Suzuki’s message is powerful. The Industrial Age really screwed up our collective attitude toward Mother Earth.
But let's lets talk about Mom, can we? Specifically in terms of predator animals and prey animals.
Predators are lions and tigers and bears, oh my, right? And prey animals are bunny rabbits, Bambi, and (uh, oh) Dorothy. But, let's face it—all animals, Dorothy included, are predators. They don't all eat other animals, but they eat something, and that something sacrifices itself to the pecking order of the food chain.
Bunnies eat flowers, Bambi eats anything and everything in your garden, and Dorothy occasionally eats at Outback. Whales eat plankton, dolphins eat fish, and unicorns eat.....I don't know what unicorns eat. But they all eat something living in order to live.
Nature, as they say, is red in tooth and claw.
Earth, as it turns out, is one big recycling machine. So, the way I see it is that the food chain is a built-in feature. Or is it a bug? That's the question. If you're a particular kind of gnostic, it's a bug—the Demiurge and all that.
But if you're not, then living on this planet responsibly demands a code of ethics, as in the ethical treatment of animals (à la Temple Grandin) and the sustainable use of resources, such as topsoil, iron ore, and timber.
And that's where "mountains as deities" comes in.
Are they? Are they gods? Because if they are, then everything is a god—oceans, rivers, forests, animals, everything. And as it turns out, these gods are fundamentally cannibalistic from the get-go—auto-cannibalistic, as in Ouroboros. Life eats itself. Life eats life.
So, my question is how does this fit in with this new religion that's rising up on the collective spiritual horizon—the Temple of Gaia? Is our worship orientation shifting from up to down? Are we taking our gaze off of heaven above and refocusing it on the earth below? Is this what the Divine Feminine is—Nature worship—or are we maybe just a teeny bit confused about that?
The Big Question is one of relationship to Mama. Are we worshippers or stewards? Ew, “steward,” such a bad word! Especially in a time of naive egalitarianism. Down with hierarchies and all that. It places “Man As Steward” at the top of the food chain turning everything “he” touches into a stinky pile of compost.
Not very bucolic, is it.
More like the carnage of a dumpster behind a BBQ rib house at closing time. Fat, greasy “men” belching greenhouse gasses out of both ends as they waddle back to their SUVs to drive home to their McMansions in the suburbs. Not a pretty sight.
But is it an accurate indictment of a hyper-industrialized world with all of its factory farms, slaughterhouses, and strip malls, or is it a caricature? A new “devil”? I mean, if we’re forming a new religion, it’s gonna need a devil, right? And since we’re fresh from a pandemic, isn’t it logical to think of viruses as the ultimate enemy, the ultimate devil? They’re not actually “alive,” you know. They’re more like little killing machines. They invade an otherwise thriving organism and slowly (sometimes quickly) take it over and eventually destroy it.
And once you get this concept down, it’s time for the new prophet—Agent Smith—to hit us with the quintessential revelation of the age: “Human beings are a virus.”
Oh, boy. Let the purge begin.
You see, that’s the thing about new religions—there’s always a purge. There are always true believers eager to do God’s will by murdering the heretics. Not just murdering them but purging them. Cleansing the earth of them. And what better way to purify the environment than by fire?
Stakes for steak eaters.
That’s the thing about religious fervor. At that banquet, there are no leftovers. Once you’re labeled a heretic, you can’t talk your way out of being barbequed. And just like spare ribs, they won’t stop until they pick the bone clean and lick their fingers.
Zealots, when they run out of heretics, always turn to cannibalism—they eat their young. Once they’ve purified the world, they fine-tune their definitions of heresy and start going after each other. Zealots eat other zealots. It becomes a race to the bottom of the dumpster. Every bone will be picked clean and every finger will be licked. It’s the ultimate feeding frenzy. All new religions, as it turns out, are baptized in blood. And all the water in the world, as Nietzsche said, won’t be enough to wash it away.
So, is Gaia God? Or is she our loving mother? If she’s our loving mother, it’s a love that’s not exactly motherly, unless your version of momhood is the devouring goddess, Kali.
But if that’s how you see it, then why the obsession with getting back to the Garden of Eden? Is that a realistic vision of how the world should be? If it is, then keep the lambs and purge the lions. That’s your only option. Because lions are not vegetarians. They never will be. So, get rid of them.
Because, you know, viruses.
This new religion—so progressive on its face but so regressive, historically speaking—is one not unlike all the others. The saints will kill the sinners. You will either embrace it or it will embrace you. Hard. Around the throat. Until it rids the world of you.
After all, it’s Gaia’s will.
Gimme that ole time religion where all is One and sacred. Analyzed and divided up begs too much
attention. My mind can't cope with what you have written but my heart feels like I've missed your point and that means I'm not seeing/hearing you.