Democratic Forest Trusts (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.Democratic trusts with leadership elected by citizen-members promise to solve many of the problems afflicting both traditional government and corporate ownership of forestlands. This article explores these issues in some depth.Complexity and the Dream of Human Control of Eco-Systems (PDF)in Watson, Alan; Dean, Liese; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2006. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Eighth World Wilderness Congress Symposium; 2005 September 30-October 6; Anchorage, AK.The title captures it. I then explore the kinds of institutions compatible with both nature and the modern world that are implied from this analysis.Rethinking the Obvious: Modernity and Living Respectfully With Nature (PDF)The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, Winter, 1997.Modernity is usually considered a wrong turn in terms of respect for and sustaining the environment. I argue the reality is more complex, for modernity has freed us from personal dependence on agriculture, ended the economic value of children, radically reduced the likelihood of large scale wat, and shifted much production to intellectual rather than material capital. This partially decouples society from nature, which gives us important opportunities as well as problems.Towards an Ecocentric Political Economy (PDF)The Trumpeter, Fall, 1996.This paper begins my effort at showing how liberal modernity can be harmonized with an ecocentric perspective on our relationship with the natural world. It is a corrective to much “free market environmental” literature that sacrifices Nature to money as well as to anti-liberal attacks by well-meaning but economically naïve environmentalists.Unexpected Harmonies: Self-Organization in Liberal Modernity and Ecology (PDF)The Trumpeter, Journal of Ecosophy, 10:1, Winter 1993This is my initial paper exploring how what I term ‘evolutionary liberal’ thought can be an important means by which society and nature can be brought into greater harmony. The other Trumpeter papers build on it.Deep Ecology and Liberalism: The Greener Implications of Evolutionary Liberalism (PDF)Review of Politics, Fall, 1996.Liberal thought and deep ecology are usually regarded as mutually exclusive. But the “evolutionary” tradition offers a way to integrate the two through commonalties in the work of David Hume, Michael Polanyi, Arne Naess, and Aldo Leopold, providing a stronger foundation for liberalism while strengthening the case for an ecocentric ethic.(Related subjects: Ecology)Saving Western Towns: A Jeffersonian Green Proposal (PDF)in Writers on the Range, Karl Hess and John Baden, eds., University Press of Colorado, 1998.Developmental pressures in the rural and small town West involve three groups: long term residents, new arrivals, and environmentalists. Today their interests often conflict. This conflict is in part the outcome of institutions which prevent harmonizing competing interests. The concept of developmental trusts, both for rural regions and for small communities offers a means whereby these interests can be harmonized for the benefit of all concerned.(Related subjects: Politics)Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, and Liberalism (PDF)Critical Review, 6: 2-3, 1992.Murray Bookchin is considered a leading radical environmental theorist. However, his analysis is incapable of leading humankind towards a more respectful and sustainable relationship with the natural world. Criticisms of Bookchin from both the deep ecology and evolutionary liberal perspective complement one another, pointing the way towards a better understanding of how modernity relates to the environment.The paper as a whole offers an early discussion of issues that are more clearly addressed in later papers, particularly Deep Ecology and Liberalism (1996) and the three Trumpeter articles in 1997, 1996, and 1993. However, there are other ideas in the article which have not been developed more thoroughly elsewhere.
Hello, this is T. Thorn Coyle, stepping in for Gus today.
One of the things I do in life is act as a spiritual director. Recently, one of my clients was talking about a struggle with the fact that things change. S/he wanted something to remain inviolate, permanent. When I responded that everything is in a state of change, that the universe is always in process, that the Gods are in process, that God Herself, the Limitless Divine, is in process, s/he replied, “Yes, I know you say that. But I have a hard time believing it.”
Really most of us do. We have difficulty believing in constant process despite the fact that we experience it all the time. Our bodies change daily. Our minds shift with thoughts like clouds moving across the landscape. Our emotions dart like quicksilver from joy to fear to anger to love, except for those that get entrenched in sorrow or resentment. But even the entrenched feelings have their subtle shifts. Some things may feel permanent, but our very relationship to these things changes and therefore, the things that feel permanent also change. They seem static simply because they change at a barely perceptible rate.
The book of Nature is our great teacher in this. The mountains themselves are shifting, as I write these words. Therefore, I counseled this client to choose one plant to observe daily. We cannot observe plants during Spring without noticing change, and with this noticing comes a recognition that change is both necessary and beautiful. I myself, though sometimes struggling with emerging middle age, appreciate the life map traced upon the skin of my friends in their 40s, 50s and 60s. I can also appreciate a 12 year old’s face, and acknowledge that a different sort of beauty shines there. Nature is the teacher of cycles and impermanence. The cosmos is always on the move – stars are born, live, and die. Who knows what galaxies have come and gone already, and what are yet to be?
And if all of this is part of the pattern of God Herself, then that means God Herself is ever changing. Like the filk of that old Pagan chant (original by Starhawk, I believe, filk, author unknown) goes: “She changes everything She touches, ’cause She can’t leave well enough alone!” And why should She? The creative impulse is embedded in us all. And every time something is created, the order shifts, things move, things disintegrate and reintegrate anew.
Why do we want to hold onto this idea that things should not change? Ah. Because the ego does not wish to die. Because we wish to feel we have solid ground to stand upon. We are afraid. To embrace change is to enter the mystery of the unknown, or the barely percieved. Who will we be tomorrow? There is no way to know. We do our practices, study our texts, read the book of Nature and our hearts. We feel the fear, take a breath, and move anyway. The outcome is never certain. The only certainty is change.
Magic changes us and we change magic.To walk in the knowledge that things are ever rising and falling is to walk with courage and ease. We can find our center with a breath, and live our lives knowing that everything is a joyous risk, because nothing is ever the same.
——-
T. Thorn Coyle is an internationally respected teacher and author of “Kissing the Limitless” and “Evolutionary Witchcraft.” She is founder of Solar Cross and the Morningstar Mystery School and practices near the San Francisco Bay. http://www.thorncoyle.com
posted June 3, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Very true! and very nice. Thank You.
posted June 4, 2009 at 8:05 am
Wow, What a nice way of putting thoughts on Impermanence…
I agree and when I read this… there is sense of love for this life.. and it does not matter how it is… the courage to accept these changes …. only we need..
May the One who is invisible take care of us…
Regards,
Raman
posted June 4, 2009 at 8:45 am
Welcome Thorn; thank you for spending some time with us.
I think the fear of change is strongest when things are going well and you don’t WANT them to change. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” – or change it. But when things are going not-so-well, the thought of change isn’t so scary because you don’t like the current situation. An election was won on the platform of Change (thank the Gods!).
The strength for people who work with Magick is that we can have a hand in directing that change. We aren’t just floating downstream with no way to affect our course. Change is inevitable and constant – aging is a good example – still we can change HOW we age by how well we take care of ourselves.
I’m a Taurus and no one has more trouble dealing with change than those in that sign. Yet over time I’ve learned to deal with it – direct it when I can, roll with it when I can’t.
And I remember what my Mom used to tell me and I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying, “If nothing ever changed there would be no butterflies”.
posted June 4, 2009 at 9:16 am
So true. Once when I was in a tough position one of my magic mentors told me to walk in the rain by running water. The idea was that the running water carried away the old while rain brought in the new. It was a wonderful way to allow change into my life peacefully.
posted June 4, 2009 at 9:27 am
It’s taken me a long time to develop some sort of peace with change.
Not wanting things to change does stem from fear of the unknown. What I have to remind myself is that change isn’t always for the worse, but even if it is, it could become something better. The universe ebbs and flows that way.
posted June 4, 2009 at 10:08 am
A beautiful column; change is a difficult truth for people, including myself, to fully realize. I’d like to suggest another reason why it is difficult, other than the one you mentioned about the resistance of the ego. The normal, everyday appearance of the world seems to be a world of stability. For example, the desk I am writing this on appears to be the same desk that I saw yesterday, and the day before, and, I suspect, will be here tomorrow. I understand conceptually that the desk is changing, that it is a dynamic process, but I do not perceive that change directly. I have to infer that it is changing and inference is weaker than perception. For this reason I think that the difficulty of comprehending the pervasiveness of change is due, at least in part, to our ordinary perceptions of the world which are, in a sense, too coarse to perceive how dynamic existence is. The exercise you gave on the plant is a wonderful antidote to this coarseness. There are others: contemplate a flowing river, contemplate a candle flame until the candle is extinguished (use a small candle), contemplate the sounds of nature as they arise and disappear.
Thanks again for a wonderful column.
posted June 4, 2009 at 10:41 am
Nice commentary, Thorn. I sometimes have wondered if I’m ib small minority in having the perspective of impermanence, admittedly hearing it mostly from Buddhist and Buddhist-influenced philosophies. It’s good to hear it coming from a Pagan!
Some Pagans give me the impression that they view the Gods are as a the permanent processes of the universe. Can’t say I’m cursing those people, I just disagree with it.
posted June 4, 2009 at 11:00 am
Coincidentally, I was watching a rerun of “Angel” just yesterday and some dialogue (spoken by The Host) struck me so much I wrote it down:
“It’s like a song. I can hold a note for a long time. Eventually that’s just noise. It’s the change we listening for. The note coming after and after that. That’s what makes it music.”
posted June 4, 2009 at 11:33 am
Tess that’s beautiful. Change: The music of the Cosmos.
Of course I have to do my best to be the Conductor of my little piece of it!
posted June 4, 2009 at 3:12 pm
All true, and it occurs to me that some of those Other Religions (like the ones many of us were raised with) teach that the physical world is impermanent and changing, but the spirit (“real”) world is unchanging and deathless. I always had a problem with that; MY spirit never felt unchanging!
posted June 4, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Wonderful post, Thorn – Thank you.
“one of my clients was talking about a struggle with the fact that things change. S/he wanted something to remain inviolate, permanent. When I responded that everything is in a state of change, that the universe is always in process, that the Gods are in process, that God Herself, the Limitless Divine, is in process, s/he replied, ‘Yes, I know you say that. But I have a hard time believing it’.”
Interesting that your client used the term “believe” when actually they have a hard time “accepting” change. I like what Tess shared with us – if nothing changes then it’s just noise but when change comes it is growth… “The music of the Cosmos” – Thank you Cheryl!!
Blessings!
posted June 4, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Responding to several comments on this thread, one of those with the clearest understanding of impermanence and the presence of the ultimate as impermanence was Dogen, founder of Soto Zen in Japan. In an essay on Buddha Nature he wrote, “Impermanence is Buddha Nature.” That single sentence has opened many doors of understanding for me.