Our Human Heart is causing the Climate Emergency.
I must be clear: ‘We’ means people whose cultures are causing the problem, climate change. Indigenous peoples still maintain life-supporting values. I grew up in the culture of patriarchy, capitalist, colonising industrialised Neoliberalism. We are the ones who need to change our worldview. These are who I have worked with. My work is to help us restore a way of life that cooperates with Mother Nature.
The way we live is causing the problem. So the way we live has to be designed to reverse the problem. Our human culture is what will make the difference.
Yes, we’ve got a CO2 problem. It’s people who are creating that. The causes of climate catastrophe are not physical. The results are CO2 and storms.
The origin of the problem is our worldview. It’s what we see as important, what we value.
Here is our Tree for Life. It lays out the areas in our future life-supporting way of life.
This map opens out the life of community and heart. This is the crucial area to make it work in our future. We need to be able to work together well, to create a life together.
Let’s explore it, and build up our skills.
Life is our most precious treasure. It’s our seed. That’s the eye at the base of the trunk. The roots grow down into the soil. They are Mother Nature’s mothering ways, that support life. Her values, I often call them.
In the trunk is Mother Nature. In her body are the five elements: the prima materia out of which all forms take shape. They are another way we can understand nature’s laws.
The roots draw up Mother Nature’s natural laws, that we can live by, to help life flourish. The preciousness of life, and Nature’s values, rise like sap from the roots into the branches. They nourish the entire tree and keep it strong and healthy.
At every level of what we do in our life, we are guided by these laws, to care for life, and the life of our hearts.
In the branches are children, our human future. How can we provide for our children a secure and healthy environment to grow up in, for their hearts, their emotional strength, as well as their bodies. What’s good for the children will also support the rest of us.
As the branches go up, we go from outer community to the more inner ways of building community, relationships with each other. At the top is spiritual practice. there’s a gradation towards the ‘spiritual’, which many people think of as separate from the social realm. the life of our community, the life of the spirit?
The sacred is everywhere, like a perfume. that’s the sacred feel of Mother Nature that supports this life-supporting way.
Interconnected community: Outer climate
Community is a part of the recipe. A law of nature is, we are all interdependent, not separate. We’re interlinked with all nature.
When there’s a climate crisis, people come together in community, to feed and look out for each other. Our way of surviving the future is to work together: as it is in nature. We need to not disband when the crisis is over, but strengthen those communities.
Can we build together a regenerative culture for a healthy future?
What would our communities look like if we base them on caring for life?
What can we learn from Mother Nature and indigenous wisdom?
Can Buddhism help?
How would we care for Mother Nature?
We can build this better society because we’ve imagined it.
This is an exciting creative task for us all.
We are not alone. We are part of community with all Mother Nature’s creatures. We work together and cooperate to look after community and nature. We’re not solitary heroes. We get power from working together.
In Patriarchy we feel separate, isolated, struggling on alone. Learning to feel connected is a lifelong project: for me, I guess for many of us. Patriarchy doesn’t value community, so nobody knew how to do it, including me.
Community cares for the life of heart and mind, together, as well as body. We’re all good like nature, so we can encourage that goodness in each other. We support each other with good communication, listening and encouragement. Conflict resolution; deep consensus where everybody feels included and honoured, even when the decision doesn’t go their way.
Mothers and mothering are central to community; they create life and care for it, as Mother Nature does. How are children elders and sick people cared for?
We have a responsibility to care for nature, because we’re part of her community. We draw on nature’s ecosystem patterns, nature’s laws.
social structure
What would society’s structures look like? We modern people must create something that works for us, and for nature.
Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s model of indigenous matriarchies is a good pattern. We’re not trying to become indigenous, however the rest of us need to learn from indigenous wisdom.
Many people are working on this. Here’s some patterns I have drawn on.
Relationships are the framework for building community
In such a world, how would we treat each other as if our Life was the important thing? How would we relate to each other, to build supportive community that could work together to care for the life of humans and the planet, our children and elders.
The fundaments of building relationships are relating skills, listening, positive feedback, deep consensus: this is inner work, which bridges to the outer.
Practical community building skills
How to get there, using the skills we’re developing. Lobby politicians, apply for grants. Consensus and more.