Awakening to the Spiritual Dimension of Ecosystems
by Tina R. Fields
***
Abstract
“The indigenous Hawaiian concept that one must maintain
correct behavior toward pohaku [stones] or risk supernatural retribution is
explored in this chapter through participant-observation/grounded theory
exploration of the experiences of an undergraduate student group living one
semester on the Big Island, brief narrative interviews with local residents,
and historical inquiry into native Hawaiian views about pohaku. After exposure
to native stories heard in conjunction with uncanny animistic experiences,
students’, locals’, and vacationers’ relationships with the land and its
manifestation as the volcano goddess Pele became altered toward more respectful
attitudes, a sense of spiritual import in the everyday, and more ecologically
sustainable behavior.
Just as human consciousness influences behavior and our
behavior in turn obviously affects the land, simultaneously the land itself may
subtly, yet strongly, influence human consciousness. The pohaku phenomenon
opens questions about the influence of story on belief and behavior, the
potential for nonhumans to serve as teachers of proper ecological relationship,
and how land itself might influence human consciousness. Together, these
inquiries can lead to a shift in relational stance from the current paradigm of
ownership to a more indigenous stance of belonging. This shift of consciousness
carries with it strong practical implications for our long-term survival as a
species.”
“Cultural stories… describing relationships between humans
and nonhumans, carry ancient knowledge still relevant to us today, and can also
serve as a bridge between contemporary scientific inquiry and deeply embedded
animistic spiritual sensibilities…the intersection between cultural story and
ecological relationship. I describe a series of interactions between dominant,
inanimistic and native, animistic cultural worldviews, then demonstrate how
experiential encounters between the two paradigms can catalyze transformation
in the dominant, toward more cross-cultural respect and ecological awareness…”
The Old Becomes New Again: Systems Thinking and
Hawaiian Worldviews
This emphasis on relationship illustrates a radically
different worldview from the one that has for many years informed the
scientific method, which seeks knowledge through the examination of individual
parts. However, this indigenous sort of relational stance is echoed in the
ecological sciences and in the newer emphasis on whole systems thinking.
Among its other aspects, whole systems thinking focuses less
on the parts than on the synergistic whole and the movement between its
parts, from which the qualities and even the existence of each concrete
part may be said to arise (Capra 1996). Buddhists will similarly recognize this
aspratītyasamutpāda or “dependent co-arising,” the idea that all
phenomena (including beings) arise together in a mutually interdependent web of
cause and effect. Thich Nhat Hanh (1975) gives a beautiful example of this when
he describes looking at an orange, and seeing a cloud. How is that? Impossible,
crazy talk; yet simple if thought out systemically. The orange could not exist
but for the tree that it grew from; and that tree only exists because it
sprouted from a seed due to the dance between earth, sun, and water; and the
water arrived on earth in part by rain falling from a cloud; and so forth.
These are old views of reality based in longitudinal
observation of nature and thus, unsurprisingly, shared across the globe. The
linguist Dan Moonhawk Alford (as quoted in DellaFlora 2000) noted that in much
of Native America, God is spoken of in verb form. In Lakota or Cheyenne, God is
not “Great Spirit” as portrayed in numerous films but actually closer to “Great
Mysteriousing,” and Cherokee call upon “Thinks Breath Creates.” To sum up my
point here, indigenous perspectives tend to focus much more on the moving
relationships between beings and processes than on the static individuals
engaged in those relationships. (They are also less likely to see these
individual beings as static.)
Such relational ties extend to animals, stones, and
processes as well as other people. Native Hawaiians consider themselves
literally related to nonhumans through their ‘aumakua, a family’s
deified ancestral spirit helper who generally appears in the form of a real
living being such as shark, lizard, or owl. They may also take the shape of an
object like a rock or a cloud. Each family’s specific ‘aumakua also brings with
it a particular set of principles, values, and standards (Meyer 2003, 46, 108).
In the ancient Hawaiian creation story Kumulipo, the first child of
Papa and Wākea, the cosmic earth and sky beings who created everything, is the
taro or kalo plant, with human beings coming along second.
People therefore owe taro the great respect due one’s elder sibling; which
means we should not, for example, speak roughly to one another or make crude
jokes at a table where taro is being served.[13] Kane
notes that for early Hawaiians,
There seems to have been no concept of the supernatural as
that term is used in modern religions. Theirs was a universe in which everything
(including the gods) was natural and therefore of Nature, an organic universe
in which every thing and every person had its integral place within the whole.
Success was achieved by living in careful and reverent harmony with Nature,
failure to do so being marked by swift retribution from the gods. The modern
concept of Nature as an object of conquest would have been incomprehensible to
the Polynesian mind. In all Polynesia, religion so permeated every aspect of
life that there was no separate word for it. (Kane 1996, 22)
The native Hawaiian relationship with stones—the children of
one of their deities—is very different from the currently dominant Cartesian/
postindustrial norm that views stones simply as inert, “dead matter” and
potential building materials. Further, this worldview is not just a wistful
yearning toward the past or even a myth (although it behooves us to remember
the basic tenet voiced by both Joseph Campbell [1972] and Coomaraswamy [1997]
that in some deep way, living myth is always true). It is instead a currently
living, relational perception, and one that might be best understood when
illustrated by stories…
The reawakening in non-natives of a native-style animistic
caring about the more-than-human world holds the possibility for similar
transformation, thus offering one possible denouement of the postcolonial
modernity saga. Vine DeLoria noted the need to bring such native insights to
bear on current policy:
No real progress can be made in environmental law unless
some of the insights into the sacredness of land derived from traditional
tribal religions become the basic attitudes of the larger society (1999, 213)…
Particularly important to note in this time of ecological
crisis is that such an indigenous attitude of respect is not only internal, but
is expected to translate into a particular set of balanced and life-fostering
behaviors. Hawaiians call this attitude pono, a complex term that encompasses
goodness, well-being, purity, integrity, perfection, success, proper procedure,
and the notion of personal and professional excellence (Meyer 2003). Pono is
often translated into English, for better or worse, as “righteousness,” because
acting pono out in right behavior [hana pono] encourages “harmony among
persons, and among persons and the psychic forces of nature and the
supernatural” (Pukui 1972, as quoted in Meyer 2003, 109). Reciprocity,
ho‘oponopono, was viewed as essential for survival; and fundamental to
reciprocity are effective relationships with all beings (Meyer 2003). The
poignant letter above exhibits a sense of the writer’s feeling not guilt or
fear of divine retribution, but rather like a child receiving a corrective
lesson about proper treatment of others.Returning the stones—and better yet,
deliberately not taking them in the first place—are acts of pono. And this
mainlander has learned it.
The native worldview is deliberately being leveraged to
bring us back into right relationship, for example, with coral reefs. Waikiki
Aquarium sponsored a 2003 lecture series named “Papa and Wākea,” after the
native creator earth/sky gods, which included an evening about limu [seaweeds].
Instead of simply covering natural history, two professors discussed “the
importance of building understanding and reconnection to our reefs today, as we
incorporate our rich cultural histories into modern resource management”
(Abbott and Hunter 2003). I find this somewhat radical in an animistic sense.
In essence, the aquarium is inviting people to allow the indigenous spiritual
stories of the island to infuse future approaches to management, presumably
with the intention of bringing those ecological stewardship decisions more in
alignment with pono.
The AEI students, immigrants to Hawai‘i like Eriksson, and
the recalcitrant stone-taking tourists all provide examples of the sort of
consciousness shifting that can happen when mainstream people with open minds
and hearts come into contact with landscapes that are still inhabited by the
old stories. But it must now be noted that the stories, while powerful, are not
the core of this transformation. They merely serve as the vehicle to bring us
into alignment with the deepest teacher—the earth itself.
The prevalence of the pohaku experience, the commonality of
stories told about its origination and healing, and the attendant subsequent
shifts in behavior and worldview, together bring up a philosophical question of
enormous import: Could the land, through cultural stories, be teaching humans
how to be in proper respectful relationship with it?
Many outdoor leaders, such as myself, who work with groups
in wild places for any length of time repeatedly witness psychological effects
of alienation from nature. Such feelings as disconnection, depression, fear,
dullness, numbness, tightness, ennui, loss of dreams and creativity, and a
sense of being very alone in a cold world (see, e.g., Greenway 1995) can be
identified largely through the healing that follows a return to deep
relationship with the living world and the wild self.
This makes a lot of sense, if we think about it. For most of
our tenure as a species on this planet, humans have held an animistic
perspective; one that believes and acts as though, as a Chukchee shaman once
noted, “everything that is, is alive” (Cloutier 1980, 35–6). One observation
from the emerging field of ecopsychology is that acting as if the world is dead
can send us into despair and self-destructive behaviors. Perhaps the original
“Fall from Grace” was actually a fall up—away from recognition of the immanent
physical world as divine, and now the quest for God must take place right here.
Buddhist ecophilosopher Joanna Macy explains the importance of reclaiming an
animistic perspective at this time:
[After] several millennia of assigning the sacred to a
transcendent dimension removed from ordinary life, the world around us begins
to go dead and loses its luminosity and meaning. The Earth is reduced to a
supply store of material resources and a sewer for our wastes. And in such a
world, devoid of the sacred, anything goes -buy up, sell off, consume as much
as you can! What’s so beautiful about being alive at this moment is that the
pendulum is starting to swing the other way. We are retrieving the projection.
We are taking the sacred back into our lives. The swing is from transcendence
to immanence. The most vital movement of our era involves making the sacred
immanent again. (Macy 2000)
Therefore the question arises: Can it be that this ethic was
created or taught by the land itself?
Is it possible that the land “knows” and “feels” that
respect from its people, and is therefore somehow more free to reciprocate?
When nature is perceived as infused with spirit and agency,
many currently destructive practices such as clear-cutting, strip mining, or
dumping of nuclear waste no longer seem neutral, but appalling. And the story
is key: a tree seen in terms of board-feet or dollar signs will be treated very
differently than if considered to be an elder relative who offers shelter and
food. When contemplating manufacturing, an animist, recognizing wood as the
body of his friend, may ask, “Is that object I wish to make worth taking his
life for?” Perhaps it is not, perhaps it is; at any rate, contemplating the
question makes it likely that fewer unnecessary things will get made, and fewer
of the earth’s “resources” unnecessarily depleted.
Our world would be very different if the dominant ideology
involved reciprocal respect for all beings, beings in all sorts of bodies. In a
small way, the stones of Hawai‘i may be helping this come to pass.
Earlier I asked, is it possible that when we respect the
land and its spirits to this degree, that it actually does respond in kind? If
this question seems to ride a new-age fluffiness, I would only ask the reader
for a moment to suspend the issue of “belief” altogether and instead
contemplate the story’s effects. What would be the consequences of acting as if
this is so? Or contemplate its opposite: what have been the consequences of
civilization’s acting as if it were not? Most importantly, which is preferable?
Which leads to more long-term survival, sustainability, and happiness?
Such indigenous models of relationship have been successful
for tens of thousands of years. In contrast, human behavior under the modernity
alternative, especially the mere 200 years since the Industrial Revolution
began, has brought the planet to the brink of the sixth great extinction[33]
(Eldredge 2005). The currently prevalent relationship to land, based mainly on
maximizing profits for corporations and pretending to be divorced from the nest
of relationships in any healthily reciprocal way, is leading to humanity’s
self-destruction. Hawai‘i is rapidly becoming the endangered species capital of
the world (Bishop Museum 2008). If indeed thoughts do ultimately create the
world, the healthy choice is clear. Hawai‘i contains the necessary elements for
a provocative test case: the potential for mainstream adoption of an existing
animistic worldview to catalyze new protective action.
The animistic Hawaiian concept of mauli-ola, which Heighton
thinks still forms a basis for understanding Hawaiian behavior, means “the
essence of life is present in every part of the world” (Howard 1974, 155). The
pohaku phenomenon not only illustrates mauli-ola in action, but also opens a
large philosophical question about the nature of consciousness itself. If we
posit that instead of arising at the very end of one linear evolutionary chain,
consciousness actually lies at the ground of being and is therefore present in
everything, with each species and individual being representing a unique type
of its flowering, the worldview about (and attempted management of) any whole
living system takes on an expansive, numinous and participatory dimension.
“Hawaiians harbor a deep reverence and connection for land.
This is manifested in kapus regarding sacred sites such as mountain tops, in
offerings left at heiaus and in the personification of rocks (Pele), plants
(taro as brother), and animals (as aumakua). Western perceptions seem to focus
on quantitative characteristics of the natural world. Relationships are often
anthropocentric, where value is determined by usefulness to humans in regards
to scientific, consumptive or industrial measures. Native Hawaiians often refer
to the energy of the land and the importance of having a reciprocal
relationship with it. Food is honored with kind words and restrictions
regarding treatment (menstruating women are kapu, as is walking over it).
Hawaiian traditions seem to possess an inherent deep ecological philosophy.”
(Scudder 2003)
Story can serve as a technology of attunement to different
worldviews such as the animistic, potentiating a shift at the macro-level or
societal consciousness. In particular, native eco-stories with their spiritual
components debunk the outmoded modernist conceit that the animistic is merely
imaginal—especially when they are also personally experienced. But they cannot
simply be appropriated: Hawai‘i is not the same as Nebraska, and the stories of
each place must be allowed to sing for themselves…”
Pule Ho‘opua [Ending Prayer]
E Pele e! He akua o ka pohaku enaena, Ele‘ele kau mai!
[O goddess of the burning stones, Let awe possess me!
This essay was first published in
So What? Now What? The Anthropology of Consciousness
Responds to a World In Crisis
edited by Matthew C. Bronson and Tina R. Fields
UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009 (pp. 317-359).
Published here with the permission of Cambridge Scholars
Publishing.
For more info, to comment, or to get involved in
discussing this & other interesting issues, go to www.sowhatnowwhat.net
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