Some thoughts on Derrick Jensen

I wrote this as a comment on a piece I came across in a blog that was describing the writers feeling of Derrick Jensen.


The fundamental result of all natural living processes is the improvement of the habitat for all life. If we are the descendants of anything, it is of bacteria. We eat, (every living cell eats..) and we men, women and children, metabolise about 20% of what we eat, we excrete the remaining 80% or so, which is then nutrient for yet more life, in that bacteria and insects eat that excreta and convert it into materials other living organisms, from bacteria to rainforests, can utilise, to make more abundant life.

That result is intentional. The web of living processes is far too complex and precise for it not to be.

Civilisation breaks that fundamental, uses 'resources' for it's own narcissistic 'needs' and leaves mostly toxic materials for which nature has, as yet, no corresponding metabolic processes, thus depriving the habitat from those materials converted into 'resources' and 'waste'. Uranium Tailings.

Trauma and abuse that go unresolved are akin to those toxic by-products of Civilisation, and unresolved trauma tends towards a trans-generational repetition of the cycles of abuse, due partly to the way the developing brain learns the neural pathways of abuse survival and partly because of the conscious actions of Power based abusers.

Jensen points out that empathy for/with the victims of abuse, for our natural selves as children born into this Civilisation (including natural living systems, the children of life) is the starting point for any real change, and that at present that empathy is lacking - mostly because those who are civilised have forgotten how to listen to natural living processes, because we have 'adjusted' or 'adapted' or 'conformed' or identified with the system of abuse by adopting abuse dynamic roles.

When we finally face the truth within ourselves, or as we do so, we become available to natural living processes as advocates and companions.

The does not mean 'going back'. We do not really know yet what that means. We might learn something of what that means if we stop the encroachment of civilisation onto those areas where ancient hunter gatherer societies live as and equal part of the habitat, not on it or even in it (both of which imply some sense of separateness).

We do know that empathy is learned and developed in the womb and as infants, and throughout childhood, and that those learnings are 'written' into the forming 'hardwired' neural pathways and networks, not only in the brain, but throughout the body. We do know that empathy is a superior long-term thrivival 'strategy'.

What we do with that information is up to each of us.

One thing is certain; those who Rule Civilisation, and those that identify with Civilisation, will not help and will obstruct any process of re-naturing with what ever tools they can muster to defend the Civilisation upon which they believe they depend upon.

So it is up to us, to each of us, to re-naturalise our lives, and that response ability cannot be avoided without causing more harm.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe




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1 comment:

corneilius said...

The subject matter of the Peace Movement, the Environmental Movement, the Liberation Movement and all such Movements is abuse; the actuality and reality of it's roots, it's effects, eventual recovery and the ending of abuse. Nothing more and nothing less.