| Since
the dawn of time, spiritual traditions have reflected
the image of the Earth as a living being. Our ancestors
were conscious to be born from and connected with Nature
and considered it as their source of Life. But when
this holistic vision of the world gave way to the mirages
of our materialistic society, we lost our respect for
life and our humility in front of the mysteries of the
extraordinary and complex balance between the different
kingdoms.
Our amnesia also deprived us of the spiritual powers
that enable us to communicate with Nature and understand
its language. Under the combined influence of materialism
and Science, and their mechanistic and rational discourse,
Nature has become both a place of experiment and a source
of raw material, of wealth and profit.
In the eyes of this approach, Nature has no value as
such, but only a commercial value. This is how natural
disasters due to climate change had to multiply before
ecology ceased to be reduced to marginality and became
at last, at the dawn of the third millenium, a collective
concern.
However that may be, centuries of domination and exploitation
of Nature have left on the memory of Men a stamp which
is difficult to get rid of. Our pretension of superiority
over other species and our contempt for Universal Laws
have dictated our behavior towards Nature.
Still today, we continue to violate these Laws without
being able, in spite of all our scientific knowledge,
to predict what the consequences will be in the future.
The mad cow disease in Europe and the race for genetic
engineering in the United States show to those who are
willing to see, the worrying signs of the result of
our actions.
These problems which directly affect environment and
public health also remind us -do we need to be reminded
? - that there is still a long way to go before human
beings get rid of their blind arrogance and find again
the humility they should display in front of the beauty
of Nature and its fabulous but so fragile equilibrium.
What consequences our so called advanced
civilization will have to face so that we change our
behaviors and attitudes and find again the wisdom of
primitive civilization who commune with Nature respecting
and taking care of Her ?
Laurence
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