Sacred Tabernacles [part 5 of 9]: The Road to Reconciliation
What is there to do about this unimaginably massive problem of our desecrated earth? How do we respond to Mother Earth’s open hand after all that we have done? Where do we begin this overwhelming task of detangling all the trouble and turmoil we are part of?
In any broken relationship, reparation and reconciliation require that we dive deep within ourselves to examine our intentions, actions, and willingness to change. If we intend to repair and refashion our relationship with the natural world, with our Merciful Mother who holds us unconditionally, despite our horrific behavior, we must first acknowledge the trouble we have made and our worthiness to step into our place in nature.
The Way Home through a ‘Spacious Center’
Considering we are no longer standing on firm ground as a culture, Aftab Omer, in Creative Transgression, validates our modern existence where “norms, values, and practices no longer have credibility or legitimacy” (p. 31). In this moment of chaos and collapse, we are asked to transform and create a “‘spacious center’ where the creative potentials of diversity, conflict, and chaos can be actualized” (2005, p. 31).
This is a challenging, dangerous, possibly euphoric portage of turning toward our trauma. Creative transgressions call for principled and imaginative actions. These acts also require conscious sacrifice and a “willingness to experience difficulty, failure, and loss of privilege” (Omer, 2005, p.32).
Omer also points out, in times like these it is understandable that so many of us have lost our
“capacities for expressing compassion, courage, curiosity, and dignity… our evolutionary heritage… Recreating a cultural center entails rekindling the sensitivities, interdependencies, reciprocities, and initiations that enable the generational continuity of these capacities. … Fortunately, each time this great transmission fractures, the evolutionary gift of the human instinct to ritualize can serve to mend the broken connections.” (Omer, 2005, p. 33)
Omer gives us hope in desperate times with the perspective that all is not lost in chaos and confusion. This passageway is an opportunity where creativity can thrive and bring new meaning and order.
Omer’s work in the practice of accountability provides an orienting tool for this sometimes difficult terrain. Omer defines accountability as our “ability to make, keep and re-negotiate implicit and explicit agreements as well as the remedying of broken agreements” (Omer, 2011, np). His practice puts us on a path back toward relationship that is in integrity with ourselves and nature, holding ourselves accountable for our past and future actions.
Applying Omer’s practice for our accountable relationship with the planet requires us to 1) acknowledge how our actions have caused harm to the planet; 2) apologize and express our regret and remorse for creating the harm; 3) commit to future actions that both prevent harm and remedy previous harm; and 4) take action on those commitments (Omer, 2011).
If we adhere to this practice to acknowledge, apologize, commit, and act—even with the challenges of living in the modern world during this time of great change and uncertainty— we might find our place within the natural world. It is within the creative potential of the spacious center and the practice of accountable behavior that we make possible the change we all so desperately long to have for the natural world, ourselves, and future generations.
Doing the work of our hearts requires that we feel the grief and pain of our lost connection with Nature, and name those losses.
Awakening to the small, subtle clues of our daily activities brings nature into our awareness. Noticing what in our lives that either brings us closer to or farther from Nature will begin to build within us a readiness.
Some of our harming actions are so deeply imbedded in our culture that it may be impossible to avoid, like buying fuel for our car or large plastic containers of environmentally friendly soap. It is in our noticing, however, that we acknowledge our shortcomings, without letting it slip under the radar again or suffocate in useless shame.
Acknowledging and noticing Nature’s inherent sacredness and our experience of that holiness is a step toward addressing our internal landscape. We must find our specific apologies for what we have done, and what we have failed to do personally and on behalf of our ancestors. This is an enormous task. However, change happens incrementally, with small, purposeful steps.
Meditation, memory, crisis, and loss are entryways to our own awakening to the natural world.
Meditation, being present to ourselves, offers us the gift of surrender to something greater than ourselves.
Remembering jostles our longing. Crisis and loss are the impetus for action to connect with Mother Nature again.
Acknowledgements, apologies, and commitments to do better take us to the threshold of those passageways. Crossing the threshold with intentional actions is our rite of passage, our re-entry into relationship with Mother Nature from the liminal space where we now stand.
The next several blog entries in this series offer some larger historical issues as applications for Omer’s practice and more portages to transform our relationship with nature.
