The Earth’s cry for rescue from the punishing weight of the industrial system we have created is our own cry for a scale and quality of life that will free each of us to become the complete person we know we were born to be.
“In the early 1990s psychologist and deep ecology practitioner Theodore Roszak realized that there was a connection between an individual’s emotional problems, the ills of Western society, and the exploitation of the natural world. This led him to search for a new kind of psychology that addressed the sources of our cultural madness and the psychic harm that occurs from being disconnected from nature.
“Roszak coined the phrase ecopsychology to describe this new field of study. Ecopsychology operates under the idea that much of the grief, shame, emptiness, and fear that many people struggle with may actually be a natural reaction to the unnatural demands of the modern world.
“These feelings are buried in the “ecological unconscious,” that ancient place in our psyche, based in the very evolution of our species, that knows we are interconnected to all living things, as well as to the Earth.
“Restoring our broken connection to nature does not just benefit the individual, but extends out to the healing of all our relationships, both personal and societal. Theoretically, this new awareness would change people’s priorities and actions to take into account the health of the environment and eventually percolate out to whole societies.
“Traditionally, Native Americans and other indigenous peoples have been living by the principles of ecopsychology throughout history and these concepts are already an integral part of indigenous science, cosmology, and spirituality.”
Read the full story by Alexis Lassman….
Post a Comment