We can only start from where we are at, and that is a western view point, for us westerners. I am reminded of one of my favourite people in Oxford, a buddhist monk who everyone knows as he spends most of his days walking round town and smiling at people. He is known for the readiness of his laughter. He teaches meditation, and a friend recently said to him that after years of meditation, he was just realising the point to which he felt more than ever that he was just a beginner. The monk laughed and said 'you are a westerner, you are always a beginner'. There are things in our culture and consciousness that we imbibe from our mother's knee onwards. In those things, we can progress far, but in the things we come to later, perhaps we always remain beginners.
I think it is important though, to see that oneness with nature is not an eastern philosophy anymore than a western one. I would say that it is not even a philosophy, it is a fact, as science increasingly is proving. It is the denial of that fact that causes much of the dis-ease in our society, our 'western' culture, as we are living in denial of our essential nature.
More than that, I would say that oneness with nature is the basis of western culture, as it is all cultures. Capitalism, materialism, consumerism... these are not a western culture. They are things that have been added on recently, they are Johnny-come-latelies. They have come to prevalence only in the last few centuries, where as our true western culture has evolved over millenia. It is the culture of herbalists who ask permission of the root before they dig it up and ask the blessing of the leaf before they pick it. It is the culture the stories our mothers still tell us, of dark forests and deep rivers and living trees and dragons and caves. It is the culture of standing stones and secret glades and high places that still draw us on sundays and bank holidays. It is the culture that calls us to sit round a bonfire at the slightest excuse, and to play in the snow, despite its inconvenience. It is the culture that calls millions of us to allotments and gardens and conservation projects and why doctors now offer the 'green gym' projects on prescription... because nature is the thing that makes us well.
So these are our starting points, the places where we don't have to scratch far beneath the surface of our society to find our true 'western culture'. No deeper than we have to scratch beneath the English soil to find the remains of those times.
Miriam Jangles
