Replies

Kathleen,
You are lucky to have such conversations with your son.

I am all for Taylor Swift promoting process-relational thought and practice. I also think that, if we listen deeply in our everyday discourse, there is a lot of process-relational thinking going on. It’s just that it is not explicit and explored. Don Cupitt made me aware of paying attention to everyday speech in his books about life. I’ll give an example in terms of process-relational thought. Think about a time when you were around someone who was wound up about everything, and you or someone else said, “It’s okay, just go with the flow. We’re in this together and things will work out…. Breathe in, breathe out, etc.” I think there are many examples. I find process-relational practice bubbling up when gardening, cooking, and playing with my grandchildren…. It’s just a matter of waking up to our own continuous becoming in our process-relational world… I could be wrong and that’s it off the top of my head…. My thoughts could change after reflection….

I loved David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything. He offers some examples throughout history of people who lived satisfying lives in a variety of cultures. I don’t get romantic about such lives, but I do appreciate the diverse ways people lived together and in their ecosystems.

Another key book since we are talking history and philosophy is Kojin Karatani’s Isonomia and the Orgins of Philosophy. It’s brilliant. He points out that the Pre-Socratic Ionians were all settlers from different regions. For instance, Thales was a Persian. He also points out they came together in groups that formed around respect for equality and freedom…. They flourished for a few hundred years but they had a profound impact upon Western Civ– or what is of value in Western Civ.

YES to playfulness.

Kathleen,
It’s always a joy to have you in class. Your intellect and insightful comments are always appreciated. As Guy Claxton refers to it in his Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, your “poetic sensibility” moves conversations to another level where experience, feeling, and embodiment are integral. You move conversations into a space where head-talk does not dominate. It seems to me that aesthetic/beauty value is foundational in all that you say. I’m thankful for that.

Add in your feminist sensibility and the fact that you are expressing your self in classes with more men than women; in my mind that makes you a saint. I hope you are able to share more of your own poetry or poetry you think resonates with the dream of promoting ecological civilizations.

As a librarian, I’d love any suggestions regarding novels that might capture process-relational philosophy, eco-civ, etc., too. My wife loves novels, and her major criticism of of process is that there is too much head-talk and not enough life– cooking, cleaning, gardening, common everyday practices. It’s a bunch of guys in their heads talking as a vibrant and very alive world is dancing beyond their abstract discourse…. She’s harsh, but I think it is her way of prodding me to stay active in this world with my cooking, cleaning, gardening, common everyday practices…. Read novels, play with the grand kids, work for social and ecological justice, etc., and of course, clean the bathroom.

With appreciation,

Hello Joe,

Great to have you in class. I’m more engaged in this one and not just floating outside as Dean. I think your work at the University of New Mexico as a capacity builder for the UNM Community Engagement Center and teaching Community Based Learning in Chicana and Chicano Studies are all about fostering an ecological civilization. Hope you are able to share about these as part of your weekly Discussion Forum comments or as part of the conversation with the rest of our classmates. You have incredible experience and wisdom that should be celebrated and shared.

With gratitude,

Ernie,
Great introduction. Would love to hear more about transformational dialogue and how engaging in them might facilitate moving toward an ecological civilization.

Rob,
Wonderful to hear about your background and pathway you are creating. What a gift to have your dissertation chaired by Phillip Clayton and to have worked with Brian Henning. I talked with Phillip once during a Zoom but otherwise only know him from his writing. Brian is a remarkable and generous scholar. He and I have exchanged emails. He speculates that Aldo Leopold was influenced by Whitehead; although Leopold never cited Whitehead. The folks at the Leopold Foundation don’t have evidence either way. Regardless, Brian was a real help to me as I tried to get some support for his position.

Boy, that was a side path. My point is that I think you are lucky to have been able to work with such people.

Seems to me that Mary Evelyn Tucker and the Teilhard group and the John Cobb and the Whiteheadian folks both have a profound love of the Earth. Not being a theologian, love of Earth is what matters most to me.

Looking forward to learning from you.

Kent,
It’s always great to have you in the same “room.” You offer such a wonderful perspective and I always learn from you.

Looking forward to our continuing conversation.

Neil,
Thanks for sharing. You will find deep compassion within our learning community. No need to dwell on being legally blind or any past trauma. Do what you can. Although your story might be too long or not relevant in terms of the context of our learning community, your perspective helps. Although not a therapy group, we are a supportive learning community.

As a youth, I would spend weeks every summer in Barton Flats log cabin in those same San Bernardino mountains. It was heavenly space.

Hello Dennis,
Thanks for the introduction, and especially for following up Chris’s question about your dissertation.

The art critic and philosopher, Mark C. Taylor (i.e., Refiguring the Spiritual, Speed Limits) has been an inspiration to me, and when I hear process-relational thought integrated into aesthetics, I get giddy. When art gets tied to places, and enhancing our seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinking, I get lifted beyond any mundane taken-for-granted, everyday, self-limiting perspectives.

Ryan,
I appreciate your introduction.

I love the energy and vitality of the Homebrewed folks.

I attended a Presbyterian church when I was in the fourth grade with some neighbors who invited me. Years later as an adult, I discovered the work of Lloyd Geering, a New Zealand Presbyterian who was tried for heresy in the 70s. His work and courage have been an inspiration to me. His Christianity Without God still lingers with me.

Bill, I’m with Chris. What a lovely introduction. Hope to see how you integrate focusing and mindfulness into promoting ecological civilization. I’ve always appreciated both for being action-oriented and practice-based. Get folks out of their heads and into their body-mind. Such practices provide pathways for recognizing oneself as participating in a living ecosphere/planet– Earth.

Thanks for your hopefulness and action-orientation.

Thanks for the lively exchange.

Kent,
I do not want to be flip but when I read your question I think:

Will rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic relieve the sense of anxiety among the youth on the ship?

I’m brainstorming off the top of my head here, and I’m going to keep this short as possible. I see a call for more spirituality, more counseling, and more ways to help youth who are in despair. I worry about such strategies, and I’m a retired counselor educator. I think the issue is philosophical, pointing to youth trying to survive in a) what Federic Bender (2003) calls a culture of extinction; an anthropocentric perspective that views nature as object, resources, stuff to be used, etc., and b) a culture where action-oriented pragmatism has given way to spiritual consumerism where we are just one workshop, one election, one book, etc. away from having “the answer,” the “right president,” “the insight,” etc. That is to say, someone else is going to package and get is to us. Youth want to be valued and appreciated for their ability to make a contribution and participate in bringing about the world they want. The youth I have worked with were ready to join with others to improve hiking trails, pull invasive ivy from parks, pick up trash, etc.

Bruce Alexander (2008) in his Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit shows how materialism, drugs, environmental and cultural destruction destroy connection to land and community…. Engaged communities where people are encourage to foster genuine resilience occur on the edges here and there, but they do exist in a neighborhood here, a town there, etc. That is to say locally where resources are available….. Alexander’s Rat Park experiment is a classic; well worth looking up… I digress.

The resilience literature is very consistent: Youth who have one caring adult in their lives are more resilient. Youth encouraged by high expectations live at their growing edge. Youth who find what they are doing to be meaningful are more resilient. Fostering care and support in relationships, structuring engaging high expectations, and providing options for youth to do stuff they find meaningful all support resilience, and that reduces alienation, despair, and anxiety. Youth need adults who believe in them, and support them.

As a political aside, youth do not need two old white guys talking about their future, especially when one is mentally ill and bent on a cruel agenda that will be very destructive to the living environment, and another who means well and is not as crazy as the other. Youth are living with an older generation that is not showing the wisdom to mentor, to believe, etc.

So my question is: Will avenues to engagement and participation deepen youth spirituality and help them see change is about action? As for environmental anxiety, maybe that should be redirected toward confronting the sources of environmental destruction– anthropocentric philosophical systems that separate people from nature, political leaders who see living systems as mere resources, etc.

Kent, Isn’t wonderful that you are able to join us in your own way, share your insights and wisdom, and engage in celebrating your wife’s birthday, etc. Looking forward to your participation.