The approaches that quantify human impact on nature, conservation and restoration, like carbon credits, can disconnect humans from their position and role in the universe. I think what is needed is to strengthen our connection with everything more-than-human. With awe, joy, and gratitude towards nature and the universe, taking responsibility for our actions should be direct and obvious, a priority and not an afterthought.
I’m looking at religion, myth, and ritual to recover that connection. This book has been very useful for me:
«Religious ecologies are ways of orienting and grounding whereby humans […] undertake specific practices of nurturing and transforming self and community in a particular cosmological context that regards nature as inherently valuable.»
Orienting through stories and practices, symbols and rituals, meditation and prayer.
Grounding to negotiate tragedy and loss, contingency and finitude.
Nurture individuals and communities to live amid uncertainty and pain with joy, hope, and even laughter.
Transform the human to activate healing and reconciliation so that comprehensive compassion may flow into the world.
I’m now checking out their course:
This is very challenging. How do we add a spiritual dimension to the blockchain? How do we add these rituals for connection into our game theory models? These researchers talking about the transformational power of religion use three interpretative approaches on their investigation: retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction. I think part of that is rewriting old maladjusted practices and creating our new solar punk mythology based on what we have learned.
The Earth Charter is a document with sixteen principles, organized under four pillars, that seek to turn conscience into action.
It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations. It is a vision of hope and a call to action.
«The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature.»
it is up to us to envision and enact a new standard for society, to deeply realize the value of human life so that the compassionate treatment of all people becomes the guiding principle that dictates how we design our communities, institutions, and nations.
our world has fallen into extremes. greed, competition, individualism, and short-sighted decision-making have created a world of plenty for some and a world of struggle for most. we are out of balance. we live within systems that push against each other and easily cause direct and indirect forms of harm. we do not yet know how to win together or how to live well without damaging our earth.
fortunately, humanity is in the process of maturing, we are young, but we are more open to learning, growing, and reorganizing our world than ever before. it is up to us to make compassion structural. to create an inclusive society in which people are not left behind because of their differences but embraced and centered so that all can flourish.
it is undeniable that we can improve our current global situation. to get to a better tomorrow, we must understand the complexity of today. the deeper our understanding, the clearer our actions. we must come to terms with history; face it directly without turning away. we must examine where the shadows of history produce present-day human experience, we can better position ourselves to undo structures that do not serve the common good.
the forces of racism and heteropatriarchy exist on the interpersonal and structural level. they impact our institutions and insidiously slow down the flow of compassion in our minds. we need to question our current economic system and support a greater distribution of material prosperity. none of our systems will last forever, nothing does. starvation, poverty, lack of access to good schooling and healthcare are structural problems that we can overcome – raising the standard so that people no longer suffer on the material level is not an impossibility; it is just a matter of will. collectively, we have the wealth and knowledge to accomplish this. what we are missing is a greater sense of unconditional compassion. society will never be perfect, but that should not stop us from making our shared reality more humane. when we commit to ending harm and supporting one another’s thriving, all individuals benefit.
our task is to think and act more collectively, while supporting the freedom of the individual. to standardize the human treatment of all people. to expand our idea of human rights to include economic empowerment. to dream and act big. to be the leaders we wish existed.
we have the power to reorganize the world and make compassion structural.
