Brief Comments on Ecopsychology, Witchcraft, Social Justice, Genocide, Forgotten Christianity, and War

The following blog is much different than my previous writing posted here on Light Workers. Therefore in my critique of Christianity that follows, taken from the work of Jurgen W. Kremer, I mean the worst of what Christianity has morphed into. I do not mean the version that Elaine Pagels talks about in "The Gnostic Gospels" or that which Jacob Needelman talks about in "Lost Christianity: A Journey of Rediscovery To the Center of Christian Experience." Nor do I mean the work of Brother David-Stedelrast, who I spent time in walking meditation, conversation and one-on-one talks at breakfast in June 2004 at the International Transpersonal Association conference in Palm Springs, California. In one such conversation I said to David how much I enjoyed his depth of mystical understanding and authenticity, to which he replied, "it takes one to know one, Mark." With these clarifying comments, I continue to warn you, the statements below may be difficult for some of us to hear.

Title: "Ecopsychology's Relationship to Indigenous Science."

"What no home now? It's not the same. Its not there anymore. Don't know who the fuck to blame. They say that home is where the heart is. What do you do when its ripped in two? They say that home is where the heart is. When you've got nothing what would you do? What would you do, if I were you?" Tim Masters, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1998

Whenever I listen to Tim Master's song "Home" my imagination creates scenes of war-torn nations, shatterd families, broken relationships, people struggling for social justice, and the need to remember my own fragmented geneological origins. Jurgen Kremer sums up this loss of home in his essay "Millennial Twins" An Essay into Time and Place": (a very long quote follows)

"Since the middle of the 2nd millennium, we find an increasing prevalence of what is now called ethnic cleansing. The murderous forces, which were in large part Christian-church dominated, perpetuated genocide not just against indigenous peoples in other countries but against the holders of indigenous knowledge within their own boundaries, including women who were killed in witchhunts. Genocide in the service of the Eurocenterd story continues relentlessly planetwide, primarily through the various forms of economic globalization, also known as Americanization (the destruction of sustainable economies and the creation of dependency in the name of progress and civilization). While we may be tempted to soften the shock of this process by calling it cultural genocide, it can be considered to be the genocide of cultures and cultural identities. People are murderd as the indigenous persons they are even though they may resurrect themselves as persons of Eurocentered minds. Pervasive ecocide and sexism are corollaries to this story" (Kremer: 33, 2000).

In an attempt to begin the process of healing this genocide, Kremer remides us of the essential importance that remembering the indigenous names of places, plants and stories of all cultures has upon our psyche. Kremer points out that it has been humankind's "cultural amnesia" of indigenous science that has created the psycho-historical space where the currently dominant social, economic, political theories, polices, and practices could grow, allowing humankind's most powerful and wealthy to feed their grub-like egos. These gluttons live in a total state of denial about the consequences of their grub-like consumption of planet Earth's natural systems. Meanwhile the future of planet Earth and all its creatures hang in the balance between hope and extinction, praying that the miracle of a transformation of consciousness comes in time to save us from total destruction.

Kremer's research has in countless ways continued to influence my undestanding of indigenous science and its relationship to ecopsychology in an ever deepening meditation since I began reading his work in 1992, beginning with his essay "The Dark Night of the Scholar: Reflections On Culture and Ways of Knowing." My interest in uniting ecopsychology and ndigenous science finds resonance with Kremer's personal "attempt to speak from a recovering indigenous perspective" (Kremer: 41, 1996). This discussion is echoed in some of my other blogs and will be continued in future ones.

References

Kremer, Jurgen W. (1992). "The Dark Night of the Scholar: Reflections on Culture and Ways of Knowing." ReVision, 14 (4), 169-178.

Kremer, Jurgen W. (1996). "The Shadow of Evolutionary Thinking." ReVision, 19 (1), 41-48.

Kremer, Jurgen W. (2000). "Millennial Twins: An Essay Into Time and Place." ReVision, 22 (3), 29-42.

Masters, Tim. (1998). "Home." Digital Bitch Shifter. Lincoln, Nebraska. Guarana Records.