words

“Once Upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children. They disappeared so quietly that at first almost no one noticed – fading away like water on a stone. The words were those that children used to name the natural world around them: acorn, adder, bluebell, bramble, conker – gone! Fern, heather, kingfisher, otter, raven, willow, wren…all of them gone! The words were becoming lost: no longer vivid in children’s voices, no longer alive in their stories.”

So begins Robert MacFarlane's stunning The Lost Words: A Spell Book. A lament for what has been lost, yes. But also 'a spell book': words which, when spoken, conjure an awareness for what still is, but has slipped from the attention of our eyes, ears, minds and imaginations - conjure an awareness for what is in danger of becoming lost, unless we let the spell awaken us from our obliviousness.

I'm a fan of words. Words are what I usually turn to first, to enable me to think, to feel, to process, to explore, to wonder, to relate. Over the years I've become more aware of their limits, their slipperiness, their ambiguity and ambivalence. But I know how much I need words, simply to live.

I've mentioned before that one of the sparks that ignited my desire to better connect up my theological explorations with the tasks of creation care and climate justice was Hannah Malcolm's winning Theology Slam entry, reflecting on solastalgia, the term coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht for that 'feeling of "homesickness when you are still at home": the grief created by seeing the place you love come under immediate assault'. Quoting Walter Brueggemann, Hannah reminds us that entering into grief, practising what Extinction Rebellion call "the skill of broken-heartedness", is one of the fundamental prophetic task of the Church: "to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair". Grief, Hannah suggests, "is a vital part of having a vision for a new future":

"I am going to ask you to sit amid the grief that you may already feel about our dying planet; and to mourn the brilliant, beautiful lives - both human and non-human - now extinguished by our violence and greed. Perhaps you can name them. Perhaps their names are now known only to God. Either way, they are worthy of your lament."

Hannah's powerful summons to dwell with our solastalgia prompted to me to read more of Albrecht's work - specifically his most recent book, Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World. On the face of it, it's the opposite of MacFarlane's book, but in fact the two are intertwined: one laments words that are becoming lost in the hope that they won't disappear entirely; the other creates new words for those experiences of loss in the hope that, by "sitting amid the grief" we might also discover renewed vision and energy for a more hopeful future.



Here, I want to share just a few of Albrecht's new words, with the conviction that they offer us n extended vocabulary for thinking and feeling that also enables new possibilities for action and change. (Most are taken directly from his glossary, pp.199-201.)

psychoterratic = emotions related to positively and negatively perceived and felt states of the Earth

solastalgia = the pain or distress caused by the loss or lack of solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one's home and territory. It is the lived experience of negative environmental change. It is the homesickness you have when you are still at home.

soliphilia = the giving of political commitment to the protection of loved home places at all scales, from the local to the global, from the forces of desolation.

symbioment = a recognition that all life exists within living systems at various scales. There is no "outside" (cf. "environment") for life forms within the biosphere.

sumbiocracy = a form of government (cf. "democracy") where humans govern for the symbiotic, mutually beneficial, or benign relationships in a sociobiological system at all scales. Sumbiocracy is rule for the Earth, by the Earth, so that we might all live together.

sumbiophilia = the love of living together

toponesia = the process of forgetfulness of precious places that afflicts us as we leave the world of our childhood and enter adult life.

environmental generational amnesia = the process by which, with each ensuing generation, the amount of environmental degradation can increase, but each generation tends to take that degraded condition as the nondegraded condition - that is, as the normal experience... As that process continues through the generations, nature ends up simply fading and there is "the extinction of experience". (p.75)

ecoanxiety = a generalized worry about the future, related to a changing and uncertain environment... "Even high levels of ecological worrying [can be] constructive and adaptive, i.e., are associated with pro-environmental attitudes and actions, and are not related to maladaptive forms of worrying such as pathological expressions of anxiety." (p.77)

ecoparalysis = a response to the dilemma faced by people who could see the enormous scale of the problem confronting the world but could do nothing meaningful at a personal level to solve it... a psychoterratic condition that maintains people in a state of limbo (p.83-4)

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A lot of Albrecht's linguistic work is an effort to shift our worldview. A 'great separation' has taken place, through which "the majority of humans have separated themselves from the rest of nature and life, from having some ongoing vital connections to nature to having virtually none" (p.94). The reasons are complex, he acknowledges, but include "the God-given human dominion over nature within Christianity; eco-alienation under neoliberalism and capitalism; the emergency of hierarchy in complex societies; imperialism and colonialism; and patriarchal development or male domination over a perceived female nature". The core beliefs of this 'great separation' include "individualism, atomism, reductionism, and autonomy based on science (evolution) and ideology (neoliberalism). These ideas imply that humans are separate from the rest of nature; humans are physically and morally autonomous; matter can be reduced to its smallest parts; competition between individuals (survival of the fittest) rules in both nature and society; and that competition in a free market within an economy is an expression of natural, competitive order" (p.95).

In the face of this dominant worldview, Albrecht highlights the profound symbiosis of the natural world of which we humans are part - from the "wood-wide-web" I've already mentioned on this blog, to the "microbiome" of symbiotic bacteria and fungi within our own bodies, "that work with us to nurture and protect our health [both physical and mental] as well as theirs". "We now have a clear understanding that bacteria, trees, and humans are not individuals existing as isolated atoms in a sea of competition. The foundational idea of life as consisting of autonomous entities (organisms) in competition with each other has been shown to be fundamentally mistaken. Life consists of comingling microbiomes within larger biomes, communities within communities at ever increasing scales, otherwise known as "holobionts". There is no clearly defined "inside" and "outside" of trees or humans, because, the closer we look, the more interaction between biomes we see, and the more permeable skin, leaves, and roots become... This is more than an "entanglement" of different but independent beings; it is the sharing of a common property, called life" (pp.99-100).

And what, within this ever-changing web of life, is the responsibility of human beings? As Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan have concluded: "We have done well separating ourselves from and exploiting other organisms, but it seems unlikely such a situation can last. The reality and recurrence of symbiosis in evolution suggests we [humans] are still in an invasive, "parasitic" stage and that we must slow down, share, and reunite ourselves with other beings if we are to achieve evolutionary longevity" (p.101). Albrecht summons us to a "sumbiocentric" (rather than anthropocentric, human-centred) worldview, in which we "tak[e] into account the centrality of the process of symbiosis in all our deliberations on human affairs. It requires us to give priority to the maintenance of symbiotic bonds in the total symbioment. The aim is to maximize those bonds and to hold that state of affairs in place for as long as possible. Sumbiocentrism is also an ethical position claiming that maintaining symbiotic connections, diversity, and unity within complex systems is the highest good" (pp.101-2).

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Albrecht goes on to develop what he calls explicitly a "secular spirituality", rooted in a (sumbiocentric) unfolding of "love" (pp.131ff.) - but also acknowledging the inevitability of what he names unapologetically as "war" between "Terranascian" (earth-birthing) and "Terraphthoran" (earth-destroying) human beings (pp.176ff.).

I feel sure I will return to Albrecht's work, through more explicitly theological lenses, in future reflections here. For this reflection on words, however, I want to conclude with some words of prayer, from Steven Shakespeare's beautiful new prayer book, The Earth Cries Glory: Daily Prayer with Creation. Steven's poetic prayers are rooted not just in the rhythms of the day and night (as daily prayer has always been), but in the rhythms of the (Northern Hemisphere) seasons too:

"Rather than follow the standard Christian liturgical year, I have opted instead to divide the year into eight roughly equal sections. These sections are tied to the key points of the solar calendar: the spring and autumn equinoxes and the summer and winter solstices. In between these turning points are four other significant dates, often known as 'fire festivals' in contemporary pagan spirituality, because of the use of bonfires and other flames in marking them... [T]he idea that Christianity tends towards the unearthly, or that we should see ourselves as detached rulers and consumers of nature, is a false spirituality that has surely contributed to our contemporary ecological and social disasters... [A]dopting an alternative way of inhabiting the year can therefore ... be a stimulus to imagine the cadence of Christian life and prayer differently, to embody spirituality differently."

Steven's re-write of the Lord's Prayer is a gem that I have already found myself inhabiting with the familiarity of more traditional versions. But here I want to share his 'Creation Benedictus', inviting the kind of peace-making within the symbioment that Glenn Albrecht and Hannah Malcolm are calling for too.

Blessed be the One who creates

Who delights in the rhythm of life

From the strangeness of matter
A universe is spun

Within the heart of being
Life emerges, vibrant and searching

Through the intricate paths of evolution
It becomes complex and beautiful

Blessed be the One who creates
Who speaks through the bodies of all creatures

On the fearful clarity of the mountain top
The Spirit sings of transformation

In the unknown depths of the ocean
The Spirit sings of rebirth

In wood and river, field and desert
The Spirit sings a new song

May the wonder of creation open us
To a life beyond our understanding

Blessed be the One who creates
Who travels across the threshold

With reverence for all creatures
Let us make peace with the sky

With reverence for all lands
Let us make peace with the earth

With reverence for all becoming
Let us make peace with the sea

May our senses be filled with the play of creation
With a wisdom of the living heart

Blessed be the One who creates
In whom all things are One!