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    What is Green Spirituality?
    What is Green Spirituality?
    What is Green Spirituality?
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    What is Green Spirituality?

    By Marian Van Eyk McCain

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    About this ebook

    This is the introductory volume in an inspiring series of ebooks about green spirituality, a type of spirituality that fits into no particular category of religion or spiritual belief system and yet is fully compatible with - and draws millions of adherents from - almost all of them.

    Green spirituality is based on a love of the Earth, the intrinsic value of all life forms, and a deep respect for the integrity of ecosystems and for the importance of biodiversity. It includes a belief in the total interconnectedness of the cosmos and offers a sense of identity rooted in being part of - and interdependent with - 'all that is.' It regards Nature as a great teacher and as a revelation of the divine and holds ideals of peace, social justice, ecological justice, low-impact living and sustainability

    The book describes and illustrates, through the well-blended voices of thirteen writers, the basic concepts and expressions of this rapidly growing kind of spiritual attitude in today's world - what it is, where it comes from, who practises it and how and why. It covers a wide range of subject matter, from personal stories of spiritual awakening to scientific facts about the composition of soil and includes philosophical musings, practical suggestions, inspirational essays and poetry. It is edited, with commentaries, by Marian Van Eyk McCain, author of seven books who also edited the anthology GreenSpirit: Path to a New Consciousness (Earth Books, 2010) containing chapters by such well-known figures as theologian Matthew Fox, lawyer Cormac Cullinan, economist David Korten and Resurgence Magazine editor Satish Kumar.

    As human beings, our spirituality - whether consciously acknowledged or not - helps to shape our attitude to life, and this attitude deeply affects our behaviour, both as individuals and as members of society. It is only when we approach problems with the right attitude that solutions start to appear.

    The green spiritual attitude is the one that holds out to us the best hope of finding ways to solve our current planetary dilemmas and social and ecological crises, since it is the only one that can put us, perhaps for the first time in thousands of years, in complete harmony with the planet's ecosystems instead of in conflict with them.

    Subsequent ebooks in this series deal with the application of these green spiritual ideas to various aspects of our lives and society such as education, politics, economics, psychology, law, food and farming, travel, lifestyle, art & culture, social welfare, health and healing, crafts and music, science and technology, ecology, religion, celebration and ceremony.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGreenSpirit Ebooks
    Release dateAug 30, 2012
    ISBN9780955215759
    What is Green Spirituality?

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      Book preview

      What is Green Spirituality? - Marian Van Eyk McCain

      Published by GreenSpirit at Smashwords

      www.greenspirit.org.uk

      ISBN: 978-0-9552157-5-9

      © 2012 Marian Van Eyk McCain

      Cover design: Stephen Wollaston (aka Santoshan)

      Cover and title page image © Beboy/Shutterstock.com

      Part One photo © Artjazz/Shutterstock.com

      Part Two photo © KavardakovA/Shutterstock.com

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

      CONTENTS

      PART ONE: DEFINING GREEN SPIRITUALITY

      Green Spirituality ~ Marian Van Eyk McCain

      PART TWO: THE HUMAN ROLE

      Being Human ~ Niamh Brennan

      PART THREE: GREENSPIRIT

      A Brief Overview ~ Marian Van Eyk McCain

      What on Earth is GreenSpirit? ~ Brendan Caulfield-James

      PART FOUR: EPIPHANIES ~ PEOPLE’S STORIES OF GREEN SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

      Falling in Love with Gaia ~ Susan Meeker-Lowry

      Building Bridges: an imperative of evolving consciousness ~ Janice Dolley

      I Have Been a Four-Legged Animal ~ Alison Leonard

      Meeting the Golden One ~ Emily Kimball

      PART FIVE: IMMANENCE, TRANSCENDENCE, INSCENDENCE

      The Flowering of Spirituality ~ Malcolm Hollick

      From Transcendence to Inscendence ~ Niamh Brennan

      PART SIX: ELEMENTS OF GREEN SPIRITUALITY

      Earth: Going to Ground ~ Marian Van Eyk McCain

      Air: To My Son Who Asks How I Can Pray to the Powers of Air ~ Claudia Van Gerven

      Fire: Rekindling the Flame ~ Victoria Field

      Water: Gazing into Space ~ Mary Kelson

      Embracing the Elements ~ Marian Van Eyk McCain

      PART SEVEN: HOW, THEN, SHALL I LIVE?

      The Nature of Practice ~ Marian Van Eyk McCain

      What Does it Take to Be Earth Literate? ~ Michael Colebrook

      Where Is Your Place? ~ Marian Van Eyk McCain

      Creative Spirit ~ Joan Angus

      FURTHER INFORMATION AND RESOURCES

      And Finally…

      Other Titles in the GreenSpirit Book Series

      Sioux Prayer

      PART ONE

      DEFINING GREEN SPIRITUALITY

      Green Spirituality

      Marian Van Eyk McCain

      Some words stay still on the page when you write them. Or if you think them they sit in your mind, like placid babies, exactly where you put them. Words like ‘giraffe’ or ‘lighthouse’ that describe physical things are almost always well-behaved, and even quite a few of the words we use to describe vaguer and more conceptual ideas like ‘cookery,’ ‘gardening’ or ‘psychiatry’ are equally docile.

      But there are some words that as soon as you begin to write or think them immediately wriggle and squirm and positively refuse to be pinned down. The word ‘love’ is a typical example. Everybody knows what it means and yet nobody has ever been able to give it one satisfactorily solid, comprehensive definition. As soon as you try to, it slips away like a will o’ the wisp, impossible to grasp. Another such word is ‘spirituality.’ What actually is it? We all think we know and yet we can’t quite explain. Not fully anyway.

      For some people spirituality is synonymous with religion. Yet there are millions of people who say they are ‘spiritual but not religious.’ What does that actually mean? Once again, we all know what it means, but how to explain it?

      For me, the easiest and simplest way to define spirituality is to describe it as a dimension of our lives. It is a dimension that is every bit as real and vital and significant to us as our physicality or our psychology. Yet it is a dimension that defies exact verbal or scientific analysis because, like a bird or a butterfly, you can feel the fluttering of its wings and enjoy its presence in your life but you cannot dissect it without killing it.

      So let me start out with a warning. This is not a textbook. It is not an academic thesis or a philosophical treatise. My aim is not to dissect and analyse the topic the way a scientist or a lab technician would. It is not to present a set of facts to be learned. Think of it, rather, as a smorgasbord.

      I realized years ago that when people were curious about my vegetarian diet the best way to answer them was not to respond with nutritional facts or persuasive arguments but to invite them to dinner. So my role here is more chef than teacher. I want to give you the flavour of green spirituality.

      The nun Wu Jincang asked the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas I do not quite understand. Please enlighten me.

      The patriarch responded, I am illiterate. Please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning.

      Said the nun, You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?

      Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?

      I have often heard poetry described like this, i.e. as a finger pointing to the moon. Following the direction of the finger means not dwelling too much on the precise meanings of the words themselves but reading between the lines, feeling the emotions that come through them. It means experiencing the words not with your intellect but with your heart and soul.

      This book contains the pointing fingers of many different people. And my hope is that at least some of these people’s descriptions of what green spirituality is and what it means to them personally will strike resonant chords within you.

      So I am not going to spend any more time describing what spirituality is or isn’t but I do need, before we start, to explain how I see the relationship of green spirituality to spirituality in general.

      You will notice, if you look at any list of the world’s various religions and spiritual paths, that ‘green spirituality’ per se is almost never included in the list.

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