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.
To me the Equinoxes Ostara and Mabon are particularly Pagan in their symbolism even though they have long been the least commonly celebrated of our contemporary sacred days. Solstices were far easier to calculate and symbolized the great dualities of embodiment: life and death, light and dark. Their history is ancient and world wide, at least out of the tropics. Our four Cross Quarter Sabbats are geared to harvest cycles, and so also quite venerable. The Equinoxes are relative newcomers.
But very appropriate ones. Along with Ostara, the Spring Equinox, Mabon exemplifies balance, a balance that is always dynamic. After Mabon the balance will tip from the predominance of light to the growing presence of darkness, from warmth to cold, from growth to dormancy. Throughout much of the US signs of this shift are evident to the careful observer, from the declining vitality of our gardens, flowers that have ceased their bloom, and become seeds, the touches of color just beginning to appear on some impatient leaves, and the advent of colder mornings. But there are still some weeks of growth and harvest ahead of us here in Sonoma County, as well as in many other parts of the country.
And so when we meet in ritual tonight our altar will be covered with the fruits of the season. We will ask the Gods to come and bless them. Afterwards we will eat some of this bounty while taking the rest home. But we will also focus on balance.
For the Equinox balance between the eternally dancing dualities of life reigns and is honored. Neither predominates. And so, for our ritual tonight we will focus on what needs greater balance in our lives, as well as gratitude for the fruits of this summer. For me at least one balance, returning after too long an absence, is to work with the energies and spirits of the land along with all this head tripping.
What needs more balance in your life? If you can, work that need into your ritual, either as a group or as a solitary.
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I would love to have posted on Mabon earlier, but this month has been too discombobulated. No sooner than I began to finally feel moved in than a bag containing my checkbook, date book, and David Abram’s Becoming Animal was stolen. That led to a long time at the bank and missing various things I’d written down.
(I hope the thief, or someone else, reads the book. I’d almost finished, and it is awesome. I’ve bought another but my review will have to wait till I’ve finished. The good dimension of this is that I am rereading much of it to get to where I was. )
posted September 21, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Blessed Mabon. What a perfect day today was in the Bay area!
posted September 22, 2010 at 10:06 am
Adding my best wishes for a wonderful Mabon — or Harvest Home! So sorry to hear about the theft of your bag — hope you get things straightened out soon!
posted September 22, 2010 at 10:30 am
Merry Mabon to you Gus, and all my fellow Witch/Pagan posters.
Every Equinox I promise myself I’m going to have more work/life balance. I’m slowly getting there but with everyone wearing multiple hats at work, the hurdles continually move higher. So it seems this will be my goal for a while yet.
And Gus, tonight would be a good time to cast a powerful spell to retrieve your bag!
posted September 22, 2010 at 3:17 pm
“For me at least one balance, returning after too long an absence, is to work with the energies and spirits of the land along with all this head tripping.”
You and me both, friend. Good Mabon to you.
posted September 23, 2010 at 11:01 am
Hi All,
Happy Mabon! I ended up burning incense and candles on the 21st.
Gus, I hope all will cleared up with your missing important items.
I also got a wealth of undesirable news about my daughter, Tia and my brother, Buck. Tia married a young man after knowing him for just 1 week, and Buck happened to be at a bar in cincinati, OH where a shootout between cops and another biker club took place. Buck went to jail overnight, until all was sorted out.
I did meet Tia’s husband last night, he seems ok, but I have only spoken to him a couple times, and met him for the first time last night, only time will tell.
I lit extra candles in honor of Mabon, as I was having to prepare my home for new windows.
Blessings.
posted September 23, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Great shot of the Equinox sun — http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100923.html
posted September 23, 2010 at 1:54 pm
M.A.,
Thank You for the Sun is absolutely stunning. Thank You for sharing.
Everyone, you need to check out this link, it is absolutely beautiful.
Blessings
posted September 23, 2010 at 3:02 pm
M.A., that IS beautiful! You can see the magnetic fields on the sun and everything. I’m going to see if I can buy a photo of it from them as soon as I have a free moment to look. I would love to have it framed in my altar room.