NATURE AS PRISTINE, OR RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW?

I've been thinking about the contrasting mythologies about the natural world that we have in our culture: as pristine and benevolent, or as red in tooth and claw. I think both mythologies have their place. The Darwinian model, with its mechanism of the survival of the fittest, over-emphasises tooth and claw. Shamanism, with its tendency to idealise indigenous peoples, perhaps over-emphasises nature as pristine. Certainly the environmental movement tends towards this latter imbalance, as a reaction to the modern attitude towards nature as a mere thing to be exploited.

The imbalance in each direction creates its own problems. An instance of the two working in harmony is the traditional way that Native Americans hunt: after the animal has been killed, they pray over it, and give thanks to the animal for giving it's life.

How to reconcile the two attitudes - nature as something to be grateful to and appreciative of, and yet as something we have to struggle with, that can put us in personal danger - is not obvious, at least on a rational level.

As ordinary humans, we find living with apparent contradiction difficult. It can be almost an existential threat. We want to know what's what, and who the bad guys are. Either we are left wing or right wing, either we understand the climate emergency, or we are climate deniers, and so on.

But the natural world defies such categorisation. It is the human 'rational' mind that demands such simple certainties. The medicine person, the healer, has the spiritual strength to live outside such certainties, and thereby become a hollow bone for Spirit.

So here's what I think we have to offer the world, in respect of these two mythologies: to big business, do some ceremony, and give thanks for the rare earth metals you are about to mine. Mother Earth understands our need for them as we unfold our human inventiveness. She understands our inevitable hubris, gives of her bounty, and is waiting with a full heart for us to come back into balance.

And to those of the opposite persuasion, at the extreme end, the environmentalists who glue themselves to the road in horror at humanity's disregard and ingratitude towards the natural world: remember that to be human is also natural, humans have always changed the environment, it is not in itself something to be opposed. A new balance needs to come from within. Work with, not against.

And the urgency of it, the threat of human extinction that worries so many? I think this is the time to rest in the arms of pristine, benevolent nature. She is far vaster than this one species called human, she is older than the hills, and she knows what she is doing. Trust in her.

We live at a difficult time, for humanity is going through a great transition, there will be loss of species along the way, and we cannot help but grieve that. And we cannot see through to the other side. But what we need above all is mitigation of the polarisation that such transitions, which are very stressful, produce. Rather than exacerbate it, I think that wise shamans understand the two sides to the natural world, and can see the world in those terms, and can alleviate it, can contribute towards a new balance: that is what we do.