As a recent subscriber to this list, I would like to humbly request that
those who post messages to the list refrain from including in their own
messages the letters to which they are replying.
I have my ecofem mail bundled to save space on my limited
email system. Duplication of messages adds a huge volume of mail to
the server and makes it very difficult to read through everything.
Thanks very much. --Elizabeth M.
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Sep 11 14:05:41 1996
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 16:07:30 +0000
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Liam Campion)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: environment?
References: <v01540b0aae5c7efebd27@[205.163.143.11]>
human consciousness and power is tiny compared to the collective
sentience and power of the earth. in other cultures awareness of
ecological interdependence has been participatory. veganism, will not
relieve loss of species, habitats, and human ecological wisdom . human
brains developed to current capacity hundreds of thousands of years
before anything like "civilization." each of those generations required
recognition and nurture, each required knowledge of an ecosystem. we
are embedded in a system we can appreciate but not completely
understand. eco and mind in relationship. one arising with another. as
we learned to recognize our mothers becoming selves. does anyone know
stories about eco-transference? about awareness shared between species?
about self extending to significant ecological and spiritual features?
Maria Sabina's healing songs can begin from the point of view of
thunder, or mushrooms. i know someone whose awareness can manipulate
storms. and someone who intuited the return of ground water to
replenish her well, like a fountain under the earth. some people share
collective memory. what have we lost? how do we renew it? what form
of culture and distribution of respect supports this? is it possible to
reconstruct a potential from gynecentric sacred traditions?
my interest is more esthetic than academic outsider education maybe.
it's ok to post direct.
appreciatively,
mb (earth spirit woman)
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Sep 11 15:10:17 1996
From: "Eric Hepburn, ITC" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: environment? -- response to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 17:11:13 -0400
>>... each of those generations required recognition and nurture, each
>>>required knowledge of an ecosystem. we are embedded in a system we
>>>can appreciate but not completely understand...
- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This idea highlights a particular difficulty in modern environmentalism,
in the past humans, or humyns if you prefer, coexisted with nature out
of necessity. They were differentiated little from other animals, they
existed as a natural part of the food chain. As time progressed humans
developed the ability to exibit more and more practical control over
their natural environment, eventually transforming it into the concrete
and steel jungle that dominates the industrialized world. The
prehistoric relationship with nature has been replaced through this
process. Now the knowledge and familiarity that once existed between
nature and humans no longer exists in the industrialized world.
Learning about your environment, in an immediate sense, now means
learning where the grocery store is or how to order fast food. The
human-made environment has replaced the natural environment and the
relationship "with" nature has been eliminated. People still have a
relation "to" nature through their own biology, however the conscious
relationship and intimate knowledge that would characterize a
relationship "with" nature are ellusive.
>From this vantage point I think it is imperative that we recognize the
death of our human relationship with nature as it has existed in the
past and focus on how a new relationship can be forged for both the
present and the future.
For example, and relevant to an earlier topic of discussion: The
argument that environmental concern and vegetarianism are intrinsicly
linked. From the perspective of looking to the "old" relationship for
guidance, there is no link between the two... humans were, and continue
to be, omnivorous organisms therefore re-establishing the relationship
with nature is not linked to direct changes in dietary habits. However,
if we analyze the linkage from the perspective of looking to form a
relationship with nature where none currently exists the question
becomes a moral/philosophical one. What relationship do we wish to have
with nature? This is the difficulty of the forward looking approach, it
is a free choice approach. In truth the current situation is the result
of that free choice: society has chosen not to develop a relationship
with nature, but only to exploit and abuse it.
The question of vegetarianism is only one of many philosophical
questions we must answer before we, as a society, can establish a new
relationship with nature.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Sep 11 16:08:32 1996
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 15:08:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jennifer Gilden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: re: environment, vegetarianism
Since I introduced myself as a non-vegetarian, I feel inclined to respond
to Charlotte Sullivan's question about how one can be an environmentalist
and an omnivore. When I tried to respond I ended up writing a long essay
which I won't post here because it seems many people would like to move
on to a different topic. If you're really interested, please email me.
Jennifer
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Sep 11 16:27:47 1996
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 17:27:41 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Carol Cross)
Subject: re: environment, vegetarianism
To Jennifer, et al
I consideer the animals that live on the EarthHome as envirormentalists
since they did very little to distuurb the natural order of things. Very
few predators other than EarthHumans have sent species to extinction. In a
balanced ecosystem, life forms on the EarthHome live in balance by eating
each other, whether as decomposers such as earthworms, flies and such or
predators who eat grazers of grazers who eat plants. Eating plants does not
make you any better than those who eat animals. Plants are a higher form of
life who daily experience the energy of the sun and live in an excited or
exalted state. It is my theory that plants domesticated man in order to
disperse seeds worldwide. Thus my thesis, eat the lower energy animals and
leave the higher energy plants alone.
A planet where no organisms ate dead carcasses or brought down the weak
would soon crash like the deer crashed after the natural predators such as
mountain lions, were removed. Without meat or carcass eaters, we would soon
be miles deep in garbage and excrement.
Eating meat does not make you bad. Eating plants does not make you good. The
key is, how much of the available carrying capacity of the EarthHome are you
absorbing?
It just means you are an animal like the rest of LifeKind, eating,
defecating, and being eventually recycled.
Sharing and caring,
Dr. Carol
Carol Cross, Ph.D. EcoAgroForestry Founder
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone & FAX: 501-367-8736.
2801 Olive, #35A, Suite 113, PO Box 5208, Pine Bluff, AR 71611.
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