Category: Commentary
Posts discussing social and political issues of interest
The Order of Interbeing—Thich Nhat Hanh
Be open to receive others’ viewpoints, to learn throughout your entire life. Live simply and share time, energy and material resources with those in need. Find whatever means possible to protect life and prevent war. The concept of ‘interbeing’ comes from the Vietnamese Tiep Hien: Tiep means ‘being in touch with’ and ‘continuing’. Hien means [...]
The Philosophical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis—Lynn White
Michael Paul Nelson of Oregon State University, together with Thomas J. Sauer of the US Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service, reminds us of the prescient words of Lynn White, a historian of medieval science and technology, when he delivered a lecture on the 'Historic Roots of Our Ecological Crisis' in March 1966 at the [...]
Why can’t you take the gift we offer?
Yesterday, quite by chance, I happened on Ellen Fanning interviewing Wesley Enoch, Director of the Sydney Festival. She began by questioning him about the ALWAYS vigil installation at Barangaroo for the Sydney Festival, and whether it was making people uncomfortable in relation to the 'Change the Date' campaign about Australia Day on 26 January, the [...]
Listen to New Zealand’s Whale Whisperers
Hori Parata, New Zealand’s Maori Whale Whisperer: “As more whales beach and die – from exhaustion, heat stroke or seagulls feasting on their flesh – an acute sense of grief is growing among New Zealand’s indigenous people, who regard whales as their ancestors and taonga (treasures). These days it is like a zoo. People just […]
Jeremy Lent: A Plea to Yuval Harari
Here, with his permission, I share an article by Jeremy Lent of the Liology Institute. Like me Jeremy seeks to understand how humanity got to its current existential crisis in terms of its relationship to the 'more than human world' as climate change and species extinctions as the cumulative effect of modern techno-capitalism threatens the [...]
Eco-Civilization – Jeremy Lent
The crucial idea behind an ecological civilization is that our society needs to change at a level far deeper than most people realize. It’s not just a matter of investing in renewables, eating less meat, and driving an electric car. The intrinsic framework of our global social and economic organization needs to be transformed. And [...]
Deep Time Dreaming—The Meaning of Aboriginal Art
We are learning to see Australia through Aboriginal eyes, beginning to recognise the wisdom contained in their epic story… We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained a culture here through 50,000 years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of [...]
Liology
The Wild Mountain Collective shares similar aims to the Liology Institute, which flows from the work of Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning. Below is their explanation of the meaning of Liology and now it can inform our world view. My favourite quote from [...]