New website, Earth Vision, presents spiritual ecology

Social IssuesEnvironment

  • Author Josef Graf
  • Published June 27, 2007
  • Word count 796

The Earth Vision website presents spiritual ecology as a means of highlighting the nature-human relationship. In a bid to take readers to a deeper place with nature, the Earth Vision project diverges from the voice of the intellect, and enters into a language that speaks at the core of being, a poetic, non-cerebral voice that interlaces strands of nature with the human experience.By means of condensed language, and with full existential bearing, spiritual ecology presents two doorways that lead, ultimately, to the same forum of discovery. The first approach, by penetrating into nature's core, arrives at a place where the human soul is discovered to be dwelling. The second approach entails the inverse of the first - penetrating into the human soul until the numerous aspects of nature are encountered.As the author of Earth Vision, I express my sense of why spiritual ecology is not more widely and consciously lived into by suggesting that our connection with nature is so close - it could not possibly be closer - that we have difficulty discerning it. When you are one with something, it takes a special exercise in self-reflection to ascertain that something. We bring our powers of cognizance to bear through science, and learn what we can. But the scientific modality of learning, so far, has only been able to go so deep. The practice of spiritual ecology is about holding still with an aspect of nature until its core is penetrated in a sentient way - an experiential, rather than analytic, way. Or, to be more accurate, it could be said that, when we are in an optimal mode of perception, we bring all our faculties to bear - analytic, intuitive, perceptual, even engaging all 12 senses in the process (see Steiner material for more on the 12 senses).The stance of Earth Vision is not to do away with science. Science and rational process are seen to have a role in bringing more understanding to the ways of nature. And so, also, have other arenas of research. The heart, for example, is an equally viable forum of understanding. In my exploration of the bridge between people and nature, I came to discover that while nature and the human soul share much common ground, they also counterpoint each other. And I found a particularly productive framework for this counterpoint residing in the masterwork by Rudolf Steiner known as The Calendar of the Soul.The divergence between nature and the soul, as Steiner so artfully portrays, is most keenly experienced in the turning of the seasons, winter being the summer of the soul, and vice versa. What this means is that when the outer world of nature waxes most wakeful, the human faculty enters into an inward state of dormancy. And, as the world of nature dies away during its autumn phase, human discernment and inward powers increasingly awaken.At the same tine, however, as there is this aspect of counterpoint, there is also a parallel process underway, in that, as events in the world of nature unfold, its seasonal events have an attendant process within the human arena. Therefore, in the face of simultaneous counterpoint and parallel, it could be said that the nature-human interweave is a multi-level process. The more one delves into this relationship, the more intricate does it appear to be, and the more one realizes the time has surely passed for denying the metaphysical relationship between humanity and nature. The materialistic perspective, as a stage of development, may have held a transitory purpose, but can no longer serve the common good. Scientific approaches to nature are called upon, now, to carry a greater sense of what is real than that of the status quo to date. As demonstrated by quantum physics, and numerous other proceedings, the deeper science delves, the more it encounters spirit. In fact, at this point, it would not be too bold to say that only by retreating into more shallow arenas of scientific exploration can the deeper reality of spirit be avoided. We will evolve above the darkness of the world when it comes to recognize, for what they are, the achievements of such pioneering spiritual scientists as Goethe and Rudolf Steiner. Steiner still remains the best kept secret of the 20th Century - at a time when we need, precisely, to implement his stellar vision across the field of humanity's pressing sociological and empirical crises.Waldorf education, Biodynamic farming, Anthroposophical medicine, spiritual ecology, and many more forums - what deep and wide counsel still lies untapped by all too many of the so-called leaders of our time!Earth Vision is here to wage peace on the world. Put another way, it means waging war on materialism. It's principle weapon is the experiential arena of spiritual ecology.

Dubbed "a modern Thoreau" by one reviewer, Josef Graf's diverse background was bound to culminate in the Earth Vision project. A split degree in Sociology/Ecology was followed by work as a trail guide, co-ordinator of a nature interpretation program, assistant to Native cultural enhancement, radio host, and Waldorf teacher. visit www.evbooks.net

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