Brief Comments on Ecopsychology, Norse Mythology, Feminine Capacities for Knowing and Efforts Toward Creating a New Green Earth

Title "Ecopsychology and Indigenous Science" (Continued)

Ecopsychology and indigenous science can thus be understood as an emerging psychological awareness, and a growing cultural response, to the mark and wound of EuroAmerican science's imperialistic grasp for the control of a reality experienced as an external other comprised of isolated parts (Kremer, 1997). Other is the splitting from our indigenous origins that continues to be colonized and manipulated by a rationalistic dissociated worldview (Kremer, 1994); a worldview dominated by masculine heroes whose quest for knowledge has excluded heroines from this quest, thereby eliminating feminine capacities for knowing (Kremer, 1992a). How can we learn to think and be in the world in a way "that breaches this dissociation--without abandoning the achievements of 'scientific thinking?'" (Kremer: 4, 1992b). "How can we determine what is real and true in our world without subscribing to a rationalistic imperialism?" (Kremer: 4, 1992b). "What is the direction in which the masculinized hero needs to go in order to integrate the feminine, the wild, and the awareness of participation in world creation?" (Kremer: 4, 1992b). This call to reinvent our narrative construction of science and culture is one of ecopsychology's many attempts to answer this call for a more integral science. With any reference I may make in future blogs to the use of "indigenous plants" one should be aware of local laws on use and or possession; and be on your guard accordingly.

Ecopsychology is therefore fundamentally intertwined with indigenous science, which Theodore Roszak refers to as "Stone Age psychiatry," telling us: "The wisdom of indigenous peoples is of vital importance to ecopsychology" (Roszak: 1, 1994). Many mainstream anthropologists and archeologists tend to shrug off the importance of what Roszak refers to as Stone Age psychiatry, choosing to regulate the knowledge of indigenous peoples to the well-established categories within EuroAmerican science. Countering conventional wisdom, Kremer suggests that in doing this, EuroAmerican science has actually prevented our ability to critically examine the contributions of our ancestral lineage. Kremer points out that: "Native or indigenous or tribal people's have had for millennia a practice of lived knowing that can legitimately be called scientific--an these indigenous sciences continue to exist among the surviving indigenous people" (Kremer: 2, 1996).

In seeking to reclaim his own genealogical ancestry, Ralph Metzner has thoroughly explored Norse mythology and its relationship to ecopsychology and indigenous science in "The Well of Remembrance: Rediscovering the Earth Wisdom Myths of Northern Europe" (1994). This book examines the often ignored and mistakenly villified earth wisdom myths of Northern Europe, allowing us to investigate one of the many paths toward creating a unity between intellect and emotion, psyche and earth. These myths are part of the religious heritage of people who are Scandinavian, Swiss, German, Dutch and Anglo-Saxon. Our examination of these myths is not an attempt to exclude any race or ethnic group. Instead I believe these myths, all myths, all spiritual traditions need to be available for anyone, any culture, who are seeking to authentically investigate and rediscover them. Indeed we are going to need some kind of re-invention of the human if we are going to insure the evolutionary continuation of our species.

Meanwhile our need for environmental awareness and the technical knowledge of how to sustainably manage nature's resources remains a growing topic of concern. In spite of this awareness, our possession of greater knowledge and skill does not guarantee that we will act differently toward nature. Besides acquiring the knowledge of how to live sustainably, we need the motivation to put this greater environmental awareness into practice. We need an environmental ethic, or an ecological worldview, to guide our thoughts and actions. "The Well of Remembrance" ofers us one of many ways to begin conceptualizing this ecological worldview through the image of a New Green Earth rising from the ashes of the industrial age. This image of a New Green Earth, whose awakening of Gaia consciousness through our use of sacred visionary plants, will take us to the edges of our epistemolgical horizon (the edge of our current ways of knowing); opening humankind's doors of perception to a more inclusive, co-evolutionary, sustainable worldview.

References

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

Kremer, Jurgen W. (1992b). "Whither Dark Night of the Scholar?" ReVision, 15 (1), 4-12.

Kremer, Jurgen. W. (1994). "Seider or Trance? Toward An Archeology of the Euro-American Tribal Mind." ReVision, 16 (4), 183-191.

Kremer, Jurgen, W. (1996). "The Dark Night of the Scholar: Reflections on Culture and Ways of Knowing." ReVision, 14 (4), 169-178.

Kremer, Jurgen W. (1997). "Mind on Fire." ReVision, 19 (3), 42-48.

Metzner, Ralph. (1994). "The Well of Remembrance: Rediscovering the Earth Wisdom Myths of Northern Europe." Boston: Shambhala.

Roszak, Theodore. (1994). "The Greening of Psychology." The Ecopsychology Newsletter, 1, Spring, 1, 6. (See the on-line archives at "The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy.").