How Poetry Can Act in the Defence of the Earth
How Poetry Can Act in the Defence of the Earth
By Ewok
Someone asked me a similar question earlier this year, something along the same lines, “What are you doing to save the planet?” or something like that. It got me thinking that the planet, Earth, doesn’t actually need any help, that it doesn’t need defending or saving. Despite the destructive forces developed and unleashed by human civilisation, the Earth will continue, as it always has. It will reshape itself, developing in accordance with the symbiotic relationships that form its ecosystems, and no amount of damage and destruction will actually end its existence. It might not continue to sustain life in the same way, and the climate and environmental shifts that are taking place will definitely dictate the nature of the life that the planet can hold, but the Earth will continue regardless.
No, the Earth is going to be fine, it doesn’t need saving. It is humanity that needs saving. We, the human race, are in need of defence.
Defending, or determining a suitable defence, means understanding the nature of the offence, of understanding the nature of the attack. I believe the nature of the attack on humanity and the human race is civilisation itself. This should be fairly easy to defend against seeing as civilisation is a human construct, which would indicate that the abuser and the abused are one in the same entity.
Simply put, we (humans) are our own worst enemy.
If we could reconnect with nature, with the natural world we come from, we might rediscover the circular symbiotic relationships that sustain all life on the planet, and we might find our place once again as equal parts of this system. It is a system of shared resources, a system of equality, of giving and taking. It is a system that is found at the core of many religious and political ideologies, a system that recognises the fundamental similarities that connect all living things, from our shared atomic substance to our interdependence on the elements that sustain life.
This is where poetry can play its part. Poetry can educate, providing a tool for both questioning and answering, and for the development of such intellectual skills. Poetry can translate, taking shared ideas and knowledge and passing them from language to language so that we are all able to enjoy the benefits of collective consciousness. Poetry can entertain, providing the fundamental balance between fantasy and reality, resulting in collective creativity. Poetry respects and retains history, so that we will always be able to learn from the past. Poetry dreams and discovers, so that we will constantly look to and believe in the future. In all of these ways, Poetry causes connections to be formed and protected. Poetry connects and teaches about connecting.
Poetry promotes the essence of humanity, “Ubuntu”, “I am me through you and through others”, “what’s yours is mine”, “each one teach one”, all of these common ideas that recognise the equality and symbiotic potential of our species and its place on the planet.
Poetry can reconnect humanity, and humanity can reconnect with the planet.
March 16th, 2011
