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EcoPsychology and the New Millennium:
Moving from an extractive economy and culture in a world dominated by multi-national corporations
to
an age of ecological values and goals and a culture and way of life beneficial and benign to the Earth
We need to change from a culture/society that supports life styles of seeking profit and buying "things"--patterns of behavior that damage the Earth--to a culture that fosters life styles devoted to rehabilitating, supporting and maintaining the health of the Earth and its many life forms. Which would be the happier, more fulfilling life style? As Thomas Berry has pointed out we are at a special point in history in which we must carry out "deep cultural therapy" and create a culture and way of life that is benign and beneficial to the Earth. Berry calls the new age we are entering the Ecozoic era and he says that the effort to create this new era is "the great work" of our time. [See Berry's book, "The Great Work: Our Way Into The Future".]
EcoPsychology is the field of knowledge and practice that concerns our relationship with the Earth and natural world. On this page, we will share material that relates to this field and to the "practice" of carrying out The Great Work required of us at this time in history.
We will begin with a closer look at Thomas Berry's book, "The Great Work", a book highly recommended to anyone living at this time in the evolution of our planet and the human species.
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Excerpts from Thomas Berry's "The Great Work: Our Way into the Future."
"The universe seems to be the fulfillment of something so highly imaginative and so overwhelming that it must have been dreamed into existence. ... we must also recognize that few things are so destructive as a dream or entrancement that has lost the integrity of its meaning and entered an exaggerated and destructive manifestation. ... there is no dream or entrancement in the history of the Earth that has wrought the destruction that is taking place in the entrancement with industrial civilization. Such entrancement must be considered as a profound cultural disorientation ...[that] can be dealt with only by a corresponding deep cultural therapy.... a new revelatory experience is needed ... wherein human consciousness awakens to the grandeur and sacred quality of the Earth process. This awakening is our human participation in the dream of the Earth... We probably have not had such participation int the dream of the Earth since earlier shamanic times, but therein lies our hope for the future for ourselves and for the entire Earth community." [Berry, TGW, p. 165]
"The present urgency is to begin thinking within the context of the whole planet, the integral Earth community with all its human and other-than-human components. ... The ecological community is not subordinate to the human community.... our human ethics are derivative from the ecological imperative. The basic ethical norm is the well-being of the comprehensive community and the attainment of human well-being within that community.
Here we find that we are dealing with a profound reversal in our perspective on ourselves and on the universe about us. ... What is demanded of us now is to change attitudes that are so deeply bound into our basic cultural patterns that they seem to us as an imperative of the very nature of our being, a dictate of our genetic coding as a species.... somehow we must reach ... back ... to where our human genetic coding connects with the other species codings of the larger Earth community. Only then can we overcome the limitations of the antropocentrism that binds us.
Perhaps a new revelatory experience is taking place, an experience wherein human consciousness awakens to the grandeur and sacred quality of the Earth process. Humanity has seldom participated in such a vision since shamanic times, but in such a renewal lies our hope for the future for ourselves and for the entire planet on which we live."
[Berry, TGW, p. 105, 106]
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EcoPsychology and the Wilderness Experience
A wilderness experience allows you to create an intimate relationship with the Earth and natural world. It is an opportunity to experience the great source of energy that is the Earth and Nature. You discover that the natural world is a great teacher and healer. Dale Ellis leads wilderness experiences that provide these opportunities. Through the use of ritual and ancient symbols, through gentle guidance and suggestions, through shamanic methods and sensitivity to the group energy and process, he supports your deepening relationship with the Earth. A wilderness experience of this type is experiential learning of a profound nature leading to new wisdom, healing, and the transformation of your life and spirit. Find and create your place in "The Great Work" that Thomas Berry describes in his book, the transition we must make in transforming our culture and our lives as we move into the Ecozoic Era, an era where we live in ways that are benign and beneficial to the Earth.
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Please Visit Our Wilderness Guide Page
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