eco-participation

Participation is everything! Now let me tell you what I mean...

“Where is the “me”? Where does the “me” begin? Where does the “me” stop?….Is it with my skin? With my behavior? With my personal interfacing connections and their influences and traces?” — James Hillman

psyche in everything

Consider psyche as an ecosystem, where all things are interconnected. Begin with the idea of anima mundi, or psyche continuous in all things. Dreams, events, ideas, moods, weather, landscape features, health conditions, recurrent themes, and interactions unfold, all of a piece. Contemplate this unfolding every day—an unusual practice in today’s dominant culture—and, I assure you, a practice we desperately need! Because who wouldn’t agree that the myth of the rugged individual is busted? “Me against the world”? I don’t think so.

You’re in the world, aren’t you? Always. Composed of the same elements and influences that flow through us all. And the keyword is “flow” because you are part of an ongoing active process of exchange, as air - earth - fire - water flow through us, in all their various forms. Not to mention inspiration and emotion! How, then, do we come to think of ourselves as separate? Isolated? Alone?

The idea that the human exists outside of nature is one unfortunate consequence of the philosophical “mind-body split” and the privileging of rational thought above all other ways of knowing. Let’s do our best to remedy this infirmity, and no time to lose.

guided meditation

Engaging creatively with the stuff of life, whether it be material or imaginal, is an expression of vitality. It reminds us that we are in relationship with the world around us. Happiness and self-meaning emerge. Without a sense of participating in the shaping of the world, how can there be fulfillment?