I was struck, reading iMinister, just how inconsistent our practice is with our principle.
That's not intended to flog the insufficiently faithful, the incorrect, or those with another view. It's simply an observation.
What does it mean to affirm and acknowledge that we are inextricably part of all this, and to stay indoors most of our lives, blinds drawn (or not), eating foods grown under circumstances and in conditions we barely even consider, much less examine, most of the time? What faith we put in some box of fruit or slice of meat displayed to appeal to our senses as we flit through the grocery store.
But what else do we lose, ignore, and abandon when we don't have the pleasure and joy--and work--involved in the eggs from chickens you know personally, or the nectarine or orange the scent of which you caught in the sun before you picked it?
We know there's a disconnect that happens when we humans are dissociated from things that are real and intimate; the experience with the dying and death of loved ones, with the birth of to-be-loved ones. There's a cost. What's the cost of being disconnected from the food and water that literally sustains us?
I can't help but suspect that the price is very high.
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This is a lot of the emotion behind the Earth-centered religions, we NoePagans and others- getting ourselves reattuned with nature, feeling our place in the interdependent web.
Because our society has alienated itself from Nature in the industrial and post-industrial models, now we worship Nature. But not because we feel a part of it; on the contrary, it's because we feel it different and alien to us, and therefore a subject for worship and veneration. To say that we are reconnecting spiritually with Nature is ultimately a form of self-deceit. The Neopagan approach is thus fundamentaly different from the original polytheistic and animistic religions, when people did live together with natural phenomena, for good (harvest, summertime) or for worse (storms, earthquakes, predators, etc.), and had to make peace with them.
Reminds me, corwin, of one of the myths in which Enki offers the gifts of civilization ('me' is the Sumerian term) to humanity--and makes no bones about them being a mixed bag... and that the gift of civilization, once taken, cannot be given back. But the Sumerians understood something of what we had been before urbanization... and what overpopulation could do. The first known Deluge myth has to do with humanity and the gods striking a deal about balance--and humanity not overrunning the earth (again), or else....
What you're describing is a version of "You can't go home again." It's true... and yet, you can go back. But it will be different.
I think that's where we have to go.
Ogre, I've tagged you for a meme over at Ms. Kitty's. Hope you have time and interest in pursuing it.
This is one reason why Farmers' Markets are getting so popular these days -- we get to know where our food comes from. plus shopping outdoors...
You're right, kim. We're increasingly eating that way.
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