17 Comments

In its own way, the postscript to your newsletter reinforces angst for the future.

Inherently, we all know what is at stake. And yet, show me one politician globally who is prepared to lay EVERYTHING on the line to allow this planet (and us) to breathe.

Outside my window, it is bucketing down thanks to a weather system entirely reinforced by climate change (La Nina married with the Indian Ocean Dipole). And whilst pollies run round saying they're diverting funds to help flooded communities and flooded foodbowls in Australia, it's too little and at best temporary.

I think TBH, that we the living community who love our environments really need to heavy-up. It's not about labels, it's truly about action - even in our own little communities and backyards. Every day we need to throw seeds around, plant trees - whatever it takes, remembering all the time that from little things, big things grow.

Expand full comment

Contrary to popular sociopolitical trends, dualism is not inherently evil. If you haven’t read it, you might find Eliade’s “The Sacred and the Profane’ interesting.

Expand full comment

"we believe that what happens to nature is fundamentally external to the concerns of humanity". I need to think more about this but it may be an example of rather flawed thinking. I think that nature is indifferent (I know this is personalising, so should be reframed) to the concerns of humanity and that that is binary thinking worth checking out? (concerns of nature v concerns of humanity, nature being anything organic which is not people).

We are about as significant as a rough asteroid, which, after all, may have us helped us blossom while destroying much else.

Nature in all its infinite variety will suffer and thrive with or without us - maybe better without the bit of nature which is us. All the fantasies about our power in this regard are a form of grandiosity. Makes for lots of journalism and book making though....

Let me know the flaw in my logic? Xxx

Expand full comment
Oct 21, 2022Liked by Dan Masoliver

So beautiful! Yes! In all areas of human/Earth life this outdated mental construct is crumbling. I think celebrating our inherent connection and organic support of/with the “natural” world is the path to our vibrant future as a species - honoring ourselves and all life on the planet.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the book rec! I’m excited to pick this up - it’s certainly a subject that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently!

Also, did you talk to Arit Anderson after? Joke together over a glass of wine? Create a secret handshake together? Or are you saving that for another post?

Expand full comment

The is a beautifully written piece, Dan. Love how this discussion marries increasingly unhelpful concepts in conservation with the "binary fallacy" (which--I promise you--is a difficult one for many to overcome!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma#:~:text=A%20false%20dilemma%2C%20also%20referred,but%20in%20a%20false%20premise.

If you've not read it already, I would recommend adding this title to your reading list The Rambunction Garden, by Emma Marris: https://amzn.to/3Dkd79m Despite the title, the book is less about gardening than the realization that--deliberately setting aside areas of "wilderness" and doing everything in our power to avoid change--is itself a form of gardening. Marris is a brilliant writer, and she believes any self-ordered collection of organisms should properly be viewed as "wild".

All that to say...GREAT post!

Expand full comment

I am in a group that has been discussing a book called A Course in Miracles and one of the main points is that it is the illusion of separation that causes suffering - that we are separate from Source, that we are separate from nature, and that we are separate from each other. One of it's messages is to move past thinking in duality. And politics in the US, like in the UK, has become very toxic and negative with an "us vs them" mentality.

Expand full comment

(You now know - see below- why I don't get invited to these events, which is also a form of binary thinking.)

Expand full comment