This is the last of a three part post where I am trying to suggest how we as a community can contribute the most to our wider society.  Along with the Sacred Feminine and role of women, the other religious dimension that most sets us apart from the dominant society is our recognition of the sacredness of the earth.  

For us divinity is in the world, whether or not we also see it as transcendent.   That is why, so far as I know, all of our community celebrations are of the sacredness of earthly things: cycles, ancestors, dimensions of physical existence.  We do not celebrate dates of historical events which imply that some special time happened outside of normal time when the divine came closer to us, as the Christians do.  The divine is always close to us, and any perception of distance says more about us than about the sacred.  

For us Wiccans Nature is our sacred text, the Wheel of the Year how it is organized in chapters.  Meditating on all the Sabbats gives a year long immersion in considering the holiness of every aspect of embodied existence.

I think spiritual communities across our country are desperate for some means of addressing the sacredness in and of Nature.  My friend Don Frew tells me that at interfaith gatherings, even internationally, the mainstream churches have representatives saying they need to integrate Nature into their worship somehow.  Many more liberal churches have added seasonal celebrations.  Many now have labyrinths.  

When I helped organize a big interfaith tree planting in the Berkeley hills years ago, the only groups that did not participate with some enthusiasm were the conservative churches, who have gone to war with the 20th century, let alone this one, and the Muslims, many of whom would doubtless participate today.  For Islam has a green dimension, and they have learned the advantage of friendly relations with other faiths.  People of faith want to connect, or reconnect, with the sacredness of the world.

We are the community in this country for whom these values are most central.  We have already played a leading role in assisting other faith traditions to rethink these issues.  I think we have much more yet to offer.

At a time when the inhuman forces of corporation and government are destroying the world on a scale that grows bigger by the year, if America is to survive in a decent way  (something I am not convinced will happen) it needs to resacralize its relationship with the earth.  To the best of my knowledge every culture that has developed a sustainable relationship with its environment has done it by subordinating its economic use to its spiritual respect.  Reverse that relation and not only is spirituality crippled, the culture undermines the conditions of its own existence and flourishing.

A simple example illustrates my point.  Many people eat organic food entirely because they believe it is better for their health and tastes better.  They are right, it is and does.  But another reason to eat organic food is because it is grown with respect for the earth.  We do not rip Nature off to grow organically, if we want to continue doing so.  We have to treat Her respectfully.

Think about a person who deals well with you only because they think it is in their self interest to do so.  Compare that with a person who deals with you externally in a similar way, but does so because he or she believes that is how you relate best with another.  Who is the friend?  Who is most likely to actually enter into a deeper relationship with you? Who will you open up to?  Who will act most reliably? Which relationship will most likely last?

The first person represents how the most ‘enlightened’ part of the modern outlook deals with the world.  The second person represents how we relate when aware of our world’s sacredness.  In human terms, friendship is useful, but someone who relates to another because they are useful is not their friend.
 
But that means recognizing that something other than power is the fundamental relationship between human beings and the other-than-human world.  Our Sabbats and Esbats and Groves and other celebrations offer a wonderful means for recognizing just that.

It is significant that the right wing ‘conservative’ self-described “spiritual’ movement that afflicts our country these days makes its most vehement and irrational attacks on precisely these two elements of society where we as a community have had the greatest impact and may yet have still more: the feminine, particularly the sacred feminine, and environmentalism which they revealing attack as modern Paganism.  It isn’t – but modern Paganism makes central what all genuine spiritual traditions recognize, but often these days need to be reminded of.    

We are wonderfully situated to do the reminding.