The Dionysian Naturalist

[appears in the blog Naturalistic  Paganism,  2015] As I look out upon the world the most pressing problem I see confronting humanity is climate change.  If we do not significantly curb our emissions soon and there is a 4° C rise in the global average temperature, most coral reefs would be killed, the Amazon rainforest would dry up and at least 40% of the world’s species would be doomed to extinction.  Our species and our planet have never faced such an enormous human-made crisis.  Modern industrial civilization, fueled as it is by petrochemicals, has drastically damaged the fragile biosphere that supports all life on this planet.  Those of us living through the early 21st century are experiencing the dying of our planet.  A massive wave of extinctions along with the ubiquitous degradation of diverse ecosystems are killing a significant portion of nature’s abundance and diversity.  While during the last few centuries first western societies...

[appears in the blog Humanistic Paganism , 2015] The relationship between humans and our natural world is enshrined and encapsulated in interpretive schemes and manners of conceptualization.  Our conceptions of nature act as resources which guide our everyday practices and give us a sense of possibility.  Given our current ecological crisis, enflamed as it is by global climate change and numerous other issues, we must critically scrutinize our current conceptualization of our natural world, figure out if it is contributing to our problems and consider potential alternatives that might be able to guide us to a more sustainable way of living.  Before addressing our modern image of nature, I first review the conceptions of the natural world found among our archaic ancestors.  I conclude by arguing that we need a new way of thinking about nature—as a “sacred living system”. “The Wisdom of the Earth” Close examination of the conceptions of the natural world...

Enchanting Naturalism [forthcoming, Humanistic Paganism] by Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D. I went looking for the soul of modernity and surprisingly found it to be alive, although severely injured and in vital need of resuscitation.  Let me first comment on the “alive” characteristic of the soul of modernity.   Religious institutions, theological doctrines and embodied spiritual traditions still inform most people’s lives and worldviews on the northern American continent.  Even that growing segment of the population called “None of the Above” (for their lack of official and formal religious identification) are often deeply involved in a wide range of alternative spiritual experiences in their personal and everyday lives.  These might include transcendent experiences in nature, yoga, tai chi, or other (often Eastern) traditional movement regimes, or Kaballah, prayer or other contemplative practices, etc.  Modernity, at least as how experienced ...