Pagans and the Enviroment
I have been considering why we, as Pagans, are not more overtly environmentally focused, and whether or not this indicates a level of hypocrisy in the Pagan community? Well apart from the observation that not all paths that are generally lumped together under the label "Pagan" consider them selves to be 'Earth Based' we need to consider exactly what 'Earth Based' means in this context.A good working definition is provided by the Pagan Federation in the UK which reads "Love for and Kinship with Nature. Reverence for the life force and its ever-renewing cycles of life and death."
Now the important thing to note here is that it is expressed as a being 'Love for' and 'Kinship with' nature. It also mentions that there needs to be a reverence for the cycles involved. Now others may well have a different definition of what it means to be 'Earth Based' but generally the vast majority that I have come across expressed by serious Pagans tend to have a very similar feel to them. This reverence for nature includes, I suggest, an understanding of the fact that change is a fundamental part of nature, the cycles we talk about are not static cycles endlessly repeating the same orbit but dynamic ones where each journey round the cycle is subtly different to all the others that have gone before or those that have yet to come. These sort of dynamic cycles are seen frequently in nature. The phenomena of dynamic systems 'following' a strange attractor, part of the theory behind chaotic systems, is particularly prevalent in the natural environment where many environmental systems including weather systems are fundamentally based on these ever changing cycles.
For me being a Pagan, an Earth Based Pagan, means embracing this fact of change and accepting that the environment is not only subject to change but that change is a natural, and indeed, fundamental part of the Earth.
Others sometimes talk about looking back to the 'old' people who lived in harmony with the earth. It is suggested that, "They never impacted the environment the way we do today, they understood the Earth".
Understood they may have done but lived in harmony? I don't think so! Right from the start our earliest ancestors impacted their environment. Most of the forests in northern Europe were cut or burnt down by the time the Iron Age ended, and recent research based on analysis of Antarctic ice cores suggests that prehistoric farming prevented an ice age by raising the global temperature by something like 2 degrees.
These people lived with the earth on a day-to-day basis and yes understood in their very bones the cycles of the Earth and the web of life but they wouldn't have understood the suggestion that they shouldn't do anything to impact the environment. They lived in the environment and were part of that environment and were intimately part of the process of change.
So what does this say to Pagans today? How should we interpret "Earth Based" and how should it inform our actions?
Well, we need to accept that the Earth and its environment will change and that we are going to be part of that change. That doesn't mean that we can do whatever we like to the Earth and its environment because being Pagan brings with it other things that should inform how we look at and interact with our environment.
Many Pagans, myself included, have a sense of the deity that is broadly one of an immanent deity. That is to say that the deity, life force or whatever you wish to call it, is seen as completely within and constrained by creation. An immanent deity would be thought of as being part of creation in a literal sense, that is to say that every part of creation is part of the deity and that the deity is found in everything that has been created.
This has a profound impact on how we should see our interaction with the environment. If we harm the environment, the Earth, we are in a very real way harming ourselves. Now that is not always something that shouldn't happen, there are occasions where what looks like harm can in fact be beneficial. Most people would accept the harm caused by an operation to fix a broken leg for example as they understand that the harm caused will prevent, or correct a greater harm.
What it does tell us, however, is that we are not the external agents of change who impose our will on an unwilling Earth and that require Eco-warriors or Environmental activists to defend the defenseless Earth, but rather an organic part of the Earth and its environment. Agents of change yes, but no more or less that any of the other agents of change present in the universe and the Earth or indeed the natural propensity of everything to undergo change.
We also, as Pagans, accept the concept that we need to be, and are, responsible for our actions. The three-fold law embodies this concept, and even if you don't feel happy with the three-fold law of return most would happily accept that actions produce reactions. In our dealing with the Earth this principle also applies both on the local scale and on the global. Everything we do will impact on the Earth and the environment and all of these impacts cause change. Some of this change we can predict some we can't, but most often we simply never ask ourselves what change will result from our actions and how that change will come back to impact on us.
One of the factors complicating any attempt to decide what the likely outcome of any of our actions is the 'fractal' and 'chaotic' nature of our environment. There is a well-known example of this, where a butterfly in New York manages to cause a storm over London. Deciding exactly what actions will result in positive results and which won't simply isn't as simple as many would like to think. For a Pagan to take the decision to undertake a particular action, or support a particular environmental cause is made all the more difficult by the unpredictability of nature.
As I see it this embedding in the very earth itself, the acceptance of some form of a law of return, accepting responsibility for our actions and the difficulty in predicting the outcome of our attempts to influence the global environment leads me, at least, to a view that rather than the noisy, visibly active, single issue environmental activist or the thoughtful writer of articles for Pagan journals, for a lot of Pagans being "Earth based" means being sensitive to their activities, small and large, and how they might impact, as unpredictable as that might be. Not necessarily thinking deeply all the time about their actions and possible consequences but quietly aware of their part in the grand web. No single large scale project, reducing CO2 emissions, stopping use of CFCs or any other large decision will correct the damage that has been done or undo the changes already underway but many small changes, culturally sensitive and totally embedded in ecology of the earth and its web of existence, by everybody, has the potential to radically impact on the future development of the environment and whole earth eco-systems.
These personal and local actions can, and given a chance will, have a massive global impact. It doesn't take governments to pass laws or activists to protest noisily to cut CO2 emissions, it takes us to decide to walk a little more, buy locally produced goods or turn our heating down a degree. This is the basis of the advice "Think globally, act locally" and is probably one of the best expressions of the environmentalism of a truly 'embedded' Pagan that I can think of.
Using disposable tableware at the Pagan picnic may seem to be less than environmentally friendly but its impact may well be less than the impact of repeated use of powerful chemicals used in cleaning the traditional tableware. Not having an environmental focus for your meeting might seem strange but if the people there understand and feel their place in the earth and live their environmentalism, then such a deliberate focus is not only unnecessary but wouldn't even be considered.
Is this hypocrisy? Hardly!