Terra Mortis: Part II continues Michael Owen's reflections on the mortality of the Earth. Much has been written about the threat to civilisation from climate change. However, the collective recoils from thinking the unthinkable-that this planet may be dying. But to think the unthinkable allows what does not have a home to find a home. It in habits it with human consciousness. Then it may not happen the same way as it might have done. Perhaps.
We have run out of planet-a never-before-seen thing. A whole 1.7 planet's worth. Her bones have been mined. The rocks can no longer breathe. Her waters can no longer dream. Her skin is scabrous with parking lots. And the Great Barrier Reef is dying.
The trees have nearly given up. The animals have done what they can. The Titanic, 9/11, the GFC and Covid have tried their best to warn us of our grandiosity. Monotheism has abandoned the earth for heavenly rewards. Pathological optimism keeps us in an ecological coma. Indigenous peoples are now only 5% of the world's population. Half of the world lives in cities. And our relationship with indigenous beauty has been lost.
Part 1. Shadow: Monotheism has abandoned the earth for heavenly rewards. God's shadow is the narcissistic aberration that is the contrary to indigenous consciousness. The god of monotheism (God, Allah and Yahweh) in all its forms, origins and offspring, is directly and indirectly responsible for the destruction of the Earth.
Part 2. Matter: All matter has consciousness. Vernon Masayesva, Hopi elder, said "We believe that water has memory. It responds to human behaviour."
Part 3. Body: The health of the Earth and the health of our bodies are one. When the memory of the rocks and the trees and the animals is lost then human memory is also lost.
Part 4. Disorder: Pre-traumatic Stress Disorder (yes, you read that right), depression, despair, and the pathology of hope. It is what will happen in the future that is traumatic. There will be flash-forwards as well as flash-backs.
Part 5. Science: The rise of scientism and our planetary illness. So what's my beef with CBT? Because behaviourism and its cuzzie-bros are the psychological version of colonisation.
Part 6. Earth and Self: The mirrors of the Earth (the original Self) and Jung's "God-image within". The suggestion that the Earth is dying is felt as an attack on the Self and disturbs the relationship with whatever external object the Self is projected onto (religion, atheism, motherhood, the First Amendment, sports hero, or saving the planet).
Part 7. Apocalypse anytime: Some far-fetched but aspirational remedies. Ask the Earth for help. What if as many people said prayers to the Earth as they do to God-Allah-Yahweh? What if Sunday morning services at the church, Friday evening prayers at shul, and Friday midday prayers at the mosque, were just for the Earth. Not to God for the Earth--but to the Earth.
All with the help of C G Jung and indigenous wisdom.
About the Author :
Michael Owen MA is a Registered Clinical Psychologist in private practice in Aotearoa/New Zealand. He is a Member of the NZ Psychological Society, and former Member of the NZ Association of Psychotherapists. After a BSc Hons (Zoology, Manchester University) and an MA (Applied Psychology, University of Toronto) he has been a psychotherapist and clinical psychologist for over forty years, latterly in private practice and at Tauranga Hospital, New Zealand. Along the way he has trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, family therapy, and EMDR; and with Stanislav Grof, Michael Harner, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Virginia Satir, and Thomas Verny amongst others. He has studied at the C G Jung Institute, Zurich and has led wilderness retreats in Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Botswana.Over many years he has worked with a group of indigenous elders.
