, get some breathing space. Start over.

So we left in August and came to rural Wales. Beauty out my window, as a I type this. The sheep, horses, rolling hills, crows, the occasional heron, collared dove, robin, bullfinch and owl.

"one of the great gifts to humankind"

Country diary

Combs Edge, Derbyshire
by Mark Cocker
Monday October 8, 2007

Guardian

Suddenly from the last rowan on the hillside rose a long-winged, lean blackbird-like thrush with a call that sounded like stone upon stone. It was a ring ouzel and as this shy bird speared its way to the ridge on the moorland edge, it also drilled down through 35 years of memory, to my first ever encounter with the species. It was April 1972. I was 12.

Initially I'd no idea what I was seeing. I was separated from the mystery bird, a female, by a steep-sided clough above Buxton. After 20 minutes' close scrutiny a great wave of excitement began to rise within as its identity dawned on me. I now understand the exact constituents of that thrill.

One part was matching the features of the living creature to the two-dimensional illustrations in The Observer's Book of Birds - the key detail separating it from its relative, the blackbird, was a quarter-moon patch of cream upon its chest. The other part was a realisation that those 20-30 cream feathers implied a wholly separate genetic history and lifestyle. And in the ring ouzel's millennial-long journey through time, this was the first moment that I personally had intercepted it.

It's a moment I still cherish. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this experience is one of the great gifts to humankind, because within it lies an appreciation of our own unique identity. Simultaneously we are made aware of how we share with other species the same neighbourly time and space. Aldous Huxley suggested that this sense of communion with our fellow-creatures had given rise to half the poetry in the English canon. I suspect the poets are proclaiming what we all feel and what I felt when that ring ouzel rose from the rowan tree. How miraculous that we are all here, now, in this one small place.

reading list

As some of you know, I've finished the MoonLetter (24 Moon) cycle... I am instead concentrating on giving myself greater background in ecopsychology, as defined by Andy Fisher. So I've made a list of books that I'm going to get through...

Thought this might be of interest to some of you so I've reproduced it below. I plan to attempt some assimilation on this blog on the New Moon each month. I did the first one on the last New Moon.

what money can't buy

being in nature...
observing...
walking...
feeling fantastic.

on the radio

Dear All,

If you care to HEAR ecopsychology...

Check out this My Moonster page for:

* interviews with Elizabeth Vooght and Chris Johnstone
* four book at bedtime stories with the Joanna Macy spiral theme
* a 3-part dramatization

Please feel free to send me all comments and feedback. :)

peace&love

false hope revisited

This makes me angry... exasperated...

The UK government commissioned a report on the economics of climate change. It was released on Monday.

The headlines were as such:

Climate change fight 'can't wait'

Warming 'may cause economic chaos'

British Report Warns Global Warming Could Cripple World Economy

£3.68 trillion: The price of failing to act on climate change

Inaction spells a world of floods, drought and economic disaster

This last one makes my point...

false hope::being 'too negative'::sobbing

This is partially in response to Medusa's most recent post. And partially in response to a Big Cafe on sustainability I attended yesterday. And partially in response to an article that Linda brought to our attention to in an e-mail last month...

I'm not going to try to articulate this very well.
I'm not going to try to tie everything together neatly.
I'm too burnt out for that.
I don't have time for 'being positive' right now.
I only have energy for mourning and preparation.
I may not even have time for sobbing...
...although: I am about to facilitate an ecopsy workshop in three hours...
...so maybe it will find a space there...

class II

This is a response to the comment left on class I...

What does this mean for ecopsychology?

If the middle class are more likely to hit rock bottom (and so be able to take on a new world view) or are more likely to be present in the moment (and so be able to take on a new world view), what would we need to do to help them reach that point?

And if the "working class" do not (usually) have those avenues, then how can they reach the point where a new world view can be taken?

Where is the point of engagement for each "class"?

class I

In his book Radical Ecopsychology, Andy Fisher challenges ecopsychology to make political and social critiques, lest it be accused of the things of which deep ecology is accused...

How does class enter the ecopsy equation? Imagine the upper-class, Ivy League, Oxbridge parents (A) versus the working-class, university-not-on-the-radar parents (B)... Both disconnected from nature in their own childhoods (maybe museums, maybe video games, maybe imported caviar, maybe factory-produced frozen meals). Both have patterns of behavior for how they respond to the disconnection. And in order to overcome patterns, to heal, what needs to happen? A hitting of rock bottom? The skill (experience) to step back and look at the full picture, observe and note and act?

In our stereotyping, we might say parents A are more likely to be "trained" in the ability to do the latter, but both sets of parents are susceptible to the former. The latter requires time and energy, as well, and so (possibly) parents B will have less of this leisure time.

Is this correct (or a valid way of seeing things)? And if so, what does it mean for ecopsychology?

the rising cost of bread

Flour costs push up price of loaf BBC News

Bread makers say poor crop harvests and rising energy costs are forcing a hike in the price of bread on the shelves.

This is what we can expect from climate change and peak oil...all coming together...

The UK's recent heatwave in the south east has been blamed for causing poor wheat harvests this year, coupled with the high costs of fuel among producers.

Just a basic, take-me-for-granted product like bread.

The National Farmers' Union has warned that shortages of crops such as wheat, which wilted in the extreme July heat, could result in higher prices for consumers.

ADM Milling - which is pushing up flour prices by £28.75 per tonne - said its price hikes were an "essential reaction" to rising energy, fuel and wheat costs.

Rank Hovis is increasing its flour prices by an average £29 per tonne next month.

The scary bit is not that the cost is going up, but that there is a shortage. How do you prepare for that? Grow wheat in your front garden and learn to mill it? Switch your nutritional sourcing from bread to something like potatoes? OK. If not potatoes, then WHAT??