Issue 27 is now being printed! The theme of the autumn / fall 2010 issue is Art and Ecology.
My article on Blake, Buddhism and Ecology takes the perhaps controversial stance that the new discipline of Deep Ecology is not so straightforwardly wholesome and ‘spiritual’ as it might at first seem. While acknowledging that a philosophical and ethical underpinning to the environmental movement is vital, I suggest that the simple revaluing of nature to the ‘the only good’ is not without its problems. Put simply it leaves the question where do human beings fit it? What are we for? Are we just an unfortunate evolutionary blip, a creature which has too much brain for its own good and which Gaia would be better of without? This might sound like a travesty of deep ecology but think the about the implications of the statement that ‘all living things are of equal value’. This means that humanity is of equal value to every single species of microbe. In fact of less value. There are some species of microbe which underpin the functioning of the entire eco-system. This is not the case with our species. As we know, the extinction of any one species of mammal will cause changes in an eco-system but not generally its collapse. The way out of this ethical impasse, I suggest, is to look towards those spiritual teachers who have put forward a balanced ‘ecological’ view of humanity’s place in the scheme of things. Views which give high value to all life forms within an interconnected web of being but which recognize the place of humanity in bringing reflexive self awareness to the processes of Mind and Nature.
