by Salvatore Folisi.
THE MODERN WESTERN MIND operates mainly through the channels of rationality and reason. Because we seem to have attained a status of virtual mastery over our environment to acquire what we need or want, we have little interest in the more profound dimensions of that living environment, the limitless beings of nature, or our potential relationship with those beings and forces, that surround us—with whom we live and die, and upon whom we depend for our ongoing existence. However, regarding the whole of humanity over our entire span of evolution upon this planet, the modern Western perspective may in fact be the exception to the general rule, an anomaly, or at least merely one perspective among many that have served and in various ways enriched humanity down through the millennia.
Pre-Western modes of humanity—which have also been termed “native,” “indigenous,” and “primitive”—emphasize the faculties of intuition, sensation, and feeling more potently in their focus upon the interrelationship of human beings with the multifarious manifestations of the natural world. Pre-Western perspectives also employ these faculties in discerning spiritual forces at play through this world of created forms, of living creatures whose life-force according to these perspectives is both a mystery and a blessing, and whose origins can possibly only be imagined.
In his autobiography, Lame Deer Seeker of Visions, the author—a 20th Century Native American yuwipi, or shaman-healer—states, “The spirit is everywhere. Sometimes it shows itself through an animal, a bird or some trees and hills. Sometimes it speaks from the Badlands, a stone, or even from the water.” In this paradigm of co-existence within the web of life, human beings take what they need with a certain measure of piety from the world of living creatures. They also have particular, even religious, ways in which they give back to the earth, and so to the spiritual presences or realities which are intuitively felt to have expressed themselves through the earth. Therein lies a profound difference which distinguishes the pre-Western from the modern Western mind-set.
According to Malidoma Somé, a medicine man from Burkina Faso, West Africa who leads international workshops on ritual, healing, and community—author of the book Of Water and the Spirit—in his indigenous African culture the first serving of a meal is given back ritually to the earth from which it came, as an offering of thanks for having been granted the food needed to sustain body and life. To the modern Western mind this may seem to be both wasteful and ridiculous because, rationally speaking, it makes no sense—we think of the homeless and the hungry, of people who are starving, and also remember how as children we were admonished to eat every scrap upon our plates. However, when viewed through an intuitive and symbolic lens, the act of serving the first dish to the earth is not only beautiful, it also conveys a feeling of connection and relationship with the greater mysteries and powers of the earth with whom we are in constant communion—if only through involuntary process such as the force of gravity, continual sensory intake of our surroundings, and every breath we take.
Giving back even the first bite of an entire meal to the earth is an act of humility and a way of at least attempting to strike a balance in our relationship with the awesomely generative and nurturing natural world. It is a way of communicating thankfulness and appreciation as well as acknowledging and in some small way honoring the incredible miracle of our lives upon this planet. Giving back to the earth is akin to, and complicit with, the prayer that precedes the devouring of the meal which is composed of an animal and/or plant that lost its life so that we could continue our own.
In the modern Western forms of Christian prayer we tend to think of, and thank, God for the meal; but pre-Western spiritual views tend to view God the Creator as implicitly synonymous with God the Creation. Asserting this view from a Native American perspective, Lame Deer states, “But all animals have power, because the Great Spirit dwells in all of them, even a tiny ant, a butterfly, a tree, a flower, a rock.” In these modes of understanding, God is not merely hiding out or waiting for us far away in an undisclosed spiritual dimension, as a theoretical authority figure who has the power to grant us a final redemption or rejection at the conclusion of our earthly lives. In most earth-based religions—which are generally termed “animism”—the spirit of God is felt to inhabit the landscape and to live very close to humankind and to every other creature as well.
Although God may ultimately be considered to be a mystery, to the pre-Western way of thinking God the Creator is also evidenced, and so sensed and related to, through this physical realm of animals, plants, trees, rocks, rivers, earth, sun, planets and stars—not to mention human beings—as God the Creation. As Lame Deer so poignantly sums this up, “All of nature is in me, and a bit of myself is in all of nature.” Therefore, to this sort of mind set, giving back an actual portion of the meal—a creative transformation of earth materials enacted by human beings through labors of love and preparation—would be viewed as a significant gift. What also seems significant about this ritual and the thinking that underlies it is its emphasis on the importance of not just taking from the earth, but of also giving back, thereby achieving some sort of balance through returning the gift of life to the source of life.
Even if the earth and the perceived spiritual forces moving through the earth have no literal need of ingesting food, the human act of feeding the planet denotes an attitude of respect, responsibility, care, and nurturing which perhaps has positive repercussions in humankind’s ongoing needs for survival, as well as our needs for maintaining a set of ethics, morals, and philosophical principals that inform and guide our relationships with the earth and Her creatures.
Lamentably, through our current lifestyle we mainly excel at “giving back” gargantuan loads of trash to the earth: as excessive random litter and unending garbage into landfills; continual toxic wastes, oil spills, industrial runoff, and sewage into the rivers, lakes, and oceans; and tons of pollutants via cars, factories, refrigerators, and other forms of industry into the skies.
In essence, what modern civilization feeds the planet is mainly poison.
Not only that, we are taking more and more and more through our constant development of land, deforestation, and overall mining of the earth’s natural resources. Although we tend to believe that we have evolved beyond the mentality and overall capacity of the pre-Western mind-set, there is obviously much we can learn from rudimentary reflections upon their perspectives and everyday practices. And though we triumph the victory of reason and rational thinking over the “foolish and outdated” ways of primitive cultures—with their superstitions, rituals and symbolic thinking—it is obvious that they still have some very important lessons to teach us.
In this current era, in which there is such monumental damage being done to the earth and biosphere through modern industry and technology, the practice of giving back something nourishing to the earth is a profoundly enlightening instruction on modifying and improving our relationship with the planet. Perhaps what must change first is the philosophy of living that underlies our interactions with all the other beings that also comprise the earth. When almost everything about our culture is infused with the feeling of domination over the earth, we forget that in essence we are primarily earth creatures, earth beings, human beings that cannot survive or thrive without a thoughtful and considerate way of life that takes the greater whole of earth, atmosphere, and universe into account.
We have insulated ourselves from the surrounding ecological environment in many ways. We tend to study, work, and play mainly in our own enclosed, human-made, indoor environments, wherein the only emissaries of nature may be a dog or a few plants. As a species, we’ve isolated ourselves from the panorama of our fellows such that we conceive of human life as something almost entirely separate from life as a whole on the planet—for, amongst all the species, only humans live the vast majority of our lives in boxes: from our homes, to our schools, to our offices, cars, shopping centers, malls, movie theatres, coffee shops, bars, restaurants, roller rinks, bowling alleys; even many of our newer sports stadiums are now enclosed “domes.” This list of course does not account for our television, which is the box that most of us live our lives through on a daily basis.
What is this propensity we’ve developed for shutting the natural world out and enclosing ourselves inside our own self-created environments? Are we compensating for some secret fear of being devoured or destroyed by the very planet which we are steadfastly devouring and destroying ourselves? We of the modern Western world view ourselves as belonging to an exclusive club in which we, and only we, have inherited the right to claim whatever we want from whoever we want, without regard to the consequences of our actions on other (mainly non-Western and pre-Western) people, or on the other species and ecosystems of the earth. We have developed an entitled perspective in which we must have limitless access to limitless choices and options for satiating ourselves—and we must have what we want right now! But does this attitude not also belie an unconscious state of chronic dissatisfaction with our lives in general?
Through giving back something of intrinsic generative value to the earth, either literally or symbolically, in the form of food, prayer, sacrifice, or heartfelt offering, we receive the satisfaction and the encouragement that we are of this world, that we have enough to share a little and to acknowledge our co-existence with other creatures and planetary forces. Giving back doesn’t have to be an elaborate or pretentious ritual that makes us feel awkward; it can simply be a small gesture or action that signifies one’s compassionate interconnection with the world. We can be both creative and inventive in how we choose to give back to nature, to the planet, or the cosmos. What matters most is integrating this awareness into our daily lives so that an ebb and flow, a give and take, a mutually benefiting and reciprocal relationship can be consciously manifested.
Adopting a reciprocal way of being quite possibly invokes the kind of attitude and energy that is needed to help save humanity from extinguishing ourselves from the face of the earth. I offer these ideas as concepts which may be pondered and applied as one wishes, and in one’s own unique way. Perhaps affirming and integrating a few ancient principals which have maintained harmony on the planet for millennia can help to guide us in a time when our own way of life is threatening to eradicate all sentient beings.
NOTE: In pre-Western paradigms, the environment is less harshly or distinctly delineated from the person or from humans as a species. In other words, in these modes of living, human beings conceive of and experience themselves as being part of the environment, as being inseparably related and identified with “the environment.” The environment is, in essence, the part of you that exists outside the boundaries of your physical body. The environment is also, in essence, part of you, because without an “environment,” there would be no “you.” The environment becomes part of you through your senses, your mind, your body, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. To every other human, and to every other living being, you are part of their environment, just as, to you, they are part of yours. Your environment defines and shapes who you are, just as you define and shape your environment. The modern world has more poignantly attempted the separation of the human being from their environment than any other culture, however impossible this may be.
[“Giving Back to The Earth” is an essay featured in Salvatore Folisi’s book Eros Over Logos: Revolt Against The Madness of Modernity]