In today’s blog post, I’m going to review John Michael Greer’s newest book, Not the Future We Ordered: Peak Oil, Psychology, and the Myth of Progress. To review this book, I am going to start with an extended personal example …
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Review, Video, and Discussion of John Michael Greer’s Detroit Community Lecture, “Not the Future We Ordered”
Recently, our druid grove brought John Michael Greer to Michigan, where he did a book signing and gave a talk on the fall of industrial civilization. If you are interested in either druidry or sustainability, John Michael’s works (on druidry, …
A Philosophy of Druidry and Sustainability – Embracing Sustainability as Part of Earth-Centered Paths
This month, I’ll have been walking a forest/druidic path for seven years. This experience includes founding a druid grove, being active in two druid orders, attending multiple druid and larger neo-pagan gatherings, mentoring others, and so forth. And based on …
The anthropocene and the rights of non-human persons
We have entered a new age, what scientists are calling the “Anthropocene,” otherwise termed the “Human Epoch” by geologists. This means, for the first time in history, rather than having meteorological activity, substantial volcanic activity, or other natural phenomena which …
English vs. the Planet – Deconstructing How Language Harms the World
In the early 1930’s, two men, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, posited that language was so powerful it had the ability to alter people’s reality just based on its vocabulary, structure, morphology and syntax. This theory later became known as …
Shifting Worldviews: Three Books to Read on Sustainability & Druidry
I think that druids, and those of similar earth-centered paths, need to get really serious about sustainability. For what good is a spiritual tradition without the physical action that accompanies it? How can we revere the land while we take …
Reducing Your Impact on the Planet: Ten Tips to Get Started
As we quickly approach the most consumptive season of the year, I wanted to post about ways that you can reduce your overall impact on the planet. I think its critically important that we, as druids and other earth-centered spiritual …
Moving Sustainability from the Fringe to the Mainstream: The Case of One University
One of the greatest challenges we, as a culture, face is transitioning to sustainable practices and making those practices mainstream rather than fringe activities. In some parts of the country, even access to local foods is not possible; in others, …
Sustainability, Climate Change, and Inaction: A Stasis Theory / Rhetorical Analysis
One of the most frustrating issues in the sustainability and environmental movements today is the lack of serious discussion or action of any kind on the part of world governments and leaders. While we have stunning examples of people enacting …
Know Your History to Save Your Future
I attended a talk, titled “Local Food Starts at Home” and sponsored by two knowledgeable friends of mine, that focused on increasing awareness of local foods and building a sustainable foodshed in the future for our area. At the beginning …
Earth for Sale: Exploitation, Shared Resources, and the Future
Are there limits on what can be sold in our world? A life? A habitat? A community? A forest? An ecosystem? A home? The rivers? The oceans? A sacred site? Clean air? Unfortunately, in our culture everything is for sale–including …
Six Principles for Local Eating
Our eating practices can be incredibly environmentally and personally destructive. In the typical food system in America, we ship food from all corners of the earth burning fossil fuels, we exploit workers and growers, we depend upon multinational corporate food …
Long-Term Orientations: Oil, Fracking, and the Environment of the Future
“In our way of life, in our government, with every decision we make, we always keep in mind the Seventh Generation to come. It’s our job to see that the people coming ahead, the generations still unborn, have a world …
Cycles of Life, Death, and Rebirth
Seven years ago, one of my closest friends, Alfred Struble, lost his 3-year battle with cancer, dying before he was even 30 years old. While I have long since accepted his passage from this world into the otherworld, I find …