We accept a cultural value that annihilates the Earth (making us all sick and in denial)

I love Marion Woodman. She holds critically important insights and inspires me deeply. The below excerpt is from Ecological Buddhism:

We are still accepting a cultural value that annihilates the Earth. If we don’t change, we are going to our own extinction. This is precisely what addicts do.

NR: You have said we have to overcome our addictions before we can connect to nature. Does our refusal to confront our addictions lead directly to our destruction of Mother Earth?

MW: I think so, yes. As children many of us feel a deep connection to Her. But our culture warps our natural instincts. That warping leads to addictions. But there’s a suicidal drive in the addicted individual and in the addicted society. Our planet is coming up against the wall.

Yet, despite all the horrors we have created, we are still doing precisely what we know will be ultimately destructive. Denial! Denial! We are still accepting a cultural value that annihilates the Earth. If we don’t change, we are going to our own extinction. This is precisely what addicts do. Addicts—in other words most of our society—pretend there’s nothing wrong. As they laugh and talk and plan, they deny their dying souls. That’s what we’re doing to the planet. We fight about things that won’t matter if we are extinct.

NR: You mean addicts have lost touch with the instinct for survival?

MW: That’s right. We have a consumer society where there’s no hope for a satiation point, because we’re cut off from our instinctive roots that would know when to stop eating, or drinking, or consuming, or whatever.

NR: And what’s the result of that for the planet?

MW: To destroy it. An addict is destroying himself. Or herself. And if we have no respect for our own matter we will certainly have no respect for the planet’s matter. We’ll just go on plundering it. (read the rest here)

More posts that feature Marion Woodman on Beyond Meds here.

Also see the below video which I’ve posted on this blog before. I’ll include the brief commentary from that post as well:

I’ve often talked about how addiction plagues all of us in some form or another whether or not we exhibit the overtly self-destructive habits of some of the folks who actually get labeled as addicts. Of course the tamer versions that effect the masses are also very destructive. We all destroy the environment and our own spiritual inheritance. This video speaks to this.