Spiritual Practices for a World Falling Apart — 01: Introduction
When I started the Shifting the Human Extinction Trajectory in a Positive Direction Blog I described it as the start of “an 8-year journey to the year 2030, at which time it seems likely to me that it will be possible to assess whether humanity has collective awakened to the harm we do to each and the planet sufficiently to significantly flatten the human population collapse curve.” I also noted that it was a continuation of a spiritual journey that began in the 1990s when everything I saw as an environmental scientist and observed of our human social, economic and political systems led me to conclude that 1) a systemic collapse was inevitable, 2) billions of people would have to die, and 3) that the only way for humans to continue as a species in harmony with others was a return to hunting and gathering way of life. At the time I thought I was meant to write a book titled Preparing Ourselves for the Great Dying that would focus on how those of us who survived might carry love and joy through the monumental suffering of a great dying of humans. While in meditation on the sacred place in the woods on our homestead I realized that I held an anger towards humanity that led me to feel, at the time, that billions ought to die. I realized that if I couldn’t write out of love, there was no point in writing the book. It never got written.
My own spiritual journey took a turn in 2002 when I had a spiritual awakening experience that shattered my conception of reality as a scientist and I decided to use my training as a scientist to understand what I was experiencing. I came to see mainstream science as an aspect of a much larger reality, a reality that encompasses subtle energies, such as the human energy field, that are not readily observed by mainstream science. I also learned a lot from the many friends I’ve made who are able to perceive the larger reality that encompasses the physical plane that we inhabit. As a geologist I continued to appreciate what mainstream science has to offer for understanding what’s happening in the world.
I went down some pretty deep rabbit holes when I decided to use my training as a scientist to develop a map of the territory of a larger reality. My experiences led me to see a positive future where 8 billion people could live in harmony with each other and Mother Earth. For a number of years I was confident that such a future would happen. I am less confident now, yet hold in my heart the possibility that a quantum leap in human consciousness will happen — I’m currently working on that blog.
I am a place in my own spiritual journey where the anger I felt thirty years ago is gone and I am able to hold in my heart a deep love for humanity even as I observe the unlovable and thoughtless ways in which we behave. As I shared in When Will the Human Overshoot Curve Peak? I hadn’t anticipated how painful it would be to write. The overshoot curve hasn’t yet peaked, and already there is monumental suffering. I have created this place on Medium as a sacred space for exploring how we as individuals and groups can engage in practices that acknowledge and address the suffering with love and compassion.
When the name Spiritual Practices for a World Falling Apart came to me I knew that it wasn’t an entirely original turn of phrase. Looking online I found Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön’s book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, with suggestions that are perhaps more timely now than when it was published in 1997. A May 2022 blog by Jan Edmiston titled Things Fall Apart: A Spiritual Practice offers a Christian perspective and notes: Sometimes we can’t grow until things fall apart. We hate that, but it’s true.
I’d like to close with words from Kahlil Gibran’s prose poem On Joy and Sorrow: The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. When I first read them as a teenager in the 1960s they touched me, but I was too young to really understand them. As I approach the age of 75 in a world falling apart, they speak to me in a new way. Thank you for joining me in this sacred space.
Articles in the Series:
02: Living Unsustainably with Mindfulness July 27, 2022 (Nonmember link)
03: Living with Discouragement October 26, 2022 (Nonmember link)
04: Keeping an Open Heart No Matter What March 23, 2023 (Nonmember link)
05: Making Peace with the Prospect of One’s Death May 25, 2023 (Nonmember link)
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