When I’m old,
Aged with grief,
When I’m tired
Of hunchback years…

When I’m old,
Gimme a treasure,
For the scorched years –
a cool pleasure…

For a fugitive,
Give an orchard,
To a faceless one,
Give a fortune.

With no overseers,
With no ears,
With no wanderers,
And no sneers

Can the orchard be
A trade-off for pain?
Just a lonesome place,
For a lonesome fate.

Just an orchard place,
For my ending rest,
Or, perhaps, the space
For my future quest?

— Marina Tsvetaeva,
1st September 1934

(Translated by Victor Postnikov)

Asurvey of socio-political models and movements based on ecocentric ethics — left biocentrism, bioregionalism, global eco-village movement, post-historical primitivism, and the “coerced” biocentrism of Pentii Linkola — reveals that all these models share a common vision of an anti-capitalist, anti-industrial, and decentralized (self-sustained) society, while conventional political modes to this time have mainly been based on centralised, authoritarian, human structures—Monarchies, Empires, Republics—all designed to serve human needs. With the growing complexity and interdependence of ecosystems in the entire planet, these social organizations pose a grave threat to human beings, to the environment, and to non-human species. Incorrect decisions made at the top of the human power structure can easily propagate, augment their impact, and affect a great number of humans as well as animals of the non-human world. Decentralisation of power and “local” solutions seem to offer the only remedies that can avert us from imminent global destruction.

Left biocentrism

According to David Orton3, an originator of left biocentrism, this socio-political model has descended from several parallel anti-capitalist and anti-industrial movements in green politics and environmental activism, with the aim of marrying deep ecology and left perspective:

• “deep green theory” of Richard Sylvan14
• “socialist biocentrism” Helga Hoffman and David Orton2, 3
• “ecologism” of Andrew Dobson16;
• “radical ecocentrism” of Andrew McLaughlin15;
• “revolutionary ecology” of Judi Bari13;
• “green fundamentalism” of Rudolf Bahro12.

In fact, left biocentrism can be viewed as a left political wing of deep ecology4. The later, however, is known more as a philosophy of ecocentric ethics14. The “left” means that biocentrists try to weave ecoethics with the class issues and social justice, but do not hold them above biocentrism, or ecocentrism (like the left parties). At present, this direction is being developed within the international discussion group, comprising activists, philosophers, scientists, poets and ecologists. The group was initiated in the 90s by a Canadian writer-activist David Orton.3 The group has an on-line theoretical journal Dandelion Times1 and links with other left-wing “green” organisations.

Bioregionalism

Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system based on naturally-defined areas called bioregions, or ecoregions18. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics. Bioregionalism stresses that the determination of a bioregion is also a cultural phenomenon, and emphasizes local populations, knowledge, and solutions19 The term appears to have originated in work by Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann in the early 1970s.20

The bioregionalist perspective opposes a homogeneous economy and consumer culture with its lack of stewardship towards the environment. This perspective seeks to:

• Ensure that political boundaries match ecological boundaries.21
• Highlight the unique ecology of the bioregion.7
• Encourage consumption of local foods where possible.
• Encourage the use of local materials where possible.
• Encourage the cultivation of native plants of the region.
• Encourage sustainability in harmony with the bioregion.22

So far, bioregionalism has spread primarily in North America. Since 1984 there have been bi-annual gatherings of bioregionalists23 that have given rise to national level Green Parties.

Global eco-villages

Today, the number of eco-villages in the world exceeds 10 000. They all are interconnected in the Global Ecovillage Network.6, 24 Eco-villages are the small communities (20 to 500 members) with tight social connections, united by common ecological and spiritual interests. These communities could be rural, urban, usually low-tech, depending on circumstances and the intentions of their members. For example, Ökodorf Seiben Linden  is a rural community in Eastern Germany with a minimum energy consumption. Eco-village “Los Angeles” is a small region in Los Angeles. Village Sasardi  is hidden in the tropical rain forest in northern Columbia. The world’s oldest (since 1962) Findhorn eco-village is located at the northern extremity of Scotland. They all have deep respect for nature and are striving to build self-sustainable communities with a minimal ecological footprint. Many eco-villages serve as a learning ground for those who seek to radically change their life ways.

Post-historical primitivism

This (theoretical) model is based on the works of Paul Shepard. According to Fred Bender,9, 10 Shepard recommends that we need to recover pre-history and reconnect to mythos (sacred story), ancestors, and nonhuman Others. He believes that history’s real lesson is that it is no guide to the future, because it is a declaration of independence from the deep past and its peoples, living or dead, and from the natural state of our being. Despite these deep-rooted prejudices, we must study primal peoples (who are not primitive in any defensible sense of the term) so we can begin to think about living ecologically in post-historic and post-industrial ways. Contrary to the deep-rooted prejudices, we must study aboriginal people, in order to learn how to live ecologically in post-historical and post-industrial times. Other deep ecologists, particularly, Jerry Mander11 also develops this theory.

The radical biocentrism of Pentti Linkola

Radical biocentrist Pentti Linkola stands at some distance from the aforementioned models, as his model is based on a coerced radical reduction of population, rejection of technologies and consumerist economy. His programme, elaborated mainly for his native Finland, despite its radicalism, does not differ in essence from other decentralist models.17 The only significant difference is that Linkola envisages the introduction of an authoritative government as the most radical solution for the transition of society and conservation of life (he does not have illusion about the voluntary transition to the new way of life). Linkola’s programme has 205 points and evokes admiration from some and severe critique from the others. Nonetheless, we can’t render Linkola a “fascist” because he speaks against nationalism or any expansion of a nation, or race, to the detriment of all others – which is the major feature of fascism.

Conclusion

To prevent the global catastrophe, provoked by an excessive anthropogenic pressure, deep change in individual consciousness is needed. But that is not enough. We need to radically change the social structures. Some ecocentric ideologues are sceptical as to voluntary transition of the large masses, let alone “the golden billion”, to the ecocentric society. The issue of the permissibility of a coerced transition remains open.

About the author

Viktor Ivanovitch Postnikov is a Russian-born independent scientist (DSc.) who lives in Kiev, Ukraine. A prolific poetry translator, he has also translated books on both eastern philosophies and deep ecology, and written many essays on Russian anarchism and eco-poetry for journals and other publications.

References

1. http://dandeliontimes.net/category/left-biocentrism/

2. http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/

3. David Orton – My Path to Left Biocentrism: Pt.1- The Theory http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/GW63-Path.html

4. David Greenfield –The Left in Left Biocentrism http://dandeliontimes.net/2008/07/the-left-in-left-biocentrism/

5. Bill Metcalf – Sustainable Communal Living Around the Globe, Diggers and Dreamers 00/01, p.5 -19.

6. Albert Bates, Ecovillages – What Have We Learned? – Communities Magazine, issue #117.

7. V.Postnikov – Ecocentric Ukraine Project – a sketch http://www.proza.ru/2009/01/13/716 (In Russian).

8. V.Postnikov – Russian Roots: From Populism to Radical Ecology, Anarchist Studies, Volume 12, N.1, 2004.

9. Frederic Bender (2003). The Culture of Extinction: Toward a Philosophy of Deep Ecology. Amherst, NY: Humanity.

10. Frederic Bender, On the Importance of Paul Shepard’s Call for Post-Historic Primitivism and Palaeolithic Counter-Revolution against Modernity, The Trumpeter, Volume 23, Number 3 (2007)

11. Jerry Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991.

12. David Orton, Rudolf Bahro (1935 – 1997): A tribute, Socialist Studies Bulletin_ No. 50 (Oct.-Dec. 1997).

13. Judi Bari, Revolutionary Ecology. http://www.judibari.org/revolutionary-ecology.html

14. Patrick Curry, Deep Ecology and Left Biocentrism: An Introduction,
http://dandeliontimes.net/2008/08/deep-ecology-and-left-biocentrism-an-introduction/

15. Andrew McLaughlin – Regarding Nature: Industrialism and Deep Ecology (Albany, State University New York Press, 1993.)

16. Andrew Dobson, Green Political Thought: An Introduction  (London: Harper Collins      Academic, 1990). A book review by David Orton http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/Ecologism.html

17. Pentti Linkola, Can Life Prevail? http://www.evfit.com/linkola_CLP.htm

18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioregionalism

19. Don Alexander, Bioregionalism: The Need For a Firmer Theoretical Foundation, Trumpeter, v.13.3, 1996.

20. Berg, Peter and Raymond Dasmann, “Reinhabiting California,” The Ecologist 7, no. 10 (1977)

21. Davidson, S. (2007) The Troubled Marriage of Deep Ecology and Bioregionalism, Environmental Values, vol. 16(3): 313-332

22. Bastedo, Jamie. Shield Country: The Life and Times of the Oldest Piece of the Planet, Red Deer Press, 1994.

23. North American Bioregional Congress website http://biocongress.org/

24. http://gen.ecovillage.org/index.html

The earth, that is sufficient,

I don’t want the constellations any nearer….

—Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

Introduction1

Indeed, things in this world coexist in an inexplicable, mystical way. Have you ever experienced a situation when you meditate on an idea for some time and, surprisingly, acquire confirmations from various sides? When haphazardly you come across books which reveal the thoughts, confirming your most timid assumptions, or recollect the fragments of your life that bring supportive facts? If such miracle happens, you begin to realize that all these disconcerted ideas and feelings are something more than pure coincidence.

It is exactly how I came up with the idea of lost tactility, and the need to regain it through poetry and magic. The revival of tactility, or balanced “interplay of senses” (Marshall McLuhan), I have come to believe, will help us restore true perception, which has been distorted by an overdose of visual and abstract technologies. This, in turn, will re-establish the harmony between the inner nature of humans and the nature of the whole universe.

Tactility Lost

I remember father buying our first TV in the early 50’s. It had a 12×12 cm screen, and in order to see something we had to put a magnifying glass filled with water. All our family would gather in front of a tiny screen, while I had other intentions: to go playing football with my mates instead of sitting still and gazing into a gray little box. Thus I experienced my first enmity to television. Today, while the quality of TV has dramatically increased, I still don’t feel myself attached to it, probably owing to an unperceived antidote received in childhood. But I see how the present allure of TV and other video technics (DVD-players) easily capture the unsteady minds of children (and adults), taking them away from reality. The problem of the addictive television has been discussed widely, and I won’t go into details (they are too complicated, too obvious, and the reader may consult special studies, e.g. [1]); I only want to reiterate: the visualization has won over the audio-tactile perception that existed in human history, long before the invention of a glossy screen.

On the contrary, I have always admired radio. Our family had a 1948 lamp radio, with a full range of short waves, beginning from 11 metres.2 I remember its magic green eye, and a host of voices coming from within, in all languages. Enchanted, I would sit for hours trying to perceive the meaning of the strange words, or simply enjoying the foreign sounds. Music would fill the room with the jazz melodies not known in this part of the world. Later, radio has become my primal source of information and entertainment. I used to listen to the BBC music programs, and gradually was able to understand political commentators. Even now, after more than 40 years, I remain an active listener of the short wave radio. I guess, the explanation is simple. Radio stimulates your imagination, it does not interfere with your vision, you remain on your own, and your perception is full. We may say, that radio has an audio- tactile modality.

Similar metamorphosis can be traced in the musical record business. The records of the 50s – 70’s, that you could not only listen but lovingly caress and put on a turntable, had had a much more profound effect on our perception (at least, for my generation) than the sleazy compact discs that, practically, have no tactile effect.

The printed book had had even more agreeable effect on perception. It would leave the field for thoughts and emotions, stimulate the imagination; besides, you could stop reading and sink into your own ideas provoked by the author’s views, and resume whenever appropriate, and that’s the wonder of the book. You cannot duplicate this experience with video, or TV, or even radio. You have to follow the imposed images passively, without personal attachment, almost unconsciously. In other words, your consciousness is paralyzed by the imposed images, while your perception is distorted. Shall I add to this the charm of an intimate tactile contact with the book, especially if the latter is a masterpiece in itself?

Computers take us even further down the road of alienation from ourselves. My dislike of computers has been spurred, probably,  by numerical methods of calculations (specifically, finite elements method in electromagnetics) as contrasted to analytical methods that I was involved with in the 70’s and 80′s as a researcher, and the subsequent invasion of  PCs in the 90′s. (Or was it vice versa? I mean, were the numerical methods spurred by the computers? I guess, it was a mutual amplification). Let me explain. In analytical method you are the major actor in finding the solution; in numerical, you delegate this function to a computer, and passively accept, or do not accept, the result.3 I mean, from now on, computers stood between the man and the world, and the humans were doomed to understand the world through the “thinking machines.” As a consequence, I felt enmity to science, and it has lost any attractiveness for me ever since. I understood that humans have yielded to machines their most revered, ultimate faculty, i.e., an ability to perceive the world first hand.

At that moment (1995),  I adventitiously ran into a book by Stephen Talbott called “The Future Does not Compute”,4 and immediately felt that I was not alone in my fears towards the plausible dominance of computers.  Talbott formulates many ideas that were brooding in me for years, and gives a thorough description of our phobias hidden in computers. Here is one citation from his book (p.356):

The computer gains a certain autonomy – runs by itself – on the strength  of  its  embedded reflection of human intelligence. We are  thus confronted from the world by the active powers of our own,  most mechanistic  mental functioning.

Thus we had to obey to the powers of the computers that usurped our intelligence, and had to sacrifice all our highest abilities, such as love, intuition, insight, compassion, etc., to the “ghost of the machine,” sitting inside us.

Thanks to Talbott, I was acquainted with the method of Waldorf education – a perfect antidote to turning us into bio-robots. The method has a strong tactile component in educating the child. Founded by Rudolf Steiner in 1919, Waldorf schools now constitute the fastest growing non-sectarian movement in the world. As Talbott writes: “The teacher’s bearing (his grace and his art, his reverence for nature, his deeply won authority); the materials of the classroom (natural objects such as wooden branches, seashells, flowers, rocks, fabrics, as well as the room itself); and above all the child himself – his volition and feeling fully as much as his intellect – all these things are consciously considered.”

However, the majority of school are still based on a belief that facts are building blocks of knowledge, and information has to be memorized. According to Ed Clark, a Mitchell prize laureate,5 “this educational methodology is clearly inappropriate, if not impossible in a culture, where the amount of available information doubles every few years.” He argues that the education has to be re-build on a principle that “humans seek meaning, not just facts and skills, as an intrinsic aspect of their full and healthy development.”6

So what was the first technology that began to alter our inherently balanced perception? According to Marshall McLuhan, it was a common printed book, or even a phonetic alphabet. In his ground-breaking book, The Gutenberg Galaxy [2], written in the 50′s, but, echoing with a 1995 Talbott’s book, McLuhan tracks down a long historical way on which humans have lost their inherent audio-tactility of language, mainly due to the print, introduced by Gutenberg in the 15th century.  McLuhan calls the phonetic language the “first technology” that abstracted men from the world, with even more abstraction followed through print. It has triggered linear perspective, visual thinking, and markets, which finally, brought us to machines, and, their later hypostasis, computers. McLuhan sees this artificial human predicament, but, paradoxically, relies on the electronic world (“global village”) as a possible retreat into tribalism, which, presumably, regains  the lost tactility.   I say “paradoxically”,  because, as S.Talbott has shown, this is not the case: the monster of abstraction becomes even more shrewd and destructive.

However, there is an attempt to authorize the development of machines from the side of philosophers which see the “naturalness” in increasing complexity of the artificial world. According to those scientists, we, humans, are  bound to develop our faculties through ever more sophisticated machines (nanotechnology, genetic engineering, etc) , in order  to fight against the natural disasters, decease, imperfect genomes, possible asteroids, depletion of resources, etc, and, eventually, I reckon, reach the state of immortality. But note: complexity refers largely to technologies, no one is talking about raising the abilities of humans as such. The more complex are the machines, the more vulnerable are humans.

The protesting voices are weak or are made so. Non-the-less, some are brave enough to get through the mass-media (as the case with Stephen Talbott shows), they receive both indignation and praise.7

Poetic paradigm

Having become disenchanted in science, I swiftly turned to poetry, with some rapture and gratitude. I saw within it the only powers that could oppose the Machine.

Basically, poets sensed that something was wrong much earlier than philosophers. One who studies the history of human thought inevitably runs across two main lines of philosophical knowledge, viz. science, a rational approach to the world phenomena, and poetry, a direct insight into the world.8 The gap between them has not decayed over the years, on the contrary, it is only growing, and now is entering its critical, existential phase.

In Gutenberg Galaxy, Marshall McLuhan had attempted to give an account of this poetic sensitivity. He is concerned with the lost “interplay of senses,” and hence the impoverishing of perception due to visual, rationalist bias. He formulates his conclusions convincingly, calling Pope, Dante, Shakespeare, Rablais, Blake and others for witnesses. Who are the accused, then? Descartes, Newton, Bacon, Gutenberg, as well as their followers, obsessed by “visualization of knowledge”; rationalists, verifying the world with their logic; specialists, dissecting the world into segments. «This world is too round, it has to be flattened a bit” – was King Lear’s response to a remark about the “priceless interplay of senses.”9

It is often acknowledged, that science has greatly contributed to the technical development of civilization, but failed to satisfy our higher aspirations. The rational paradigm, in many cases, has become irrational as it provoked multifaceted crisis in human perception and habitat. Poetry, on the other hand, while always being regarded as “mystic, irrational,” now happens to be in more coherence with the ancient wisdom and the physics of the subatomic world.10

I will try to elaborate a little on this. The meaning of life cannot be understood merely intellectually, one needs to use the methods of poetry to merge with Creation and thus directly perceive its beauty and true meaning. There are special “techniques” that assist in seeing the world poetically. Such techniques were elaborated both in the East and West,11 and, of course, constitute the essence of art.

This intuitive knowledge of harmony has been fostered in previous centuries but is forgotten now in view of the prevailing scientific mindset.  The universal laws of harmony are both present in science and poetry, though. Poetry can help portray the scientific truths in more holistic, unraveling way, describing the connections between phenomena metaphorically; on the other hand, science provides limitless material for poetic aspiration and fantasy.12

Unfortunately, scientists too often are consumed by their own interests, and ignore the laws of nature (e.g., environmental ethics) which lead to a specialist view of the world with all lamentable consequences. I know how a scientist can be entranced by his work. A hunter is awakened in him. He is carried away by theories and hypotheses, and dwells in the forest of formulas, often forgetful of the mundane world. He feels good, though the world may suffer.

But such committed scientists are few and far between. As a rule, scientists operate in a team that has regulations and specific “ethics,” reminding of a medieval order. Today, many scientists experience remorse while working for large corporations or behemoth institutions, but unable to stop their research. To my mind, the role of scientists and engineers has to be drastically changed to acquire a truly ecological attitude. This rehabilitation of scientists should be conducted by poets and environmentalists. Fortunately, we see an increasing number of “proselyte” scientists refusing to develop harmful technologies and joining the environmentalist camp.

Poetry, as contrasted to science, has never caused harm to nature. It is born out of enchantment, and can be compared to religion, but unlike the latter, has a creative vector. Poetry must be viewed in a broader context than is usually thought. It incorporates arts, music, literature, craftwork, philosophy, and meditation. It can be expanded on every human activity provided that the latter happens spontaneously, and in tune with the universal laws of nature.

Poetry speaks deeper language than science, it operates through metaphors rather than facts, it uses another kind of imagination.13 In genuine eco-poetry, thoughts and feelings cannot be separated. Science, on the contrary, is using an ever increasing abstraction as a method of probing the world. It is concerned with facts, rather than beauty. Computers and other instruments have formed an environment through which men were forced to obtain knowledge of the world, but which, paradoxically, increasingly moves away them from the goal. For the goal is not the burden of knowledge, but the blessing of joy.

Tactility Regained

The only powers that is able to fight this “scientific spiritualism” is regained tactility. This can be achieved by fostering humans’ inherent creativity, which can by-pass the application of machines and regain human dignity.

We are always yearning to be among others, to touch them and to love them. This is our in-born tactility, so well documented in the following lines:

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing,
 Laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arms ever
So lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this
 Then?
There is something in staying close to men and women and
 Looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that
 Pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

—Walt Whitman, Sing The Body Electric

We need to feel this world with our own senses, these priceless qualities that cannot be matched even by most elaborate machines.

What we begin to lack is the special character of our hand. The Friedrich Engels’ “The hand made us, humans” still remains valid. Painting, music, sculpture and other arts are being created by human hands. Any intermediary agent destroys the magic of art, alienates the creator from his/her creations. In manual work, the more complex manual operations, the closer is man to his destination, the nobler he, or she, is (writing, drawing, playing musical instruments, weaving, sculpture, any manual work).

We love through hands, we express our deepest feelings through hands, such as holding, shaking, touching. We can gesticulate, using hands to highlight our emotions. Fortunetellers can see our fate through hands. Taoists have developed an elaborate science of hand symbols that can influence our life…

According to Tolstoy, “A man avoiding manual work, may be intelligent, but not wise.” The benefits of manual work for human emancipation are many and have been stressed by such thinkers as Thoreau and Gandhi. Have you noticed that during manual work our brain becomes clarified? Thoughts come and go in a more consistent way, turbulent senses retreat and calm down? Have you ever noticed that after a day of physical work, the sleep comes easily and you fall almost at once into profound, relieving, child-like sleep?

Our intellect surpasses any computer since we know beforehand the goal of mental work, and this goal overrides the mere result of computations. According to Howard Gardner,14 in addition to the commonly accepted verbal and mathematical modes, there are “musical, spacial, kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal intelligences.” In other words, we can think “bodily,” incorporating all of our senses, not only brain. Each of us has a special bent for at least one of these intelligences, each of us is a genius in its kind.

Our imagination can be displayed in any of our activities, and it is directed towards creativity (conscious or unconscious). This is the most complex and mystical quality of humans. All that was created by human culture is the sorcery of imagination. Paradoxically, technologies while being the product of imagination, in the end, are prone to kill it. Television, more than anything, is paralyzing imagination and deprives us of our main asset – the ability of fantasy. A computer goes even further: it bereaves us of self-conscious thinking.

Human faculties, such as manual skills, intellectual thinking and fantasy (poetic thinking) are in close relation; by eliminating one of these faculties, others become withered and underdeveloped. Computers in this respect are destroying all three faculties.

Our creativity must not be hostile to nature. As contrasted to “hype creativity” of mass-media, or aggressive technological development, it is through the loving tactile contact with nature that humans are becoming nobler and more exquisite creatures.

We, humans, possess many qualities that go beyond reasoning, or logic. There’s much wisdom accumulated in ancient times (such as tantra in the East, or alchemy in the West). But it is also important that we develop our own cultural context. We need to be ourselves, above all, and develop a strong “sense of the place.” This will strengthen cultural diversity and beauty in the world. I see the potentialities primarily in art, craftwork, music and magic.

Humans need to develop their inherent faculties to overcome the limits imposed by materialism, or, by the words of Tagore, “the everyday monstrosities.” And what’s more: these faculties do not require huge investments, complex scientific experiments, or “resources” of the Earth; instead, they feed upon our unfathomed spirituality.

In this respect, we may point at the faculties that our ancestors had known long before we were lost on the  way.  In Tantra, for example, we find exercises to develop extra psychic powers and awareness. They include clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairtactition, clairfaction and clairsentience.15 Any one of these modes of awareness may be dominant in a person, similarly to the above mentioned set of intelligences. I tend to think that modern sciences cannot explain many things, and we have to be much more diligent to graduate to a higher level of understanding.

The Earth, that is sufficient…

Tactility means intimate connection to earth and people. We cannot live being separated from both. But modern civilization is tearing us from the earth, and its citizens, it has led us nowhere. Capitalism separated us by furtively expousing the idea of competition. Communism took our souls in exchange for social wealth. Religion withdrew us from this tangible blessed Earth.

Fortunately, there always were visionaries in history who tried to enlighten the “unwise man-child.” Such were Rousseau, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Tagore, Gandhi. Their voices are heard among the new generations of environmentalists. Many new voices are being added to this growing choir, coming from activists, poets, scientists, and ordinary people.

All people tend to lean to each other, they lean to nature, for this is their inborn tactility. This life-strong anarchistic movement is breaking barriers, seen and unseen, that have been constructed by politicians and priests for so long. New paradigms appear. New economy. New ethics. I think there are many common ideals that unite, for example, Tolstoy communities, Buddhist sanghas, and self-sustained organic farmers. William Orphus in an article Notes for a Buddhist Politics16 cites five general principles that may refer to all such communities, viz., respectful tolerance, secular and spiritual equality, emphasis on duties, simplicity, and nonviolence.

But opposition to such politics from the wealthy class is relentless. The tension in the world is growing daily, or, maybe, even hourly. The world that was built on individualism and materialism for the last several centuries agonizes, but is tough on giving way to a new perception of humans – as collective, spiritual creatures, and the Earth – as a goddess. All our institutions based on the pursuit of “progress,” consumption, industrialism, suddenly appear obsolete and poorly conceived, despite all its high-praised rationality. The wars that we witness today are the convulsions that the new world engenders. Or rather, it is the same old world that is struggling to throw away the chagrin skin of imposed rationality and reconsider its genuine, tactile, relations to earth.

I have a copy of Breughel’s painting at home, The Fall of Icarus, depicting the sunrise over our magnificent Earth. At the forefront, we see a plot of land with a busy ploughman; at the background – a small figure, floundering in the sea waters. This is Icarus who ignored his father’s advice not to rise too high in the sky. Too fast he flew, too high ascended in the sky, for the scorching sun soon melted the wax and scattered feathers in the air. In desperation crushes Icarus from a dreadful height. Yet the ploughman does not make note of the figure, he has to plough the earth.

Isn’t is so with us, who, having been torn off the ground, sooner, or later will crush from the heights of abstraction and self- esteem?

About the author

Viktor Ivanovitch Postnikov is a Russian-born independent scientist (DSc.) who lives in Kiev, Ukraine. A prolific poetry translator, he has also translated books on both eastern philosophies and deep ecology, and written many essays on Russian anarchism and eco-poetry for journals and other publications.

References:

[1] Mander, Jerry., Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television New York: William Morrow/Quill, 1977
[2] McLuhan, M.H., Gutenberg Galaxy (Toronto University Press, 1992)
[3] Talbott, S.L. The Future Does Not Compute (O’Railley & Associates, 1995)
[4] F.Capra et al, Guide to Ecoliteracy (A publication of the Elmwood Institute, 1993)
[5] Joy, Bill, Why The Future Does Not need Us? (Wired, 2000)
[6] Owen Barfield. Poetic Diction, A Study in Meaning.= (Wesleyan University Press, 1973)
[7] Capra, F., The Tao of Physics (Bantam books, 1980)
[8] Postnikov, V. , Eco-poetry The Trumpeter, Vol. 17-1. 2001
[8] Tagore. R. , Our Universe Trans by Indu Dutt. (Jaico Books, 1980 )
[9] Tagore’s Testament, Trans. by Indu Dutt (Jaico Books, 1982)
[10] Talbott, S. The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst (O’Reilly & Associates, 1995
[11] Dharma Rain Ed. By Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft (Shambhala, 2000)
[12] Gavin and Yvonne Frost, Tantric Yoga (Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Ltd, Delhi, 1996)

Endnotes

1 This article was written in 2005 for the Trumpeter ecosophic journal.

2 In 1949, Stalin introduced jamming and banned the manufacturing of short-wave radios as a countermeasure against the launching of the US-sponsored Radio Free Europe station, broadcasting over the Soviet Union from Munich, West Germany. This had broken the fragile audio-tactile contact that was about to adjust itself between the East and the West.

3 In many applications, the solutions can be obtained only through the so-called numerical modeling. Usually, this envisages the writing of the system of fundamental equations that cannot be resolved analytically and transforming it into a very large number of simple approximate relations (finite elements) that are being calculated by computer. The outcome of such solution, generally speaking, cannot be known beforehand. An interesting reflection on this phenomenon we find in McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy.

4 Stephen L.Talbott, The Future Does Not Compute (O’Railley & Associates, 1995), p. 356.

5 In “Guide to Ecoliteracy,” F.Capra et al, (A publication of the Elmwood Institute, 1993)

6 Ibid.

7 For example, see an amazing confession of Bill Joy, a co-founder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems in an article called “Why The Future Does Not need Us?” in a Wired magazine, Spring, 2000.

8 Here, poetry is not to be confused with religion, although there is an intimate connection between the two. This interesting and vast topic is outside the scope of the article.

9 Shakespeare, King Lear.

10 Capra, F., The Tao of Physics (Bantam books, 1980)

11 Postnikov, V. 2001. “Eco-poetry.” The Trumpeter: Vol. 17-1

12 Tagore. R. 1980. Our Universe. (Indu Dutt trans). Jaico Books.

13 Owen Barfield. Poetic diction. A Study in Meaning. (Wesleyan University Press, 1973)..

14 In the “Guide to Ecoliteracy,” F.Capra et al, (A publication of the Elmwood Institute, 1993)

15 Gavin and Yvonne Frost, Tantric Yoga (Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Ltd, Delhi, 1996)

16 In a book “Dharma Rain” (Ed. By Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft, Shambhala Publications, 2000)

By Viktor Postnikov

Demon sitting, Mikhail Vrubel, 1890

The small volume before me is a treasured book that I inherited from my father’s library. It is a posthumous collection of verses by Alexander Blok (1880–1921), one of the greatest Russian lyricist of the 20th century, if not the greatest. The book was prepared by the author and published by the Petrograd publishing house in 1924, three years after his death. This small book became a constant source of inspiration for me, especially during the 1990s when Russia itself seemed to be fading away. It was then that I felt an urge to preserve Russian poetry, which seemed most precious to me. Among the many beloved Blok’s poems, I unexpectedly came across a series of poems called The Bubbles of the Earth, written between 1905 and 1906. An epigraph from Macbeth, which prefaced the series, read:

“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, and these are ones of them”

It intrigued me. After reading several poems, I had no doubt that those were pagan inspirations. The very first poem amazed me with its clear ecological motif:

the marsh priestling

On a spring-thawed patch,
Little Priestling of Marsh
Is staying
And saying his prayer.

His ragged black frock
Like a barely seen rock
Over tussock
And in tranquility of the reddish light
Little devils are out of sight;
And the evening grace
Has entwined him with delicate lace…
And the charms of the twilight,
And the rustling of space…

Quietly he prays,
And he smiles as he stays,
Bowing his head to the bog.
And with medicinal herbs
He would heal every hurt,
Every sickened and dying frog.

Then he would bless it and say,
“Now you’re free on your way,
You can go to your native log;
My heart is pleased
With every beast
And every creeper that exists”.

He resumes his quiet praying,
For the weed
That is swaying,
For a sickened beast’s hope,
For the Roman Pope…

Have no fear to be drown in a bog -
You’ll be saved by his blackened frock.

(17 April 1905, Easter)

Reactionary symbolist

We haven’t heard much about “green” Blok. Moreover, he does not fit into any literary genre. In the Soviet times, Blok was portrayed as a ‘reactionary symbolist’ who finally ‘accepted’ the revolution. On the contrary, his friends—symbolists and the religiously-minded intelligentsia—turned away from him when he descended on the ‘sinful earth’ and put Christ at the forefront of the revolution in his controversial poem Twelve.

In his youth, Blok was captivated by the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov, one of those ‘mad’ prophets that had always been characteristic of Russia. The following lines of Solovyov’s Eternal Feminine fascinated him:

Eternal Feminine in flesh
Now treads the earthly quarters,
New Goddess prophesies light
Where heavens mixed with waters.

During his life, Blok would stay loyal to the theme of the Eternal Feminine. Any fashionable religious or political theories that infested Russia could not change him. In the brilliant essays written shortly before death, Blok discovers the essence of his poetry and his life purpose as the service to Earthly Beauty, which is manifested in Eternal Feminine, and only that.

The world has long been fed up with violence and brutality. Arguably, this brutality conforms to the masculine ethos sanctioned by Judeo-Christianity. This brutality strangely comforms with the ‘otherness’ of the next world, with a dream of after-life. Indeed, why care of the earthly beauty if much more beauty is awaiting us in heaven?

Blok turns his gaze away from heavens to the ‘sinful’ earth – it is here, on earth, where he seeks his Beautiful Lady. He anticipates Her arrival, yet fears that he’s not going to live up to Her coming:

You retreat to the fields without doubt,
Let Your Name be forever praised!
The spears of sunset will touch on my brow,
The reddish light will spill on to my face.

In the dark days I’ll press to your flute,
To your sweet golden flute I’ll succumb,
And if prayers are silenced and mute,
I will sleep, long-oppressed, in the tomb.

You will come in your deep purple gown
To enlighten yet another abode.
Let me breathe in this half-drowsy crowd,
Let me kiss the curved edge of your road…

(1905)

Extravagant paganist

The world is ruled by a feminine archetype, and Blok perceives this archetype not only in women he loves, but, above all, in Nature. Blok sees Eternity not in any fictitious, or speculative ‘heaven’, but in the living, intimate, and tangible earth:

Love Eternity reigning in mires,
Their powers never deplete.
Grassy lands never yield to the fires,
Smallest thickets will stand up the sleet.

Rusty tussocks and stumps get to know
Your reposeful captivity age;
They are staying unchanged in the flow –
You are full of perennial change.

Love the destiny’s solitude glowing,
Inconceivable sacred Unknown.
It is just the Eternity flight
That has silenced the lips of our own.

(1905)

It is not accidental that Blok was infatuated with the paintings of Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), an original Russian artist, his contemporary. Vrubel is the same ‘enlightened pagan’ as Blok. One may even say, that Vrubel was “Blok in painting”, or Blok was “Vrubel in verse.” Both definitions are equally valid. This paganism of both geniuses was not to the liking of keepers of Christian purity, and it is still frowned upon by them.

It must be said that at the dawn of the 20th century, Russia witnessed a new healthy—and in essence, ecological—direction in art and philosophy, which was suppressed on one hand by rising Marxism (strictly a political movement), and on the other hand by those intelligentsia who had gone to mysticism and religion.

Blok had no need to invent mysticism or seek otherworldliness: all nature was to him mysterious, enigmatic, and marvellous. This infatuation with Nature had not been shared by many of his colleagues, which earned him the label of extravagance.

marsh sprites

I have whipped you out of sight
Through the midday soot;
To await the evening light
Of quiet solitude.

Now – we’re sitting on a moss
In the heart of fen;
Crescent with a crooked mouth
Is our only friend.

I’m like you – a nature geek,
With a spooky face;
Quiet and shy like forest creek
In a hidden place.

Loosely hangs a parting bell
On my foolish cap.
Rivers weaving through a spell
Of a nature’s lap.

And we’re sitting, little fools –
Greenish caps on heads;
Peeping from the low-land pools
Into wider meads.

Dream deliriums of water,
Rusty run-off wave…
We’re forgotten echoings
Of a someone’s rave…

(1905)

Accepted the Bolshevik revolution

To the horror of his friends, Blok was one of the few who accepted the Bolshevik revolution, not because he shared its ideals (although he probably did at the outset), but because he saw in it the manifestation of Nature’s elements. The time for humanism of the individual was gone (this was proclaimed by Nietzsche), and was replaced by a new era of mass homogeneity and Anti-Christ (‘a leader’). Having the intuition of an artist, Blok spoke in a masterly way of this period in his 1919 essay The Collapse of Humanism. In the face of the current ecological apocalypse, the poems of Blok seem prophetic. What is the artist’s role in new circumstances? Blok gives the answer in this definitive poem: to continue to be yourself, and to get back to the ‘ancient work’:

requital – a prologue

No end in life’s unfolding space,
We live commensurate with chances,
We either face the gloomy sentence
Or see the brilliance of Face.
But you, the artist, keep your credence
In laws unshaken. Be resolved
To tell the scoria from gold.
You’re bestowed with impassive edge
To measure all that you envisage.
Your mind – let it be firm and cute
Erase the accidental visage –
And you will see: the world is good.

Now, view the light – the dark is lit,
Permit all things unhurried flow,
All which is sacred, which is low,
Through heat of soul, through cold of wit.

“To erase the accidental visage…”, and “to permit all things’ unhurried flow”… Blok appeals to the myth of Ziegfried, in search of a needed courage:

Thus Ziegfried tempers sword o’er furnace:
Now enters into the red-hot ambers,
Now dips into the water deep –
And the magic sword receives its firmness.

But, having sensed the impending world war, the poet doubts his ability to withstand the challenge:

Who forges sword? – The fearless knight,
While I am helpless in my rave,
As you, as all – just a clever slave,
Created from the dust and blight.
This world seems terrible to me …
The hero is deprived of stand –
His hand is in the peoples’ hand,
A conflagration broke the land.
And every heart, and mind, and thought –
Has its own despotism and law…
And the thirsty dragon opens jaw
To gorge the Europe in glee.
Who shall defeat the dragon plight?
Don’t know: our side, obscure in sight,
As in the past, its future’s dim,
And smells of ashes in the night.

But the tune forever stays, instead:
There’s always someone there to sing
Amid the crowd. Lo! His head
A beauty offers to a king.
There, on a scaffold, singer stands
And looks into the butcher’s eyes;
Here, for his poems and his stance
The crowd gets him stigmatized.
And I will sing… You won’t succeed
In stifling my inflaméd creed.
Let church is empty and obscure,
Let pastor sleeps; before the mass,
I‘ll tread into a dewy pass,
And turn the rusty door-lock key
To sneak into eternity,
And in the scarlet dawn will serve
My own mass.

The Beauty that moves minds

“My own mass…” In the end, the only refuge for an artist is his or her religious ideals that are beyond the control of the masses, or their pastors. These ideals, or ‘vows of the ancient past’, have been nurtured for many generations, and were handed from father to son; from poet to poet. This is the Beauty that moves minds and inflames hearts.

Thou breathed this dawn, now, bless my tales!
May I expose you some details
of secret life? Of what is thriving,
Of how the wrath consumes the striving,
How freedom and the youth are one,
How spirit reigns in everyone,
How father to his son imparts
The vows of the ancient past ?
Some two-three links of generation
And carbon went a transformation;
Under a kick of stubborn strain
It turned into a precious grain.
So blow, without a restful sleep,
Let living vein is running deep,
The diamond glistens from afar –
My angry iambus, crush the stones!

(1911)

Blok continues a lineage that starts from Pushkin and Lermontov. It is hard to name another lyricist that has had such a deep understanding of the artist’s role in the turbulent times. He himself however, could not survive the revolution and civil war, dying at the age of 41. But after all, no great Russian poet lived any longer. It is highly symbolic that Blok entitled his last autobiography (which he didn’t finish) The Confession of a Pagan. His entire life can be viewed as a poet’s desperate attempt to serve and perpetuate Earth’s beauty, despite all hardship and human follies. It was indeed, a demonic attempt.

O, I would madly, madly live,
Perpetuateall the existent,
Ennoble all the petty instant,
and realize all the conceived !

Let hardship suffocate with sorrow,
Let heavy dreams preclude my way,
The cheerful fellow of the morrow
Will say of me, some other day,

We must forgive his gloomy features,
He’s got a jolly inner mind,
A bright and effervescent creature,
A freedom’s celebrated kind!

(Note : All translation from Russian by the author of this article)

About the author

Viktor Ivanovitch Postnikov is a Russian-born independent scientist (DSc.) who lives in Kiev, Ukraine. A prolific poetry translator, he has also translated books on both eastern philosophies and deep ecology, and written many essays on Russian anarchism and eco-poetry for journals and other publications.

By Viktor Postnikov

Windmill generators at Findhorn Bay in Scotland

My first spiritual breakthrough came at the Schumacher College (UK) in 2004. Initially, my secret hope was to meet Fritjof Capra, whom I had known since the late 1970s by his Tao of Physics and his later books, especially The Turning Point and The Uncommon Wisdom. The course I was admitted to (special thanks to Jan Slakov and Patrick Curry) was called Earth, Spirit and Action. It was absolutely fantastic. Course leaders John Seed, Ruth Rosenhek, Starhawk, Alastair McIntosh and Verene Nicolas, each provided a “signpost” that unambiguously spoke to my deepest aspirations.

Undoubtedly, I had received many signposts before in my life, but I was blind to them, never paying attention to their significance. Verene Nicolas first stirred a conscious interest in my inner life patterns when she asked each of us to draw a design that could reflect our life journey. I drew the spiral with the “signposts” that I thought were important for me. I was amazed by the consistency of these signposts. Since then my life has become far more meaningful, and my direction soon was set once and forever.

I found poetry in John and Alastair, courage and magic in Starhawk, grace and profoundness in Verene. Although I did not meet Fritjof Capra, Stephan Harding gave a brilliant introduction to holistic science and Gaia theory. Satish Kumar, a spiritual teacher at the College, told about his personal pilgrimage and Hindu spirituality, which was especially appealing to me as I translated several books by Swami Sivananda and was generally hooked on yoga.

The magic of coming to Schumacher College could be illustrated by a mysterious incident. I had brought my favourite books of poetry by Rabindranath Tagore with me, and to my astonishment, the very first day as I ascended the staircase I saw a painting by Tagore himself hanging on the wall! It was a gift of the poet, who had visited the Centre! For me, it was a magically significant sign.

Another “signpost”

I left Schumacher College inspired and enriched by the course. But I needed to go further, to create something beautiful both for myself and out of respect for the teachers. Coming home, though, I found myself once again drawn in the same exhaustive political, social and personal turmoil. Obviously, most people around me were moving in different direction. I badly needed another “signpost.”

Thanks to David Orton, it came through my acquaintance with Douglas Tompkins. I had suggested several books for translation, and without even knowing me, he agreed to finance the project. That was magic. I spent two years in translating in Russian, editing and publishing the two radical authors William R. Catton and Jerry Mander. To my delight and to the delight of many others, the books have attracted the attention of many people and their impact is growing. In 2006 I felt that I need to go on. At that time, I became seriously interested in the Ecovillage movement and eco-localism as an alternative to capitalism. Then I remembered that somebody I met at Schumacher College was from the Findhorn Foundation. The name of that village kept resonating in my head.

In 2007 I was accepted for the Experience Week in the Findhorn Foundation — definitely another signpost. The Experience Week was my coming back to humanity. We danced, played games, touched one another, and laughed and fooled around like children. I badly needed that because I was experiencing enmity towards people around home at that time. People differ widely; sometimes it seems we belong to different species. Experience Week brought me together with a group of like-minded people, and soon we felt like one great family.

The psychological games and the direct tactile contact exercises of the course created a unity among us more than dry lectures ever could. In the ordinary life we avoid tactile contact, narrowing the circle with whom such contacts are deemed desirable or acceptable. We do not allow ourselves to behave in a child-like way. On the contrary, we pretend to be learned adults. This is a major difference between Schumacher College and the Findhorn Foundation. While the former is a serious adult education establishment, the latter is definitely more of a child-like playground. Possibly, the child in me had long been waiting to awaken.

During Findhorn’s’ Experience Week I met beautiful people from around the globe, both in our group and among the teachers. We met 80-year old Dorothy Maclean, one of the three founders of the Findhorn Foundation, and Craig Gibsone, the elder of the community, who is a shaman and a visionary. The stately architecture of the Cluny Hill College where I stayed vaguely reminded me of Schumacher College. But the excursions to the eco-village The Park near Findhorn Bay, the forest and the sea, planted the seeds of hope in me that some day I would live in nature.

Return to Findhorn

The very next year I enrolled in the Exploring Community Life course with a desire to develop an in-depth knowledge of the community. I landed in a group of six wonderful women and a fantastic facilitator (also a woman), and was absolutely pleased with my life. We were having a lot of fun together, and I definitely felt that I was at the right place. The Transformation Game was the crux of the program, a psychic journey through one’s own life. I played the game with two women from our group, and the experience was awesome. It was as if our lives were correlated and intercepted.

Meeting Craig Gibsone during the Experience Week was definitely another signpost. Craig told about his life in the ’60’s, his acquaintance with aboriginal culture, his study of permaculture, and his pioneering work with the founders of the ecovillage. I began seriously thinking about his course on Ecovillage Training, and how my own affiliation with alternative energy could fit into his course and the life in the ecovillage in general. I wrote him, and my wife and I were invited to join the course. I was not sure we could afford it until the very last moment, but after receiving a bursary, I knew we had to go.

The course had to begin on February, 14th, 2008. We flew to London on Friday the 13th. (Perhaps that was the reason for the cheap tickets?) The aeroplane took off into the snowy night sky with a shudder. However, the sky over London was clear. We took the midnight London-Inverness bus, and after endless attempts to sleep in a sitting position, reached Inverness thirteen hours later. The ancient Highlands capital greeted us with spring in its surrounding mountains, beautiful and fresh. Another bus to Forres, a little snack, and we were nearly in the village.

When we finally arrived at the Ecovillage we ran immediately to the community center, where the program had already started two hours previously. Gosh! It had been a stressful journey: Would the plane arrive on time? Would we catch up the bus? How we can exchange the money? But as soon as we saw Craig’s smiling face as he rose to hug us, all our fears evaporated and we began to relax.

The room was full of people, 32 participants from 15 countries, sitting in a circle. Each was given a few minutes to speak. The number of participants, the diversity of faces was at first overwhelming. To remember all their the names seemed a hopeless endeavour. Craig had two sympathetic facilitators, Gabriella and Elizabeth. Their friendly smiles immediately won our hearts. They had both been raised at Findhorn, and despite their youth, they are experienced facilitators. Following the Findhorn practice, we draw an angel for the group, it is Abundance. Then everyone draws his or her own angel. Mine is Clarity — exactly what I needed. The whole month confirmed the relevance of these “messages from above.”

Soon we become a family or tribe, or as someone put it, “a perfect ashram,” talented passionate youth, eager to change the world for the better. For the first time, my scepticism had been shaken. We thoroughly studied the principles of permaculture, which included People Care (building effective eco-villages), Fair Share (new social economy and sustainable food), and Earth Share (eco-design, wilderness restoration) presented by Craig and other teachers. Craig built his own house and garden on permaculture principles to act as a model and laboratory for all. My respect for Craig had grown enormously, as he masterly steered the program with ease, shamanic wisdom, and a child-like openness.

The fourth week was dedicated to the projects we developed around the course material. Each of us was to bring our expertise home and to implement a project. While rambling in the dunes of the nearby seashore during this time, I found a beautiful white Turbinella pirum shell. According to Wikipedia, “the shell has considerable significance in Buddhism, representing the beautiful, deep, melodious and interpenetrating sound of the Buddhadharma, which being appropriate to different natures, predispositions and aspirations of disciples, awakens them from the deep slumber of ignorance and urges them to accomplish their own welfare and the welfare of others.”

Could I have ever found a better sign?

About the author

Viktor Ivanovitch Postnikov is a Russian-born independent scientist (DSc.) who lives in Kiev, Ukraine. A prolific poetry translator, he has also translated books on both eastern philosophies and deep ecology, and written many essays on Russian anarchism and eco-poetry for journals and other publications.

Aknowledgement

My deepest thanks to Stuart Hertzog for tidying up the text and placing it on Dandelion Times.

This snow, this purest snow,
Which lies on the ground still,
To the heavens tomorrow will soar,
To the stars it will steer

This bow-backed, grey-haired man,
Like a mirrored light in space,
Will come to his derelict home,
Will start living anew his days

We will see how the rivers turn
To their springs in the thicket depth,
And I’ll wake at the break of dawn
On my mother’s lap

– Imant Ziedonis
(Latvian poet b. 1933)

Winter, 1919

The gust of wind, the howl of snow…
Yet, for a moment in my mind,
A land, a distant shore would glow
With faded colours from behind.

And like the dried-up feather-grass
My ancient longings spring from sleep…
At night ‘mid snow I try to pass -
Though, to the precipice I creep.

Night, woods and snow I have to wade,
To carry burden of my lot…
Then, suddenly – a little hut,
A girl singing in the glade.

June, 1905

Love Eternity reigning in mires,
Their powers never deplete.
Grassy land never yields to the fires,
Smallest thicket will stand up the sleet.

Rusty tussocks and stumps get to know
Your reposing captivity age;
They are staying unchanged in the flow –
You are full of perennial change.

Love the destiny’s glowing delight.
Inconceivable sacred Unknown.
It is just the Eternity flight
Which has silenced the lips of our own.

Little Marsh Devils
January, 1905

I have whipped you out of sight
Through the midday soot;
To await the evening light
Of quite solitude.

Now – we’re sitting on a moss
In the heart of fen;
Crescent with a crooked mouth
Is our only friend.

I’m like you – a nature geek,
With a spooky face;
Quiet and shy like forest creek
In a hiding place.

Loosely hangs a parting bell
On my foolish cap.
Rivers weaving through the spell
Of a nature’s lap.

And we’re sitting, little fools –
Greenish caps on heads,
Peeping from the low-land pools
Into wider meads.

Dream deliriums of water,
Rusty run-off wave…
We’re forgotten echoings
Of a someone’s rave…

– Alexander Blok
(1880 – 1921)

Translated by Victor Postnikov

The environmental crisis is a crisis of aesthetics
— James Hillman

Introduction

The whole human history can be viewed as a constant struggle between sanity and insanity. Countless saints and philosophers, poets and artists have strived to evolve our consciousness through meditation, science, art, poetry, music, architecture, etc. “Man shall not live by bread alone” – said one great man, and other great minds have echoed him accordingly.

And this striving for human consciousness continues. Moreover, it has greatly increased over time in view of the diminishing resources and a new threat of a global war, unprecedented in its scale. Many people feel they are being trapped in this horrible abyss. Some close their eyes in order not to see; others curse the warmongers; while some believe they could somehow escape the apocalypse. But the major players of the world’s tragedy are hellishly enthusiastic. Sober minds are trying to appeal to the power holders, poets seek the enflaming words, scientists and philosophers project grim pictures, but nothing seems to stop the lunatics.

In these circumstances, a speeded evolution of the human mind becomes critical for the survival. Now it becomes obvious to many that spiritual poverty, unbridled egoism, and lack of poetry are severe obstacles on this way.

In other words, mind has not yet taken its primary position in the human species. Moreover, the misconceptions of science, advancements in weaponry, and the destruction of Nature have put human intellectual powers under question. This is a tragic mistake. Only correct thinking can save us. But the time is running out for our species.

The human mind has always been the buttress of humanity, its true master and guide, but today it needs reassessment. Those who take it for granted do not realize its profundity and many-sidedness, as well as its hidden traps. Often, the mind is associated exclusively with intellect, consciousness, psychic activity, or “common sense.” But this is a very limited outlook. Human mind is our inherent ability to think, to do good and to experience good emotions; it incorporates such qualities as conscience, love, poetry, courage, mercy, empathy, self-sacrifice, etc. – what in vernacular is attributed to theheart, or soul. In the broadest sense, mind is the complex of intellect, poetry, and loving soul. It also can be regarded as a dynamic balance (interplay) between the poles of intellect and emotion. Thus, the prevalence of base emotions such as hatred, anger, greed, etc., in spite of the developed intellect may lead to the loss of mind and, indeed, life itself. And vice versa: narrowness of intellect can weaken the significance of positive emotions.

Humans are not the only creatures that possess mind. Literally, mind permeates the universe. We find it in the nature’s harmonious ways, in animals, in plants and even in non-sentient beings, such as rivers and mountains. It is a multi-leveled, all-inclusive, mysterious quality that gives life its grandeur. Through introspection humans are capable of perceiving the supreme law that governs the world from within, the Law of Poetry. Poetry bestows the greatest joy to the world and its inhabitants, and not only to humans. It is at these moments of joy that the idea of God is born. The violation of this law, or its reduction to sheer functionality or gain, will inevitably impoverish humanity and may even destroy it.

In order to grasp this universal law and act in accordance to it, the human mind must evolve, not purely intellectually but above all, morally and poetically. The Greek word poiesis (to make, create) points at the creative urge of evolution. The whole Universe is evolving, and we humans are no exception. Unfortunately, in the course of history human evolution took distorted forms (war, atrocities, cultural extremes, etc), or even devolved. At such times, the human mind is said to be “darkened.” Today it seems, we’re experiencing a major lapse of human consciousness. [1]

It is believed, though, that evolution still works positively for humans. As Nikolai Roerich once put it, “Happiness has been lost in the world, because happiness reigns in spirit. Those who turned away from spirit must experience misfortune. Otherwise, how can they return?”

What follows is an attempt to track the poetic vision of humanity in historical perspective as a constant struggle for greater consciousness, and to show its urgency for contemporary humans.

This vision may be called the poetic paradigm, in contrast to the scientific paradigm that has dominated human civilization for several hundred years and caused the current severe ontological and ecological crisis. Peering deep into history, to our joy we discover a string of thinkers and poets “on the other pole” who – quietly, yet emphatically – have promoted the “alternative” wisdom over the generations. We find valuable sources of poetry in ancient philosophies, especially in the Upanishads. Goethe and Pushkin, Petrarca and Dante, Whitman and Tagore, Blake and Shakespeare echo the Eastern sages who still encourage us, saying “Don’t be downhearted, you’re not alone, we’re coming right behind.”

The main premise of the poetic paradigm is that the mind has an intimate connection with poetry, which imparts greater meaning to life. This connection has been recognized by many poets and philosophers of the past; however, it is now that their ideas seem vital for raising human consciousness and saving the planet.

Poetry as Truth: the message of the Upanishads

Poetry is closely related to Truth. This has been known from the times immemorial. The first ever account of the spiritual truth we find in the Upanishads – the ancient treasury of spiritual laws believed to be revealed between 7,000 and 5,000 BC, transmitted via oral tradition and not logically systematized into a particular philosophy.

The Upanishadic teachers declared that Truth is open through inquiry and can be realized in anyone’s life, at any time. Its wisdom has the capacity to strengthen, invigorate and enlighten the seeker. The knowledge provided by the Upanishads is unique since it reveals the Truth, which is not attainable through pure intellect. We may call it the Truth in depth, or the Self, or the Ultimate Reality. It is said to be transcendent, infinite, and free of all relationships. Subject and object become one, as expressed in the Upanishadic statement “That thou art.” In other words, Truth is not an object to be known – rather, it is an intuitive knowledge of “oneness” or affinity between subject and object. The sages often revealed their spiritual insights through poetry as the most relevant means of expression.

Swami Vivekananda, a great Hindu visionary, notes:

“In the old Upanishads we find supreme poetry; their authors were poets… They never preached, nor philosophized, nor wrote. Music came out of their hearts. From the depth of their realization, they sang.” [2] (This is not accidental since the world can only be expressed through sound, resting within the deeper intuitive level of mind. Adds Vivekananda:) “We are taken, as it were, off from the world of the senses, off even from the world of intellect, and brought to that world which can never be comprehended, and yet which is always with us.” [3]

Though highly poetical, the Upanishads are also highly practical. Through yoga, they illustrate how these truths are to be realized in everyone’s life. A religion (and poetry) that is not practical has no value or meaning. It must enter every aspect of our life. The Upanishads abound in the number of disciplines recommended for raising moral culture. (What is morality if not the vehicle to attain truth?) First and foremost, one has to sharpen and strengthen his buddhi or higher intellect, which governs the (lower) senses. Buddhi is more than a mere ability to think; it includes intuition, aesthetic perception, insight and other higher mental qualities; they may be called “higher logic.” Furthermore, virtues such as truthfulness, chastity, usefulness, etc. are mentioned, comprising the mind along with buddhi, for without ethical training the mind is incapable of perceiving reality, which is extremely subtle. For example, in Katha-Upanishad we find the following lines:

Neither those who have not refrained from wickedness, nor the unrestrained, nor the unmeditative, nor one with unpacified mind, can attain this even by knowledge. [4]

Through attentive reading of the Upanishads, we begin to understand their hidden beauty and wisdom. Sometimes, even their contradictions and “unsystematic” character strike with deep insight and all-inclusiveness. Their penetration into the mysteries of nature is performed on an integral, mystic level, devoid of the deadly intellectual dissection endemic to modern science. Their deep insights – although may seem naïve, or even absurd to a modern man – are filled with practical experience and poetical metaphor, and therefore are true. Here is one example of the many gem-like dialogues:

“Just as, my dear son, the bees make honey by collecting the juices of distant trees and then reduce the juice to one uniform fluid… And as these juices have no discrimination so that they might say: ‘I am the juice of this tree, I am the juice of that tree,’ in the same manner, my child, all these creatures, when they have reached the Being (Sat, Truth), do not know that they have reached the Being (or that they are merged in the Truth).” [5]

Interestingly, modern consciousness theories are drawing to the parallel conclusions, stating that the self-consciousness and the revelation of the inner world of ideas cannot be understood solely on the basis of positivistic, logical knowledge. Similar to the Hindu concept of maya (creative, magic energy), the psychological state of man is under a constant spell of his mind; in other words, man is constantly creating himself (and his environment). We may also say that maya is akin to the creative energy, or indeed, the poetry that impregnates the Universe.

In the Bhagavad Gita – one of the most poetical and philosophical writings ever created by humans and which crystallizes the wisdom of Upanishads – we find the following lines:

Being steadfast in Yoga,
Perform actions, abandoning attainment,
Remaining unconcerned
as regards success and failure.
This evenness of mind is known as Yoga. [6]

Poetry, or higher Truth, or Beauty, cannot be revealed to an egoistic, insincere, or weak-willed person. His or her consciousness will be paralyzed by low desires, so that he or she is unable to see the truth. Generally speaking, it is very hard (if at all possible) for a common person to observe ultimate truth. He or she can only achieve certain levels of such understanding. Luckily, in the course of millennia, many sages and rishis have elaborated different practices (or yogas) tailored to various human abilities. [7]

The poetry of sound and image

In the tantric treatise we read: [8] “Supercharged with transcendent soul-force, Sound is in all creation the one powerful principle that widely influences and effectively brings under control all other manifestations.” Many examples can be quoted to bear testimony to this claim of sound with reference to both the individual and the cosmos.

In fact, it is difficult to imagine the world without sounds. How many people drown their worldly miseries and pain in rhythmic music? Even the ignorant man who does not know the musical alphabet stands spell-bound, as though transfixed by some magic, when he hears some sweet melodies. This proves that in the presence of rhythmic sound the mind cannot think about anything else. It dissolves into the music.

Animals also can be captivated by music. Their pre-rational response clearly shows that a relationship exists between sound and the mind, and that the mind naturally is drawn towards sound and in doing so, forgets the external world altogether. There is thus a natural tendency in all creatures to find solace and peace in sound.

In many spiritual traditions, sound is considered to be the first manifestation of the Absolute. Vedic philosophers tell us that we cannot know anything about the nature of the Absolute as it exists except that It is. Scriptures say: Brahman was one and non-dual. It thought, “Ekoham, Bahu syam” (Let One become Many). That caused a vibration eventually bringing in Sound and that Sound was Om, whence all other manifestations. (Cf: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”).

Swami Sivananda writes: “When the mind gets absorbed in the Anahata sounds, you will attain knowledge of hidden things. You will develop the eye of intuition.”

And as long as the universe exists, there will be the cosmic vibration and the Sound. When the vibration ceases the Sound also disappears into the transcendental Being. During the vibrant stage creation proceeds, the elements are successively born, and finally we have the world as we see it. During the cessation of the vibration, the reverse takes place and there is involution, all this world disappearing into sound, and sound disappearing into God.

All that is told of the Universe and cosmic creation, can be applied in to the individual.

Our physical and astral bodies, our indriyas (emotions) and the mind should have Sound as their basis. As we penetrate deep into them they should lead us to Sound. (It lives in the Anahata chakra, i.e. in the heart).

“The heart of man”, writes Tagore, “is composed of rhythm. But due to the times, and under the pressure of the machine, its rhythm is at present broken.” He, one of the greatest poet and musicians, notes, that “the life-substance is not an engine made of iron, to be run at frantic speed by electricity. It has its own inherent rhythm. This rhythm will stand the strain to a certain point, but not beyond. The trickery of a walk contains the entire rhythm of a verse. A tune sounds sweet so long as its beat and timing do not challenge the sensitive ears. If instead of a quick beat the timing is four times fast, then the tunes must shed its artistic form in trying to achieve an ingenuity with great discomfort. When the demand is for still further speed than the tune must sound quite crazy, meeting the disastrous end.” (Isn’t it the cause for the bankruptcy of contemporary pop music?) The same concerns our ability to see. As Tagore rightly says, “The living eyes are not, indeed, a motion camera. They take their own time to see things.”

There is an intimate connection between sound and image. Sounds are vibrations that give rise to definite forms. Each sound produces a form in the invisible world and combinations of sound create complicated shapes. Science textbooks describe certain experiments that demonstrate how notes produced by certain instruments create definite geometrical figures (patterns) in a bed of sand. It shows that rhythmical vibrations give rise to regular geometrical shapes. [9]

In the invisible world all sounds are accompanied by patterns that give rise to many-hued shapes. In the same way, all patterns are accompanied by sounds. In today’s world, unfortunately, the visual has practically ousted the audio, or the sound. Historically humans were communicating with the world and themselves through stories and songs. However, with the advent of literacy, and then television, cinematograph and, especially, computers, the visual became predominant. This resulted in the imbalances of the “interplay of senses” and impoverishing of human mind. [10]

Poetry and Breathing

Breathing, probably, is the primordeal characteristic of life. Paraphrasing the well-known Descartes statement “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore, exist), one may say, “Spiro, ergo sum” (I breathe, therefore, exist). The reason for such correction, I gather, is that, while there may be “dead” thoughts, breathing is indispensible for all living things.

Indeed, what is breathing if not co-creation with the universe? According to Zen master Kodo Savaki, “Each our exhalation is the exhalation of universe, each inhalation – an inhalation of universe. Thus we help universe to eliminate misfortune and beget absolute happiness.”

Soul, Spirit, Spiritus – all are the derivatives of breathing, nothing “other-wordly” or supernatural. Air is the first spiritual agent and it is imperative that it should be kept clear. Where air is stale or poisoned, there’s no spirituality, no poetry.

Tara is the tantric goddess of the purifying force of living breath. Breath as a spirit of life and the sound of this breath are identical, which is expressed by the mantra Soham (OM). Therefore, anyone who sings this mantra purifies and energises his or her mind. It is known that yoga extensively uses the pranayam, that is, the breathing exercises that balance the energy flows in human body. Thus poetry has a directly beneficial effect on both body and mind.

No wonder that the modern sound pollution caused by technogenic sources, such as automobiles, radio, television, etc, has an adverse effect on the psychological and physical state of human beings. It is becoming increasingly difficult to escape the discordant sounds of civilization.

Each deity has its specific mantra, a sound-phrase that invokes a specific archetype. A special part of the mantra called the bija, is the seed-syllable of the deity (for example, the bija of the goddess Tara is the syllable AUM), while the whole mantra includes the name of the deity and its other characteristics. Each deity can be visualised as accompanied in yab-yum (sexual/spiritual union) by a consort who is a special deity of the opposite gender. (One can easily establish a direct association with the western concept of the Muse in which a creative person encounters or chooses a goddess, god, or other archetypal figure, who in turn nurtures the artist’s creativity.)

The world is full of deities, each with a yantra, a non-anthropomorphic image, that represents the divine energy features involved. Mandalas are symmetrical, usually round or square, four-sector extended yantras that include the meditative forms of the deity.

As a rule, tantric teachings offer certain forms (or murti) of deity for visualization and meditation. Each deity has a subtle body, dedicated for observation and meditation (dhyana-murti), its gamut of colours, a set of gestures or mudras, and certain weapon and ornaments. These specific features are reflected in different meditative poems called dhyana-shlokas.

Poetry as Enchantment

Non intratur in veritatem nisi per charitatem
– St. Augustin [11]

What is beauty? Has it a universal measure?

Beauty is not a human invention; it had existed before the coming of humans, and apparently will exist after they are gone. It is a universal Law of Poetry that we are only now beginning to grasp, as our humanity is only at its pre-mature stage at this time. It cannot be perceived through mere contemplation, logic, or language. All cultural strivings collectively experienced are only an approximation to it; our self-willed, anthropocentric civilization has created a synthetic beauty, expressing itself in artificial things or products whose limited function has ousted the primordial criteria of beauty. Our aesthetics (and ethics) essentially have a human-centered bias; they are severed from the basic laws of nature and are therefore false.

The female form is usually associated with beauty. Observing cosmic manifestation, we see that a female aspect of Nature often is embodied in beautiful divine forms, while the masculine aspect is hidden in the formlessness of spirit. Where should pure beauty be sought? Tantra invites us to search for the pure beauty, maintaining that “Beauty is Truth; Truth is Beauty.” Sundary is literally means ‘beauty’, and anyone who worships this goddess would follow the path of beauty and enchantment through the manifested world of Nature into the absolute world of the unmanifested.

When we think of beauty, we usually imagine some beautiful form (for example, a woman or a flower). But after having intently studied what seems to be perfect, soon we begin to notice a tiny defect. But even if we fail to notice a defect immediately, after some time we usually discover that our ideal is flawed. Form is transient, and beauty soon leaves it to take another form. Thus while the ideal of Beauty is absolute, its forms are transient. Rather, Beauty is what, according to Blake, “holds Infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”

However, this can be grasped only after the individual consciousness has been purified. Only then will it perceive everything as Divine Light, whereby the individual spirit merges with the universal. Otherwise, our contaminated consciousness will not let through the light of these subtle energies.

Thus, for a purified consciousness, the absolute reality, which is Truth, is not alienated from the subject, since its nature would not allow it to place God on the other side of consciousness, somewhere in heaven; the enlightened subject observes the Absolute both internally and externally. And in whatever direction such an enlightened mind looks, it finds everywhere the divine light of the absolute consciousness. Even ordinary objects evoke in such mind a joyous response. Being free from the concept of time, space, form and other conditioning, such a consciousness constantly observes the universe from the state of samadhi (ultimate bliss).

The Japanese, who managed to combine natural and man-made beauty, apparently were the most advanced in conscious recognition of beauty in the world. In this respect they were guided by the ancient principles of Shinto, the oldest native religion which venerated natural beauty. Later, this indigenous religion mixed with Buddhism to form Zen Buddhism, a religion, particularly sensitive to beauty. The Japanese were probably the first to approach natural beauty through the practice of meditation, although the thirst for artistic creativity can be found in all ages and traditions – Egyptian, Maya, Greek, Roman, Orthodox, etc. [12] The Japanese constructed beautiful artifacts and attained very close to man-made perfection.

So two ways of perception of beauty – one as natural, spontaneous, mysterious (Yin) and another – artificial, conscious, man-made (Yang) are complementary and correspond closely to the ancient Chinese principle of Harmony (Tao). Moreover, one kind of beauty seems to accentuate the other, and vice versa. Thus, the task of humans is to balance both beauties and to attain perfection (which can be called The Middle Way). On the other hand, to perceive beauty we need to step aside and look for the framework into which this beauty could be fitted. Therefore, we need some distance; otherwise, it will not be recognised. Speaking metaphorically, humans are always in search for an appropriate framework and distance. (Heidegger speaks in this sense of poetry as a measure of such distance between a Man and God. [13]) But what is interesting is that as soon as we come too close to beauty, it vanishes. Today, this distance has dangerously shrunk. Our technologies, our cities have destroyed the space needed to acknowledge beauty. That’s why Japanese are so cautious about their expressiveness – minimum words and details, maximum suggestivity. This principle cannot be overestimated in view of the current ecological crisis caused by our brutal intrusion into nature’s sacred space.

The Japanese most likely came the closest to eco-poetry. [14] Budo, ikebana, bonsai, sumio, or haiku are designed to remove the borders between the inner and external worlds, and trigger initial transcendental consciousness. Now, you are free, bound neither by your body nor thoughts. You observe all things at once, without attachment to them; being imposed on circumstances — not depending on them. Your nature is pure, thoughts come and go, leaving no traces. This is not an absentmindedness as one might think. On the contrary, it is an ultimate alertness, or dhyana, which we cannot experience in an ordinary state of consciousness due to the impurities imposed by indryas (low passions). Even in our western world, when we swim in the sea or ski in the mountains, we may sometimes spontaneously attain a unity with nature. Even a walk in the forest, or enjoying the object d’art may evoke a state of wholeness of being, or dhyana. This is the “enchantment of truth” that was referred to by St Augustine.

Bias of consciousness in Western culture

In Western culture, poetry was an integral part of life (and truth) up until the Middle Ages. Until then, most of humanity had lived in some kind of a half-dream. All seemed wonderful, all was impregnated with meaning – heaven, nature, and humanity. This was a holistic, religious consciousness, albeit not devoid of great superstitions. Science put an end to this consciousness.

The objectivisation of consciousness has begun, apparently, since the introduction of scientific method by Newton and Bacon. [15] In other words, Nature was perceived as something objective, independent of human consciousness. At the same time, man looked upon himself for the first time and at once became the main actor. Allegedly, this turning point was marked by the famous Mona Lisa’s smile in Leonardo’s painting. [16] Out of new subjectivity, a new objectivity was born. Van der Berg further analyses the Leonardo’s painting:

“It is the first landscape painted as a landscape, just because it was a landscape. A pure landscape, not just a backdrop for a human actions: nature, Nature as a middle ages did not know it, an exterior Nature closed within itself and self-sufficient, and exterior from which human element has, in principle, been removed entirely. It is things-in-their-farewell, and therefore is as moving as a farewell of our dearest. It is the strangest landscape ever beheld by human eyes.” [17]

Van der Berg proceeds to quote Rilke:

“This landscape is not the portrayal of an impression, it is not the judgment of a man on things at rest; it is nature coming into being, the world coming into existence, unknown to man as the jungle of an unknown island. It had been necessary to see the landscape in this way, far and strange, remote, without love… It had to be almost hostile in its exalted indifference, if, with its objects, it was to give a new meaning to our existence.” [18]

Only man now possessed the ratio (Logos) and morale, whereas Nature had been reduced to irrational and immoral element. It is at that moment that we are witnessing the strict separation between soul and body, intellect and emotion. The human task became the penetration into the mysteries of Nature and subjecting them to mind. In this lie the roots of anthropocentrism (which, largely, is absent in the Eastern worldview). Religion had consecrated this new mission of humanity by exposing the science and experiments over Nature as “God-blessed” business. Since then, any mysticism, magic or poetry, coming from nature has been treated as witchcraft. Truth, henceforth, could proceed оnly from humans. Blake wrote: [19]

May God us keep
From Single vision and Newton’s sleep!

But poets found themselves in minority. The creator of scientific method, Francis Bacon, upon a blessing from Church, began an onslaught on nature, having proclaimed: “Knowledge is power.” Thus, scientists had to “bind her [nature] to your service and make her your slave.” [20] In this call we hear not only outright anthropocentrism, but a distinct male chauvinism. (How it differs from a reverence for goddesses in tantra, or the balance between feminine and masculine in Tao!). Soon the trials took place over pagans, witches and alchemists. Poets went into obscurity.

The conscious protest against desacralisation and objectivisation of Nature was initiated by English Romantics – Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelly and others. Let me quote from Mary Midgley’s Science and poetry: [21]

“Keats has just told the Greek tale of the mystery woman who is really a snake and who is unmasked as such at her wedding-feast by a philosopher. He [Keats] then suddenly steps outside the frame and points out something badly wrong with the story itself. He sees it, surely correctly, as anti-life, a piece of propaganda meant as a warning against love and, more particularly, a warning against women. Within the story, Lamia must of course be exposed. People can’t marry snakes. But the question is, ought we to frame our life-plans around such stories? Should we expect every woman to be a snake? Should our only reaction to a diamond be to explain that it is just carbon, and to rainbow to point out that it is just water? Keats thinks not, and gives the story a new ending. In his version the deserted bridegroom does not thank the philosopher and rejoice at his escape, as might have been expected. Instead he is desolated and dies from grief….”

Holistic science: an attempt to correct the situation

The bias of the objectivist knowledge has long been felt by poets. The English Romantics proclaimed: the division is false, and the thought can be understood only by holding the middle way through imagination. But this should not be an abstraction or delusion – on the contrary, a constructive vision. A poet, said Wordsworth, had to be “a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply… Our thoughts… are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings.” [22] Very interesting are his meditations on the synthesis of science and poetry (cited by Midgley):

If the labours of Men of science should ever create any material revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions which we habitually receive, the poet will sleep then no more than at present: he will be ready to follow the steps of the Man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but… carrying sensation into the midst of objects of the science itself. The remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist or Mineralogist will be as proper objects of the Poet’s art as any on which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us… manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. (ibid, p. 939)

The similar attempts to unite poetic and scientific visions were made in the past by such geniuses as Wolfgang Goethe, Camille Flammarion, Rabindranath Tagore, Tehiard de Chardin. But for a modern man, it becomes increasingly difficult, if at all possible, to track the discoveries of science (having acquired highly abstract and specialized character) and to keep up with modern technologies. It is hard to name a modern thinker, who is able to tackle the superhuman task of developing the scientific-and-poetic picture of the world. In this respect, I should note that such attempts nonetheless have not ceased. Today many universities offer courses in holistic science,[23] human ecology,[24] eco-psychology,[25] etc., that tackle these issues. Recent decades have seen a significant number of studies by such authors as David Bohm, Fritjof Capra, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Theodore Rozsak, Fritz Schumacher, Ken Wilber, Brian Goodwin, etc. calling for a paradigm shift away from the reductionist approach of modern science.

Spearheads of Deep Ecology

With the impending global ecological catastrophe, we see the increasing attempts of people to save the beauty and wonder of the Earth. We see the rebirth of eco-poetry within human souls, a “new religion”, which, hopefully, could change the conceited, egoistic and fatalistic trajectory of our species.

Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher and a mountaineer, transformed the eastern wisdom of Upanishads into a “western” doctrine of Deep Ecology. His very concise, yet powerful and revolutionary doctrine (8-fold platform) has a flavor of Bhagavad Gita, and can be seen as a Manifesto of all “dark greens.”

The main premise of Deep Ecology is the need for humanity to reject its arrogant, anthropocentric status and start learning from other sentient and non-sentient beings. The philosophical and ethical ground for this “comeback” can be traced from Upanishads and earlier philosophers, as well as Spinoza, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Heidegger. The scientific core of the Deep Ecology stems from Goethean science, Gaia hypothesis, Jungian and transpersonal psychology. However, there is a whole constellation of poets who constitute the poetic background of Deep Ecology, among them such masters as Blake, Wordsworth, Whitman, Tagore, Jeffers, Snyder, etc, to name just a few.

Indeed, Deep Ecology has embraced all the noble ideas accumulated by humanity over millenia.

In the course of history, the quite voices of poets and philosophers of all nations were heard on top of the deafening roar of wars and gnash of machines. Such were English and German Romantics, Transcendentalists, Russian symbolists, Phenomenologists, Existentialists, poets of “beat generation.” We can’t mention them all, but, probably, two, most influential, deserve mentioning.

Martin Heidegger developed a solid theoretical base to the poetic paradigm through some deep philosophical articles about the relations of literature, language and nature. [26] It is amazing how deep are his thoughts about dwelling as a major characteristic of human being, about the necessity to learn to seek places on earth, where humans will neither dominate, nor pollute, nor destroy. Only poetry can provide such an existence, since poetry (or creativity) is the basis of any home. It is also through memory we “dwell on earth” fully conscious of the significance of the past and present. (This thought is very close to Goethe).

The flight from the “dead language of humanity” has been undertaken by another outcast poet, Robinson Jeffers. As already mentioned, poets have always seen the human predicament more acutely than philosophers; such were “eastern mystics”, authors of Greek tragedies, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, and Russian symbolists. [27] Today their legacy is being revived in view of an unprecedented humanitarian and ecological crisis.

William Everson calls Robinson Jeffers “a political poet par excellence” and gives an exact definition of what political poetry should be:

As a genre, political poetry is both didactic and rhetorical. To be effective it must be intensely involved and ideologically committed, though such commitment must be moderated by intellectual discrimination, moral courage, and, sometimes, irony. Within these bounds it is best when it is extreme: imperative, explosive, and scornful. Only when it shocks with relevance can it change the course of human inertia. Being poetry, it must be concentrated and blistering rather than rational and discursive, or we will cling to prose and remain in dispassionate analysis. As an axiom it can be said that the rougher political poetry is, the better we will like it, or, if it opposes our own predilections, the more deeply will we fear it. Political poetry speaks to the mind, certainly, but at beat it speaks through the mind to the passions. It spite of ourselves, hearing it, we are moved. [28]

But Jeffers is also a deeply religious poet. His “revolution” was mainly in language and bitter metaphor that helped to illuminate human species’ fallacy and set it off against nature in order to reach “transhuman relevance.” As Everson further writes, “He sought to wrench man’s attention from his own self-deceptions, and fasten his soul upon the naked divinity manifest in cosmos. This is a familiar enough religious tactic but Jeffers’ employment of it is extraordinary. Nineteenth-century science had presented Nietzsche with a universe in which there was no place left for God. Twentieth-century science presented Jeffers with a universe in which there is no place left for man… He turned the employ of science back from proliferation of creature comforts to religious contemplation.” And further, “the principal dispositive factor which Jeffers acquired from science was detachment, deepening to aloofness, and at times, remoteness.” In his controversial poem “The Inhumanist” (1947) Jeffers, in the words of Everson, “has created a savior figure– not in the traditional religious sense of a Buddha or a Jesus, but along the Nietzschean lines of Zarathustra – a savior figure, who constitutes some kind of model for human conduct, an intellectual and moral attitude appropriate to mankind in the dilemma of existence which now confronts it.”

All in all, we may say, that his poetry is revolutionary in many ways, being at once political, ecological, religious and prophetic. It is no wonder that the poet can indicate the way out for the wretched humanity.

Civilized, crying: how to be human again; this will tell you how.
Turn outward, love things, not men, turn right away from humanity,
Let that doll lie. Consider if you like how the lilies grow,
Lean on the silent rock until you feel its divinity
Make your veins cold; look at the silent stars, let your eyes
Climb the great ladder out of the pit of yourself and man.
Things are so beautiful, your love will follow your eyes;
Things are the God; you will love God and not in vain,
For what we love, we grow to it, we share its nature. At length
You will look back along the star’s rays and see that even
The poor doll humanity has a place under heaven.
Its qualities repair their mosaic around you, the chips of strength
And sickness; but now you are free, even to be human,
But born of the rock and the air, not of a woman.
 
— Robinson Jeffers, Sign-post

About the author

Viktor Ivanovitch Postnikov is a Russian-born independent scientist (DSc.) who lives in Kiev, Ukraine. A prolific poetry translator, he has also translated books on both eastern philosophies and deep ecology, and written many essays on Russian anarchism and eco-poetry for journals and other publications.

Aknowledgement

I wish to express gratitude to all with whom I have discussed the issues of science and poetry in the past and who have inspired me for this work. My special thanks to Patrick Curry who presented me invaluable books on the topic. Also my humble thanks to those who have supported and materialized the idea of DT on-line journal.

References

1. Complete works of Swami Vivekananda. 2(1968): 140.
2. Tagore’s Testament (trans. Indu Dutt) (Jaico, 1980).
3. Tehiard de Chardin, Phenomene de L’Homme (M. : Nauka, 1987) (In Russian)
4. Plato, Writings, v.2, (Moscow, 1970) (In Russian).
5. Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry, (Routledge Classics, 2006).
6. Mircea Elliade, Yoga: Freedom and Immortality (Sofia, 2000) (In Russian)
7. Swami Vivekananda, Lectures (Amrita, 1992) (in Russian)
8. Richard Dawkins, Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 1976.)
9. Fritjof Capra, Tao of Physics (Bantam Books, 1980).
10. Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point (Flamingo, 1982)
11. Swami Sivananda, Tantra Yoga, Nada Yoga and Kriya Yoga (The Divine Life Society, 1994).
12. Marshall McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy (Toronto University Press, 1962).
13. John Lane, The Timeless Beauty (Green Books, 2003).
14. V. Postnikov, Eco-poetry, The Trumpeter (2001)17,1
15. C.G. Jung, Yoga und der Westen, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11.
16. Theodore Roszak, Mary Gomes, and Allen Kanner, eds., Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind, (San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1995).
17. Ken Wilber, Integral psychology, ( Shambhala, 2000)
18. M. Heidegger, Poetically Man Dwells, in The Green Reader Studies, (Routledge, 2000.)
19. Maximilian Voloshin, “Ways of Cain” (A Tragedy of Material Culture) (Trans. by V. Postnikov) Drift Aweigh Press 2001. ISBN 1-896007-94-5.
20. Robinson Jeffers, The Double Axe and Other poems, (Lightright, New York, 1977).
21. Eckerman J.P. Conversations with Goethe, (London, Dent & Sons, 1935).
22. Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction (Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1973).
23. David Abram, Spell of the Sensuous (Vintage Books, 1996).
24. Patrick Curry, Ecological Ethics (Polity, 2006).

Footnotes

(Click on the reference number to go back to the text)

• [1] Consciousness can be defined (rather loosely) as the rational side of mind.
• [2] Complete works of Swami Vivekananda. 2(1968): 140.
• [3] Ibid., 3(1970): 385.
• [4] Kathopanisad, trans. Swami Sarvananda (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1968), p.64.
• [5] Chhandogya Upanishad (6:9), trans. Swami Sivananda (The Divine Life Society, 1997), p. 108.
• [6] The Bhagavad Gita: 2.48.
• [7] The reader can refer, for example, to the fundamental studies by Mircea Elliade (Yoga: Freedom and Immortality), or the practical aspects of yoga adapted by Swami Sivananda.
• [8] Swami Sivananda, Tantra Yoga, Nada Yoga and Kriya Yoga (The Divine Life Society, 1994.
• [9] Tagore’s Testament (trans. Indu Dutt) (Jaico, 1980).
• [10] Marshall MacLuhan , Gutenberg Galaxy, Toronto, 1962.
• [11] Truth is to be exposed through enchantment.
• [12] An outline of the world’s man-made “beauties” can be found in an excellent book by John Lane “The Timeless Beauty” (Green Books, 2003).
• [13] M. Heidegger, Poetically Man Dwells, in The Green Reader Studies, (Routledge, 2000..
• [14] V. Postnikov, Eco-poetry, The Trumpeter (2001)17,1.
• [15] Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point (Flamingo, 1982.
• [16] Cited in Stephen Talbott, The Future Does Not Compute (O’Reilley & Sons, 1995). pp. 249-260.
• [17] Ibid., p. 251.
• [18] Ibid., p. 252.
• [19] Cited in Marshall McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy (Toronto University Press, 1962).
• [20] Cited in Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point (Flamingo, 1982.
• [21] Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry, (Routledge Classics, 2006).
• [22] Ibid., p. 75.
• [23] Brian Goodwin, Stephen Harding, a course in holistic science, Schumacher College, UK.
• [24] Alastair McIntosh , Soil and Soul (AURUM PRESS, 2002.
• [25] Theodore Roszak, Mary Gomes, and Allen Kanner, eds., Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind, (San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1995).
• [26] M. Heidegger, Poetically Man Dwells, in The Green Reader Studies, (Routledge, 2000..
• [27] E.g., see Maximilian Voloshin, “Ways of Cain” (A Tragedy of Material Culture) (Trans. by V. Postnikov) Drift Aweigh Press 2001. ISBN 1-896007-94-5.
• [28] See his introduction in Robinson Jeffers, The Double Axe and Other poems, (Lightright, New York, 1977).