Jerome Roos / ROAR Magazine presented three bullet points concerning the Paris Climate Accord:
1) NO ACTIONS, JUST WORDS
2) THE NUMBERS DON’T ADD UP
3) CORPORATE POWER REMAINS UNCHECKED
Slowing and reversing the effects of climate change has as much of a chance of success as a “snowball in hell.” Keep in mind hell is not a realm after we pass-over (die) but may be experienced right here while we are on earth. At the present time, the capitalistic and dualistic mindset is too ingrained. Only an awakening to a shift in worldview and thinking will have the possibility of reversing the destruction being done to and on the earth.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein
The following is excerpted from Return of a Green Philosophy: The Wisdom of Óðinn, the Power of Þórr, and Freyja’s Power of Nature
Body and Soul
To the Norse-Germanic mind, body and soul were not dualistic concepts but were united as one. If you hugged a tree, you were not only holding its body, but you were also embracing its essence—its soul:
“All peoples recognize a body and a soul, or rather a material and a spiritual side to everything that exists. The bird has a body which is lifted in the air, and it has a soul which enables it to fly, as well as to strike with its beak. So also the stone is a body, but in this body there is a soul that wills and enables the stone to do harm, to bite and strike and crush; a soul which gives it its hardness, its rolling movement, its power of prophesying the weather or showing the way…
“To find the soul, wherever we grasp, be it stone or beast or tree, we lay hold of it. It comes toward us conscious of itself, as a thing that knows and wills, acts and suffers—in other words, as a personality.”[i]
Everything has a soul/spirit within its outward form. In other words, spirit and matter interpenetrate where everything has a divine spark and consciousness within it. Everything is alive and conscious. This knowledge motivated the Norse to become partners with their surroundings—to win friendship with the souls/powers of the animals, trees, and stones, and to establish an inner relationship with them. Their life was not only connected with the powers of the earth but to the unseen powers of the cosmos and earth—the totality of Yggdrasill.
This weaving of life together created a web of frith (“peace” – “calm”). According to Vilhelm Grönbech, “The key-note of ancient culture is not conflict, neither is it mastery, but conciliation and friendship. Man strives to make peace with the animals, the trees, and the powers that be, or deeper still, he wants to draw them into himself and make them kin of his kin, till he is unable to draw a fast line between his own life and that of the surrounding nature.”[ii]
Nature—Heart and Nature as One
Go to the mountains, sit by a tree, and listen with heart and mind; walk in the valleys with the winds caressing your soul, and listen with heart and mind; lie by a river with its soothing lullaby, and listen with heart and mind; skip a stone in childlike innocence across the mirror surface of a lake, and listen with heart and mind; feel the fire of the sun on your face, and listen with heart and mind; let the moonlight blanket you with its beauty, and listen with heart and mind; stand and gaze at the night sky with its star-studded tapestry, and listen with heart and mind to the sound of angels; and let the rain cleanse you of pain and suffering, and listen with heart and mind. Rev. Dr. JC Husfelt
Have you ever taken the time to go out into nature, away from human encroachment, and just sat on the earth and felt the beauty and love surrounding you? Have you taken the time to see elf and dwarf peer forth from field and stone? Have you ever considered that you have no other reason than to just be part of and in partnership with nature; no smart phones or tablets, no hiking from point to point, but just you, and the Great Mother—Freyja, seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, and even tasting the essence of the kingdom of nature?
Earth is a paradise of wonders all wrapped up in myriad colors. It is alive with a consciousness that responds to all the things that call it home. I believe in a partnership with the earth and feel at one with it. I do not believe in being superior to nature, acting as its steward, but instead acting as one with nature and in partnership with the earth in co-creating a paradisiacal state of life for all life.
When was the last time you viewed the miracle of sunrise; the wonder of sunset; the magical rise of the moon in its fullness, reminding you of the interpenetration of light within dark? Have you ever been in awe of the darkness of a new moon, knowing that all growth is born out of darkness? When are you going to awaken to the paradise spread before you—the kingdom of Óðinn as Allfather?
When I talk about Mother Nature, I’m referring not only to the earth but also to the whole of the seen and unseen universe. Mother Nature is wondrous, magical, and a miracle of creation. The universe as Mother Nature is a great concept to embrace. It expands our concern and consciousness for the well-being of all things out to the stars. This takes the religious philosophical concept of the kingdom of Ódhinn from just being earthbound out to the stars—the totality of the universe!
Having our heart and nature as one essence is essential for our well-being of body, mind, and spirit. Our heart will assist us in connecting with nature, and nature will help us be connected to our heart—a blending of both. We may metaphorically consider Yggdrasill the heart of the earth and the heart of heaven, pumping the lifeblood of creation through all things of existence.
The following is excerpted from Do You Like Jesus—Not the Church? Jesus: His True Message Not the Lie of Christianity.
Mother Nature—Earth
The Holy Grail is not an item to possess. It is not an external thing. It is our awakened hearts and minds, and in a grand sense, it symbolizes what has been lost—humanity’s, and our own, lost values. The primary one is the loss of the feminine—nature and the equality of men and women. This is the lost feminine principle. This world of ours only recognizes as authentic the light, not the dark; the material, not the spiritual; the male principle, not the feminine. This is then the quest—the quest to recover the feminine and nature. And to heal the wound—the separation, suppression, abuse, and control of the feminine. One of the greatest profiteers, activists, and advocates of this wound, the superior masculine paradigm, is the church.[iii]
Earth is a paradise of wonders all wrapped up in colors of blue and green. It is alive with a consciousness that responds to all the things that call it home. Jesus believed in a partnership with the earth and felt at one with it. He did not believe in being superior to nature, acting as its steward, but as being one with nature and in partnership with the earth in co-creating a paradisiacal state of life, for all life—this is the kingdom of God.
His connection to nature as a key to the kingdom was reflected in many of his teachings. “Like the sages of the Old Testament, Jesus often pointed to nature as a source of insight. ‘Consider the lilies of the field; neither toil nor spin.’ The observation could take the form of a question: ‘Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?’ The appeal to the intelligence is clear: ‘Of course not,’ is the obvious answer. The similar saying, ‘A good tree bears good fruit,’ makes an equally commonsense observation. As with most of the proverbs of Jesus, it is the application of these lessons from nature that their particular power lies.
“Common to all these forms of traditional wisdom as used by Jesus was an invitation to see differently. He appealed to the imagination and intelligence, and not to the authority of a revealed tradition, as did the teachers of conventional wisdom. Indeed, Jesus used the forms of traditional wisdom to challenge conventional wisdom.”[iv]
Contrary to Jesus’s belief and life, the entrenched mind-set of our culture is one of superiority to nature—being a steward. This mind-set reflects the patriarchal view of nature or the feminine as below them or inferior to them. Supposedly, men know what is best in managing nature or the feminine (women). By its definition, stewardship implies inequality, with the male side of duality being superior to the female, or Mother Nature, side. To put it in perspective, I am not a steward of my wife but her partner. Life is not about stewardship but about partnership. Stewardship is separation, while partnership is unity. My wife and I are not separate from each other but are together in unity as we journey through life.
This philosophy of patriarchal stewardship results in a separation mentality from the essential paradise God has provided, and so far still provides, to humanity: food, shelter, and beauty. Why then do so many go along with this separation paradigm? How blind can the majority be when “it is as true today as it was in those ancient times, dimly recalled by legend, that Nature can bestow upon human beings great wisdom and knowledge”?[v]
As a society and culture, our separation from nature underlies many of the problems and ills we face today, from climate change to the worldwide abuse and second-class citizenship of women. Being separate from nature, the keys to the kingdom remain hidden, buried beneath layers of church and institutional patriarchal rule.
But you can discover the keys to the kingdom. Discover nature as I did. As a child I remember lying in the grass while looking up at the immense sky; it was so majestic in its blue-tinged beauty. Then I fondly recall rolling over onto my stomach, smelling the earth and its life-force while gazing at the greenness of love the earth shares with all of her creatures.
I remember the magic of chasing lightning bugs in an attempt to capture their light for just a brief moment before letting them go on their way into the night. Even at a young age, I was ever seeking the light. I know I am not alone in these memories of happiness when our hearts, not our minds, beckoned us to be part of and connected to the earth. As children, from the depths of our hearts and souls, we recognized nature’s wisdom as a gift to be shared by all. Many of us saw and lived in a garden paradise that provided the adventures and magic of life that only nature can provide.
My parents, on the other hand, had seemed to lose sight of this simple truth, nature’s wisdom. Possibly, it was due to their excessive work habits in their effort to “provide for me.” It was my great-uncle Albert who fostered and nourished in me the uncomplicated facts of life and the beauty and wisdom of the fruits and flowers of creation. He would let me help him while he tended his Concord grape vines and nurtured his pride and joy, the bright flowers with the sword-shaped leaves—gladioluses. Picking a grape and holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he once spoke these wise words to me: “Jimmy, this is the perfect color of purple; if you pick the grape when it is a lighter color, it will rob the vine of its gift. And if it is a deeper, bluish purple, you will have dishonored the vine by letting the grape stay on too long.”
Life is simple and straightforward. We can discern others through the fruit of their vines. In today’s world much fruit is rotten, evidenced by the lies of the church, politicians and the excessive consumption and accumulation of wealth that rots the fruit of the spirit.
But now is the moment of power. In seasons past, if your fruit has spoiled on the vine or stayed on too long, do not despair. Begin now to tend and nurture your vine, and your fruit will become sweet, loving, and compassionate.
May Peace Be Upon You – Live Well and Die Well
[i] Vilhelm Grönbech, The Culture of the Teutons, 124.
[ii] Ibid., 141.
[iii] Excerpted from Tequila and Chocolate: A Guide to a New Consciousness—the Awakening of Our Divinity and Humanity, an unpublished manuscript by Rev. Dr. J. C. Husfelt.
[iv] Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, 98–99.
[v] Paul Broadhurst, Tintagel and the Arthurian Myths, 24.