learning is actually remembering

“There is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man. The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things.” ~ Carl Jung - "unforgotten wisdom"

For Jung, the psyche is not in each of us, but we are in the psyche. And since psyche and image, for Jung are inseparably connected (“image is psyche, then imagination becomes the clearest, primary expression of psyche. 

Carl G. Jung, 1929, Commentary on the Golden Flower, CW13, §75.

"we speak of 'the environment,' which makes it sound as though this is something that's far away from us. But if we hold our breath for a few minutes while we consider the matter, we quickly realize that 'the environment' is constantly cycling through us through the air we breathe, through the water we drink, through the food we eat."
John Seed ~ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/newdimensions/stories/2006/1791140.htm

"There's only one thing that's going to be of any use, and that's a huge transformation in consciousness. Then we won't need to dig everything up and cut everything down in order to be satisfied, because we'll have found true satisfaction for that sense of emptiness inside of ourselves." http://www.abc.net.au/rn/newdimensions/stories/1999/45860.htm

Others:
David Abram ~ The Alliance of Wild Ethics ~ http://www.wildethics.org/ 
http://www.wildethics.org/essays/waking_our_animal_senses.html
http://www.wildethics.org/essays/reciprocity_and_the_salmon.html
http://www.wildethics.org/essays/eairths-imagination.html

Francis Weller ~  http://www.wisdombridge1.net/ 
http://www.wisdombridge1.net/?page_id=196
Joanna Macy ~ http://www.joannamacy.net/  http://www.abc.net.au/rn/newdimensions/stories/2010/2963821.htm
Paul Rademacher ~ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/newdimensions/stories/2010/3003245.htm
Catriona MacGregor ~ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/newdimensions/stories/2010/2977198.htm

Homo sapiens - time for a new name?  Facts about the planet and its destruction at our hands: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2011/3294576.htm

Julian Cribb: It is high time the human race had a new name. The old one, Homo sapiens - wise or thinking man - has been around since 1758, and is no longer a fitting description for the creature we have become. When the Swedish father of taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus, first bestowed itⁱ, humans no doubt seemed wise when compared with what scientists of the day knew about both people and other animals. We have since learned our behaviour is not quite as intelligent as we like to imagine, while some other animals are rather smart. In short, ours is a name which is both inaccurate and which promotes a dangerous self-delusion.

In a letter to Nature I am proposing there should be a worldwide discussion about the formal reclassification of humanity, involving both scientists and the public. The new name should reflect more truthfully the attributes and characteristics of the modern 21st century human, which are markedly different from those of 18th century 'man'.

Consider the following: Humans are presently engaged in the greatest act of extermination of other species by a single species, probably since life on Earth began. We are destroying an estimated 30,000 species a year, a scale comparable to the greatest extinction catastrophes of the geological past.ⁱⁱ We currently contaminate the atmosphere with 30 billion tonnes of carbon equivalent every year.ⁱⁱⁱ This risks an episode of accelerated planetary warming reaching 4-5 degrees by the end of this century and 8 degrees thereafter, a level which would severely disrupt food production.^iv Estimates for the ultimate losses from 8of warming range from 50 to 90% of humanity.^v
We have manufactured around 83,000 synthetic chemicals^vi, many of them toxic at some level, and some of which we inhale, ingest in food or water or absorb through the skin every day of our lives. A US study found newborn babies in that country are typically contaminated by around 200 industrial chemicals, including pesticides, dioxins and flame retardants.^vii These chemicals are now found all over the planet, and we are adding hundreds of new ones, of unknown risk, every year. Yet we wonder why more people now die of cancer.

Every year we also release around 121 million tonnes of nitrogen, 10 million tonnes of phosphorus and 10 billion tonnes of CO2 into our rivers, lakes and oceans, many times the amounts recirculated by the Earth naturally. This is causing the collapse of marine and aquatic ecosystems, disrupting food chains and causing 'dead zones'. More than 400 of these lifeless areas have been discovered in recent times.^viii
 
We are presently losing about 1% of the world's farming and grazing land every year. This has worsened steadily in the last 30 years, confronting us with the challenge of doubling food production in coming decades off a small fraction of today's area. At the same time we waste a third of the world's food.^ix
 
Current freshwater demand from agriculture, cities and energy use will more than double by mid century, while resources in most countries - especially of groundwater - are drying up or becoming so polluted they are unusable.^x
 
We passed peak fish in 2004^xi, peak oil in 2006^xii, and will encounter growing scarcities of other primary resources, including mineral nutrients, in coming decades. Yet demand for all resources, including food, minerals, energy and water, will more than double, especially in Asia.

Humanity spends $1.6 trillion a year on new weapons^xiii, but only $50 billion a year on better ways to produce food. Despite progress in arms reduction, the world still has around 20,000 nuclear warheads and at least 19 countries now have access to them or to the technology to make them.^xiv
 
Finally, we are in the process of destroying a great many things which are real - soil, water, energy, resources, other species, our health - for the sake of a commodity that mostly exists in our imagination: money. While money has its uses as a medium for exchange, humanity is increasingly engaged in mass self-delusion as to what constitutes real wealth, as is quite clear from the current financial crisis.

All of these things carry the risk of catastrophic change to the Earth's systems, making it difficult to justify our official sub-species name of Homo sapiens sapiens, or wise wise man. This not only looks like conceit, but sends a dangerous signal about our ability to manage what we have unleashed. A creature unable to control its own demands cannot be said to merit the descriptor 'wise'. A creature which takes little account of the growing risks it runs through its behaviour can hardly be rated 'thoughtful'.

The provisions of the International Code on Zoological Nomenclature provide for the re-naming of species in cases where scientific understanding of the species changes, or where it is necessary to correct an earlier error. I argue that both those situations now apply.

This is not just an issue for science; it concerns everybody. There needs to be worldwide public discussion about what is an appropriate name for our species, in the light of our present behaviour and attributes. Here are some names suggested by eminent Australian scientists. Marine scientist and author, Charlie Veron, suggests Homo finalis. Desert ecologist, Mark Stafford-Smith, proposes Homo quondam et futures - the once and future human. Spatial ecologist, Hugh Possingham, likes Homo nesciens - ignorant man. And atmospheric scientist, Barrie Pittock, suggests Homo sui deludens - self-deluding man.

Down the track we should not rule out an eventual return to the name Homo sapiens, provided we can demonstrate that we have earned it - and it is not mere flatulence, conceit or self-delusion. The wisdom to understand our real impact on the Earth and all life is the one we most need at this point in our history, in order to limit it. Now is the time humans get to earn, or lose forever, the title sapiens.

ⁱ Homo sapiens Linnaeus 1758. http://www.eol.org/pages/327955
ⁱⁱ See, for example, Eldredge N., The Sixth Extinction, http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html
ⁱⁱⁱHarvey F. Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink. The Guardian, 29 May 2011.
^ivSee Schnellnhuber HJ, Climate Change - the Critical Decade. (video)http://www.aclimateforchange.org/profiles/blogs/climate-change-the-critical
^vSee for example: Martin J. Commonwealth lecture 2010 or Schnellnhuber HJ in http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/scientist-warming-could-cut-population-to-1-billion/
^viUS EPA Chemical Substances Inventory (2011)
^viiEnvironmental Working Group, 2005. http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/execsumm.php
^viiiDiaz RJ and Rosenberg R, Spreading Dead Zones. Science, June 2008.
^ixGlobal food losses and food waste, FAO, 2011
^xChartres C and Varma S, Out of Water, FT Press 2010
^xiFAO State of World Fisheries 2010
^xiiBirol F, IEA 2010.
^xiiiSIPRI 2011,http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/resultoutput/trends


 

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great,
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
Dogen