Spiritual with material manifests the incarnate

In his Deep Spirit column for Resurgence (issue 247 March-April 2008), Thomas Moore urges readers, "Pray to Gaia". After describing divinities associated with Nature in ancient Greece, he continues,

"Renaissance philosophers said that you don’t have to be pagan to appreciate the spirituality of Nature. These various gods and goddesses are facets, they said, of the God many honour as the monotheistic source of life and meaning. In other words, you see God when you stop to wonder at a copper sunset or a misty moon. Nature is the avenue towards nurturing your spirit. It is the way in which the divine most powerfully shows itself.

There is a tendency, even among environmentalists, to adopt the 20th-century way of seeing Nature, as a source of material commodities needed for the heroic building of culture. But that isn’t sufficient motivation for preserving Nature, because it doesn’t address our essence: what we need to survive as humans. We are people of body, soul and spirit. We need constant feeding of our vision, moral sensibility and piety, and if Nature is at all diminished, our spirituality goes into eclipse."

Moore suggests reconciliation between monotheists and pagans: "As long as we keep spirituality and the material world separated, the Earth will be threatened," while offering short prayers and rituals to shake the unconsciousness of our times.

Thank you, Barque member Ken Blackham, for bringing this to our attention.