[DRAFT]

Myths are really about the nature of nature —Robert Bringhurst

nce upon a time, there was a planet that spun round and round in the empty blackness of cosmic space. Of course this is what planets do – spin round and round I mean – so nothing special there.

Still, this particular planet was in many ways a cosmic stand-out, a superstar among terrestrial worlds. In short, it gleamed with the lively gleam which is the mark of Life, a thing of beauty unspeakable. Nobody who once glimpsed this Living World, this planet Earth, this bright blue visage turning majestically there in the blackness, gleaming blue and green and tan, all enveloped in its celestial aura, ever forgot it.

Now it happened that the surface of this life-giving planet teamed with trillions of creatures numbering in the billions of different kinds. The great majority of these different kinds were microscopic in size and lived on the insides of things, not least the surface of the planet itself. At the other end of the continuum were a few tens of thousands of species who, if they chanced to fall, say, even 100 metres through space, would splat.

Not the least inconsequential of these latter species was an enterprising creature notably described by some as a featherless biped, by others as a forked radish, and by others still as trouble. These of course were the humans, or Homo sapiens if you prefer.

When we catch up with these humans, things are looking a bit down. Indeed, it’s lately begun to dawn on the more astute among them that their future on this earthen planet no longer beckons as it once did – any more than the prospect of falling head-most down the face of a frowning, splat-worthy precipice would usually seem to beckon.

Looking back, it occurred to some that certain asymmetries in the relation of power to wisdom, their prevailing cultural credo – Excelsior – that it was this, finally, that brought them to this splatworthy pass.

Now in the days of their ancestors, these humans learned, by trial and error mostly, that it was best to make do with enough. No Excelsior for them. Life was not always easy in those days, yet it was sugar-coasted in meaning and the land, like the planet, was beautiful beyond words, so nobody thought to complain.

Much had been lost that should not have been forgotten; and instead of reading the land written in the hand of the Living World, they had taken to reading books written by other people instead.

As fate would have it, the turn to books came about the same time when some early mathematically minded scientists looked out at the universe and saw, not a universe, but mathematical formulae, a machine, a wind-up watch. (Silly people: who could possibly mistake the universe for a watch of all things?)

From this they decided that God – the god they imagined in their heads, a god bearing no resemblance to any real god living or dead – must be on some sort meditation retreat, sitting there up in the sky, in heaven, there on his golden throne, simply watching the universe tick-tock away as though he didn’t have better things to do with his time. And who can say, perhaps they were onto something.

Still, these were people of the book, remember. So we shouldn’t be too surprised if they thought, a silly idea really, that reading books was the same as touching the Living World itself. Nor should we get tied up in knots if one among their number, a book-learned bloke, one day came along and pronounced the following words: As it is done in heaven, so let it be done on Earth.

Whew, was that a mistake or what!

Anyhow, and so it was done.

STAY TUNED FOR PART II

Tyger Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?   – William Blake

The Ancient of Days
by William Blake

here’s a fearful symmetry going on, one that seems to have gone unnoticed, but that needs to find its way into general consciousness pronto, and it’s this: that what we do to the Living World in pursuit of our cult of more, so the Living World rhymes in devastating ways of its own.

The case is best made with examples. Here are a few.

• Cut enough forests and the Living World gets into the act and burns down the rest.
• Drain enough aquifers and the Living World responds by bringing about biblical drought.
• Impoverish enough soil, and the Living World takes care to blow the rest away, a kind of Gobi Desert Effect.
• Heat the oceans enough, and the Living World will turn up the thermostat on you for a hundred thousand years. And that’s being optimistic.
• Disregard the Living World enought, and the Living World will sooner or later disregard you out of existence.

In short, for every corporate-initiated, corporate-friendly tit there’s a more or less rhyming Gaia-initiated tat.

If there is any more powerful reason for changing our ways tout de suite, reconciling with the Living World sooner than later, and getting on with the business ASAP, I’m sure I really don’t know what it is or could be.

(with thanks to Shaun Chamberlin)

Why walk around half dead when we can bury you for $39.95? —Mortuary ad

y no means is Edgewood Wild an ode to dejection. On the contrary, I think you’ll find there’s much to enjoy here and take pleasure in. Still, we do live in troubling times and this calls for sober reflection…

What does it mean to be a young person in a time of intersecting crises, of biblical weather, of gathering darkness? For that matter, what does it mean to be the parents of a child in such times? Of course, it’s true that other people in other times have faced uncertain futures and, indeed, much worse.

Still, it does seem our fate and our fate alone to confront a future that refuses resolutely to beckon anywhere and everywhere all at once.

Depression, said Rollo May, rightly I think, is the inability to imagine a future for oneself. Trying to believe in a future in time of Climate Crisis is a lot like that. It’s like putting your foot in a leghold trap tied to a stone on a raft of sea ice melting in the sun, and then trying to whistle a happy tune about it.

In response, and especially as scientists and naturalists, we at Edgewood have felt compelled to ponder the underlying forces at work here, and have done so a very long time. Ultimately this pondering has prompted us to think deeply about our personal and collective relationship to the Living Earth. Some of the outcomes of this thinking are laid out here before you: Edgewood Blue.

To put this into words isn’t easy. Still, we could do worse that to mention our conviction that life is profoundly mysterious. By this we don’t mean the mystery that comes of not understanding; that’s ignorance, not mystery. What we’re pointing to, rather, is the kind of mystery that come of life being fundamentally unknowable.

To take a simple example near at hand, consider the fact, presumably true, that you grasp the essence of what we’re trying to say in this little essay. Now take a few moments to ponder the fact that you grasping our meaning. Go deeper, then deeper, then deeper still. Think clearly and it’s pretty likely you will realize that you have no idea how it’s possible to mentally “grasp” anything; nor is there a cognitive neurologist in the world who can enlighten you on this point (notwithstanding that there may be some who think they can). The fact of the matter is that cognition, right from the get-go, should simply not be possible in the world as we understand it.

We also hold, with many others, that science is unlikely in the extreme ever to plumb the depths of the mystery that is life. More than that, some of the insights into the quantum world make it more likely, not less, that there’s an intelligence behind life. To go much further than this is dangerous ground, but suffice it to say that the mystery that is life is not incompatible with the mystery to which many, at least in earlier times in our culture and still today in other cultures, would wish to designate as God.

We could do worse then than to believe in mystery; for mystery is always there, right in front of us, of beneath us, holding us up, whether we notice it or not, and simply cannot be gotten around if we pause long enough to look about us.

Actually, there’s another reason to believe in the mystery of life – quite apart from the fact that it’s there. Quite simply, believing in mystery opens a space for hope.

Not for the sake of saving the Living Earth should we believe. The Living Earth has taken care of itself for about four billion years, and will continue to do so long after we’re gone. Let us believe rather for our own precious sakes, because believing in the mystery of life is, after all, life-affirming. And because, most of all, what’s good for life in the short term is good for life in the long term, for those who come after.

Here then is some small counsel to consider. Nobody ever escaped a crisis by ignoring it, nor do we improve our chances by despairing of it. Instead, let’s take special care to teach our children to embrace the mystery of life and, while we’re at it, the beauty of the Living World – even if doing so breaks their hearts from time to time, as most certainly it will.