| Coming Down to Earth: A New Direction
for the New Age by James Endredy The New Age movement needs a new direction, and that direction is down. Down to Earth. To have a significantly positive impact on this new millennium, the New Age movement, in all of its myriad manifestations, will be required to acknowledge that health and happiness begins with our grounded connection to the entity that provides the source our very lives: Earth. While a broad spectrum of New Age interests certainly have value to a huge number of people, many of these activities are by and large actually helping to promote Western civilization's continued degradation of Earth's habitats and species by simply neglecting the spiritual essences of our planet's ecology. In this sense, a majority of New Age practices have joined the world's major religions in failing to adequately promote the sacredness of the very environments that provide us with life. The fact that decent, hardworking people throughout the globe can continue to engage in "spiritual" activities, while at the same time continuing the lifestyles of an industrial growth society that contributes directly to global destruction, mass species extinction, as well as escalating threats to human health and well-being, has to be one of the most tragic circumstances of the split between humans, nature and spirit. The spirituality of today, whether in New Age or traditional form, must encourage healthy spiritual practices in a healthy environment so that all of Earth's creatures can live in peace, health and happiness. Loving the Source To encourage this, we need to begin by honestly critiquing our personal religious and spiritual practices to see whether we are neglecting to honor the sacred interconnectedness of all life, or even contributing to a spiritual-ethical pathology based on reality denying beliefs. Many of the current New Age spiritual practices, as well as many of the world's major religions, promote the belief that we can be magically rescued from not only the chaos of our daily lives, but also from our human planetary devastation by God or some other-worldly being, entity or power. In the case of major religions this is often the result of the desperate clinging and defending of old belief systems that are no longer adequate to respond to current life situations. The New Age movement, although mostly supported by those who are truly searching for spiritual growth, provides many activities of spiritual escapism or even spiritual lifelessness by placing spirituality in the realm of beyond or above the biosphere. This prevents the true celebration of the incredible gift of life and the spiritual awareness of organically interacting with our dynamic living planet. The healing of spiritual escapism and lifelessness involves experiencing a spiritual bonding with the Source of our lives: Mother Earth. When a love of life, and a love for the Source of our life, are both felt in a profound way, we are then compelled to respond to the continuing destruction of our natural spiritual home. Mind/Body/Environment/Spirit Many of our contemporary mind/body/spirit activities, whether ancient or brand new, have been lumped under the heading New Age and also must respond. The mind/body/spirit practices and the many therapies that have sprung from them have been a major step towards a holistic consciousness where life and health are viewed in terms of a whole system, in contrast to the fragmented view that evolved with mechanistic science. The validity and need for mind/body/spirit practices has allowed them to grow into one of the new major tools available to both health care professionals and the general public, and the popularity of these practices and concepts can readily be seen by the plethora of services, magazines and books now available on these subjects. However, for all the validity and genuine healing brought about by the mind/body/spirit awareness, there is something seriously missing. Where are our natural and man-made environments in this equation? I see mind, I see body, and I see spirit, but what about Earth, the very entity that provides for our life? What about the ecologically disastrous condition of our massive cities and the complete lack of aesthetic beauty in our urban and suburban living spaces? Can you really heal the separation between mind, body and spirit while still exploiting and destroying the natural environment? The glaring absence of "environment" in these new mind/body/spirit movements is a major tragedy in the beginning of this new millennium. People are flocking to resources of mind/body/spirit practices, because they have lost faith in traditional psychological and scientific procedures and because these resources and practitioners are viewed as being on the cutting edge of healing technologies, as they supposedly understand that true healing must affect the total human organism to be truly effective. But the total human organism encompasses mind/body/environment/spirit. We are just as much a part of our environment as we are our minds, bodies and spirits. Healing the whole naturally leads to healing ourselves, just as healing ourselves naturally heals the whole. New Age movement offers hope We live in an era when the magnitude and complexity of human-caused environmental disasters can be overwhelming to the point that we are simply frozen into inaction -- while at the same time spiritually oriented ethical concerns relating to the Earth are often simply dismissed as primitive "nature worship." But it doesn't have to be this way. Expanding our spiritual and ethical horizons to include the environment offers us the life-enriching possibility of being co-creators who love and respect the whole world and everything in it. The New Age movement has never been bashful to explore new territory or worry about what others may think. Freedom of thought and experience are hallmarks of this movement, and if sung by enough people it has the power to change the world for the better. This fact, coupled with the undeniable sincerity and unpretentious good humor displayed by many of its members, offers hope that the New Age movement can evolve and contribute significantly to bringing spirituality back down to Earth where it is truly needed. James Endredy is an author and workshop leader who is actively involved with preserving the world's remaining indigenous cultures, and is currently involved with sharing the project of ecoshamanism with the modern world. He is the author of Earthwalks for Body and Spirit: Exercises to Restore Our Sacred Bond with the Earth, published by Bear & Company. For a schedule of activities please visit www.JamesEndredy.com Copyright (c) 2002 James Endredy |
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