Sacred Season
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Posted on March 23, 2008
Filed Under Deep ecology, Ecological hope, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
It’s Easter Sunday. 
Christians around the world are celebrating resurrection, the emergence of life from death. It is no accident that this holiday arrives with Spring, a time of rebirth and renewal. In other parts of the world, that turn in the cycle of life, the cyclical triumph of light over the winter darkness, light that will also warm the northern hemisphere over the next several months — that is what is ritually celebrated, as it has been for millennia.
Where did we first learn this? From where did these rich sacred traditions first emerge? From our very experience of the natural world, from our own deep immersion in these cycles of life and death, of darkness and light, of cold and warmth, of hibernating life and life overflowing with abundance.
Next month we will honor the Passover journey, the deep roots in the Western world of a theology of liberation from oppression from which the Christian story also emerged. Throughout the Hebrew Bible we find profound stories of our intimate connections with Nature, stories of harvests and drought, of scarcity and abundance, wrapped in a theology that has God deeply involved in the human story.
We have alienated ourselves profoundly from the original insights of so much of what we celebrate — whether commercial Santa Claus at Christmastime or Easter bunnies hop-hop-hopping with baskets full of chocolate and other goodies.
When did we as a culture, or even in our faith traditions, last go out to ritualize together our deep connections to Nature and the Cosmos from which every religious impulse in the human experience has its original inspiration?
If we could renew that, if we could take that first radical step in a new and renewed spirituality of the human within Gaia (the Earth as one and whole), we might be able to take the next steps that can lead us out of the numerous ecological crises that threaten the human species and all other species on this precious planet.
I recently fininished reading a book that came out 15 years ago now, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology, by the ecofeminist theologian Sallie McFague. I want to share a brief excerpt from her chapter entitled, Eschatology: A New Shape for Humanity. It is my way of saying, Happy Easter.
The new vision underscores the unity of each with all and the distinction of each from all: both interdependence and independence. Central to the new paradigm is the beyond-all-imagining profound, intricate nature of the interrelationship and interdependence of each and every living and nonliving aspect of creation. From breath to breath we depend upon one another. Nothing is more central to the common creation story than the ancient and present character of mutual dependence of all life-forms on one another and on the life-supporting systems of our planet…
In this new vision we must learn to live appropriately within the scheme of things. If the common creation story has taught us one lesson it is that we are not the center of the universe and not even the center of our tiny planet. It has given us a functional cosmology, a way of seeing where we fit in this planet to which we belong. in the vision of a different, better world, this double reality that we belong and where we belong will be central. We can, in this paradigm, no longer live a lie in relation to other human beings, other species, and the planet itself. Ecological sin — wanting to have everything for oneself and one’s kind — is not only a sin against God (as it was in the old paradigm as well) but it is also in the new paradigm, contrary to reality. This absolutely critical acknowledgement and practice, which will allow space and place to others and thus help life on earth continue, is also curiously satisfying, indeed comforting. It is not only that we must share the space and live in proper relations with others, but by doing so, we realize that we belong here. We are welcomed home. [emphasis added]
So, welcome home this Easter, Spring, Passover season. Welcome home to this Earth that holds within it everything we know of life. 
As we rejoice in the renewal of Spring, may we also realize that we are not outside of it but deeply embedded within it. If it comes to renewal, so must we. If we destroy its ability to renew and regenerate, we will also destroy that within ourselves, within our own humanity, and within those other species with whom we share this precious biosphere. Without renewal and regeneration, there is only death — until another era gives birth to another kind of life.
Sadly, the Earth does not have a chance, in the context of this evolutionary era, unless humans give it a chance. And that begins with the renewal and regeneration of our own hearts and spirits in concert with the Gaia-life from which we emerged, of which we are a part, and outside of which, well, we are not at all.
Technorati Tags: happy easter, ecofeminism, Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology, resurrection rebirth renewal, cycle of life, Passover journey
Photo credits:
Easter lilly © Andrew Dunn, 13 August 2005
Tulips, Landscape-Photo.net
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Perhaps it is now time to consider the realistic probability that rampant, unbridled economic globalization and INACTION regarding the scientific consensus on climate change, when taken together, will soon threaten Earth, its environs, biodiversity, life as we know it and the future of our children?
The sacred Seaon starting another scared season. In India the rains have all ready started havoc before three months. The summer also may one high temperatures in this part of the world.