Large Fierce Mammal

Temporal Dreamscape 2 by TheArtistKnownAsAdam

With so much of the world pervaded by assorted iterations of Abrahamic religious influence, it gets forgotten that parts of it aren’t — and by that I don’t mean geographic places but fragments as small as individual people. Of those, some pursue non-Abrahamic but nonetheless still recognized paths — Buddhism for example — a disconcerting number live predominantly secular lives that contain little to no religious or spiritual elements, some substitute by finding politics, still more adhere to doctrines that include Wicca and Neopaganism — and people being people, all of the above are adhered to and/or practiced on a spectrum of sincerity from all consuming, through until something more interesting comes along, to selling something.

While True as far as it goes, and sufficient for tonight’s purpose, none of the aforesaid is offered as an exhaustive summary of the world’s spirituality, and doesn’t need to be. Rather, it will serve as a backdrop for a lesson in manners that anyone can use, to the benefit of everyone, and best of all, everything.

Notwithstanding the spiritual path taken by people, singly or in groups as big as nations, and no matter what fulfillment any of them may find in it, what I see lacking most in the world is Manners and I’m not talking about please and thank you.

Environmental destruction and devastation wrought in the name of human society is, on the surface, done under the watchful eye of trusty government agents whose job it is to rebrand destruction and devastation as something constructive. Even wise use of resources. And to be sure that when reprehensible acts are committed, it happens in remote locations, access to which is controlled by the perpetrator. “Nobody saw” gets equated with “didn’t happen”.

But it did happen didn’t it? And continues to happen. Politicians posture branding the burning of fossil fuels as the single greatest threat to planetary survival while advocating for a world where behaviours remain the same but with the energy source replaced with vast projects born of half-vast ideas. In which the raw materials required won’t be harvested in plain sight or poison anyone you know.

These are the same people who brought you wildfires blamed on “climate change” blamed on those aforesaid fossil fuels, while those who point out the vast tracts of recent memory were so thoroughly burned because they weren’t natural forest but tree plantations — hectare after hectare replanted after the original forest was felled and sold, but this time with a single species of highly flammable conifers with a known market value. Wetlands and bogs are filled or drained to relieve the “housing crisis”, deleting at a stroke their vital role in drainage and filtration, and increased demand for water to serve these new communities strains aquifers to non-existence. But it’s all “climate change” that more electric vehicles will fix.

Nobody pushing cryptocurrencies likes to talk about how much electrical power their literally money making computer games need to run.

Economies in parts of the world that rely on tourism to run, here in Nova Scotia for example, nobody involved questions the environmental consequences of moving people to experience what they’re selling. Nor the encouragement to February vacations to sun destinations on thirsty jets. Nor the “carbon footprint” of a cruise ship, or container ship to service online shopping, delivering goods from China where manufacturing is fueled by coal fired generated plants — the same kind western governments want to ban … from the sight of voters anyway.

There is a word for it, and that word is hypocrisy.

But what has all this to do with Manners, you ask?

To answer that, I will pause for a definition of Animism.

Animism is, in short, a way of being in the world, and treating everything in it as possessing a Spirit with attendant Connectedness to all other things. Animals (including humans), plants, places, bodies of water, all have Spirit, and this must be recognized and respected lest liberties be taken that invite consequences.

I posit that we are living in the time of consequences.

Because humans buy and sell Nature in an air of ownership of the sort that courts and money provide, and no thought given for the simple act of asking Permission.

I’ll conclude tonight with this commentary from the Esteemed Arith Härger on this very subject. You have my permission and encouragement to watch it in its entirety, and then think on all this until next time.