Ecological Implications
ENDING OUR SPIRITUAL ISOLATION
Planetization will end our peculiar state of being 'spaced out' of our biospheric grounding, as well as end our spiritual isolation from all the rest of creation. Under the Planetization paradigm, we'll find ourselves living 'in context' with our local eco-systems and relying on appropriate, Earth-friendly technology. The accidents of birth which currently define and divide us along national, ethnic and religious lines will be replaced with a higher order unity among us at the species level. These archaic divisions along bloodlines, nationality and religion that now largely shape our beliefs and allegiances, and which so often determine our fate; will be rendered insignificant under Planetization. It will transform not only our most entrenched institutions - but even how we self-identify in the most meaningful way.Theodore X Barber, PhD. writes in The Human Nature of Birds, "Humanity's destructive impetus will be stopped when the natural world is perceived in a new way." Many others also agree with Barber that our propensity for environmental destruction can't be stopped at the policy level alone, by adopting more Earth-friendly lifestyles, or by becoming more environmentally responsible consumers. These are all positive steps, but they're doomed to failure if we don't go deeper and heal the psychic and spiritual rift between our species and the rest of creation.
"By working with devotion and commitment to befriend birds and to understand their intelligence and personality you will be acting as part of a revolutionary movement that will change the consciousness and destiny of the human race..."
Theodore Barber
The Human Nature of Birds
The choice we now face is not only one between globalization and planetization. If we maintain our alienation from Earth and the rest of the natural world, we're bound to carry out in the future the same environmental devastation which exists today. Planetization involves not only grounding ourselves in our planetary presence, but in restoring our primal connection to the rest of creation and re- learning how to walk in 'right relationship' to them.
Living 'In Context' with All of Creation
If learning how to live 'in context' with the natural world is viewed as a step backward under the present paradigm, re-learning how to live 'in context' with all our non-human relations is regarded as equally regressive. But just as living in harmony with the natural world really amounts to a giant step foreward in our thinking, re-learning to feel ourselves once more woven into the Web of Creation is
also a quantum leap foreward into our future. It marks a significant break with the old paradigm with its emphasis on separation, control and subjugation toward all other beings, and our Earth. Re-weaving ourselves into the Web of Life is not something peripheral to the new paradigm - but is a fundamental part of it.
"Men and women everywhere are being made acutely aware of the fact that something essential to life and well-being is flickering very low in the human species and threatening to go out entirely."
J Allen Boone
Kinship With All Life
Feeing ourselves once again woven into the Web of Life will not only end our alienation and isolation from the rest of creation, but will put us back in touch with our own creatureliness as well. We haven't lost our creatureliness - we've just lost touch with it. Our creatureliness is our humanness. Even acknowledging that we have a unique creatureliness peculiar to our species is anathema under the present paradigm. It's as heretical an idea as renouncing nationalism, or extending one's felt sense of kinship beyond entrenched tribal boundaries.
Our Human Creatureliness
Just what is our human creatureliness? Re-claiming it in no way diminishes our human intellectual, technological and cultural achievements. Imagine aliens from a distant planet with a civilization much more advanced than our own, coming to Earth for the first time and landing on the White House lawn. Imagine the aliens disembarking from their mothership in full view of the entire world's media. Through many years of radio contact with them, we already know that these aliens are at least twice as intelligent as humans, and that they possess a very refined and sophisticated culture. They've already made their great libraries of learning and literature available online to the people of Earth. They've transmitted via satellite, their most sublime music and art. Their technological superiority has been known for years...Still, we've never actually seen them before.
Now, as these aliens disembark from their mothership, we finally get to see them for the very first time. They might have over-sized heads and unusually long arms and legs like the aliens portrayed in the film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Maybe they'll have large round eyes, deep pools of impenetrable, almost hypnotic blackness like the aliens depicted in Whitley Streiber's book, Contact... Maybe they'll move with gentle, slow movements, their overlong arms and legs graceful and delicate... Or maybe we'll be surprised to discover that they're more insectiod...Or reptilian...But whatever manner of being they turn out to be, what we'll notice first about these aliens is their creatureliness - both its tangible and intangible aspects. We'll note not only their physical form, but the emotional range and depth of their species, and their temperment. Do they have placid, bovine expressions..? Or do they somehow convey the machine-like movements and hive mentality of ants..? Their creatureliness is what we'll notice about them first - irrespective of their greater intelligence, culture, or technological superiority.