What is a religion of the earth? How is it different from other religions? Why is it needed by modern man? While the answers can be found in many earth traditions, western, eastern, aboriginal, etc., these explanations are only valid if they resonate with what we moderns know in our hearts to be true.
I find there are three basic principles of an earth religion.
The first is a belief in some form of collective unconscious, or racial memory, and a conviction that this collective wisdom is closely allied to our experience of nature. One of Carl Jung's contributions to psychology was the idea that we carry,
encoded in our genes, our racial memory as a species, certain spiritual attitudes and spiritual images: themes. Thus, if we examine religions all over the world from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, or examine myths and folk legends from around the world, we find the same recurring themes in all. An earth religion, then, emphasizes the similarities rather than the differences between human beings.
As our history as a species began at a time when we were much more interdependent with nature, this genetic memory is closely tied to the earth. God is often associated with the sun or a star and Goddess with the moon. Christ is symbolized as "The Tree of Life" or the Fish. We see the four elements: wind, fire, water and earth and the four direction points of the compass as sources of power. These are forces that all human beings, wherever they live on this planet, can feel when they are out of doors, in the woods or mountains.
The second principal of an earth religion is a belief in a conception of time that is cyclical. This is the unique experience that being a living creature on the earth gives to us. Cyclical time is opposed, though not contradictory to, another religious conception of time: eternity. 'Eternity' is emphasized in sky religions, those that focus upon a concept beyond time: heaven, nirvana. Both of these conceptions of time do exist, but an earth religion emphasizes cyclical time: the passing of the seasons of the year and how this is a mirror, and a model, for our own lives. Earthtime celebrates the endless cycle: birth, life, death and regeneration. When we recognize and celebrate our lives in this way, we feel a sense of commonness with all living things.
The final principal is a belief that morality, at least partially, comes from a harmony with the earth. While many religions focus upon a great prophet or savior whom its adherents attempt to emulate, an earth religion focuses, first, upon the earth itself. While earth religions may often have deities, for example, an Earth Mother Goddess who has two sons, the God of the Light Half of the Year and the God of the Dark Half of the Year, these are understood to be a kind of metaphor. A way of saying something: of stating in words the religious experience of harmony.
A belief in harmony with the earth as a source of morality supposes a basic benevolence in the universe: that there is a beneficent being running things and that human beings are basically good. After all, what is 'harmony' if it is not a feeling of
goodness and benevolence? To be in harmony with the earth is to be 'in synch' with all other living creatures, their creator and provider and, therefore, with ourselves. Thus, 'harmony' is but another way to describe in words something that is wordless: a transcending experience that all human beings can have in nature of this collective species memory that is cyclical but beyond time.
These are three basic principles of an earth religion but why is one necessary today? I think of the film Koyaanisquatsi that was made a few years ago (1983). I am sure that most of you are familiar with this film and therefore I won't bother to describe it. "Koyaanisquatsi" is a Hopi word meaning "out of balance," "out of
synch," "crazy." Though I believe all human beings should like to have this religious experience of harmony with the earth, it is now very, very difficult. We have created, and surround ourselves, with an artificial 'urban reality' that controls the minds and actions of the human race. Yet, this reality is neither health producing nor an image of our highest-humanness. We all know this, yet we feel
powerless to change it. An earth religion, then, is an attempt within a limited, circumscribed group of people to regain our saneness and, if we are successful, to then effect the larger 'urban reality' around us.