The Environment and Mysticism

by Jani Farrell Roberts. c2000

An extract from her book "Seven Days: Tales of Magic, Sex and Gender."

In the 12th century the mystic Hildegarde of Bingen was well aware that the Earth must be defended by all including the mystics. She wrote in words that seem prophetic today:

Now in the people that were meant to be green

there will be no more life of any kind.

There is only shrivelled barrenness

the winds are burdened by the utterly awful stink of evil, selfish goings on.

Thunderstorms menace.

The air belches out the filthy uncleanness of the peoples.

The earth should not be injured!

The earth must not be destroyed!

The 20th Century mystic and Benedictine, Thomas Merton, in his 'Emblems of a Season of Fury" expressed the fury of the mystic who sees the sacred earth in danger. He took the divine incarnation to mean that God was one with the object of his love, not just with Christ but the universe. This meant for him that we should cry with outrage when the object of love, the earth, was abused or raped.

Thus when a mining company covets the minerals on an Aboriginal tribe's land and elevates their hunger for profits above the rights and needs of the tribe, then they are making of profits an idol. When a man puts keeping his job above doing anything about a dangerous product that his company makes, then he is making an idol out of his job. But when we see creation as sacred and fight to protect her, see our neighbours as sacred and fight to protect them, then we are not committing idolatry but are worshipping the true god.

Merton wrote sadly of the Idolaters.

"They are those for him who have lose their real self and their passion for truth. Some are those who cannot bear the weight of being women or men. They have given their womanhood or manhood to the corporation or to a political idol. They and our race alike suffer from their wrecking of their potential. For me they had a place to fill that they have left empty, a destiny that they not fulfilled. The earth may well suffers more from what they have not done than from what they have done.

Please do not look only at the dark side in private life

these are kind men

They are only obeying orders...

You have the sympathy of millions

As a tribute to your sorrow we resolve

to spend more money on nuclear weapons -

there is always a bright side.

If this were only a movie a boat would be available -

have you ever seen our movies - they end happily...

You would not want the authorities to neglect duty.

How do you like the image of the free world -

sorry you cannot stay.

This is the first and last time we will see you in our papers.

When you are back home remember us

we will be having a good time."

He saw nuclear armed military forces as serving one of the most frightening of idols. They have in their custody the ultimate gift, the eggs of nuclear death. These they protect although they should be destroyed as soon as possible. They hold in their power the lives of all we know and love. Their temptation is to worship these eggs as an ultimate symbol of power, the ultimate antibiotic. This is also a temptation for the politicians that command them.

Merton pointed out that abortion was and is condemned while wars are blessed by churchmen. He reminded us what happened when the first atomic bombs were exploded. Over the radio went the religiously encoded message that the bomb Tinian had been successful. It was "visible effects greater than Trinity... Proceeding to Papacy." 34-36 Then the military governor of the Prefecture of Hiroshima issued a proclamation to the people without hands, without feet, with their faces destroyed, with their intestines hanging out, with their whole bodies full of radiation: "We must not rest a single day in our war effort... We must bear in mind that the annihilation of the stubborn enemy is our road to revenge." He was a professional soldier. Then, "On August 9th another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki though Hiroshima was till burning. The message came: " The Original Child... is now born..."

For me the evils that need fighting are birthed in the gloom of lives centred on human fabricated idols instead of on the sacred earth. These idols bring about quite different weddings of the human spirit. Instead of the sacred marriage to our holy earth, to her creatures, to the creating energy that makes and sustains us, the false weddings are:

to social norms

to social class

to race or faith

to skin or nationality

these are the idols..

and they bring emptiness..

and leave room open

for the empty God

that seeks power and is jealous,

that makes us feel insignificant,

unimportant,

that takes from us our divine gifts, our innate knowledge of what is good and beautiful; that makes us forget that we are truly made free, forget the lessons of childhood, forget what it is to be loved by and to trust a divine lover. We thus in ignorance create our spirit's prison.

I see the earth as capable of protecting herself from these evils through the living energy we call divine that infuses her. We need instead our true warriors - and I believe we are getting them. The earth knows what she needs. I believe that in her birthing chambers she is today dreaming the children she needs into life. She has always protected herself. She will create the children she needs and they will know each other, strengthen and support each other. She is the mistress of Creation, the One who Dreams, the one with Divine Imagination whose creations live, dance, sing and love - and hate .