We are pleased to introduce a new section of our journal, "In Resonance with the Earth." We see poiesis as providing the basis for human beings' creative responses to the world of nature. The arts in particular offer forms that crystallize these responses in ways that touch and move us. "In Resonance with the Earth" contains poetry, artworks, photography and essays relevant to this theme. In this issue of the journal, this section includes an essay by Vadim Ryabikov and a poem by Alexander Kopytin (recitation by Alexandra Kirillova).
The article examines the influence of the Moon as a celestial body of the solar system, closely connected with the Earth, on humans. It is shown how, through creative activity in the interaction of humans with this celestial body, new meanings and forms of experience are formed and their renewal in culture takes place. In this case, the Moon acts not only as a physical object, but also as one of the natural archetypes, due to which a complex of human potentials is realized in their connection with the environment. When considering the Moon as a natural phenomenon, special attention is paid to those types of activities when it is perceived through the prism of non-pragmatic, artistic and aesthetic experience, closely related to the sense of beauty. When considering this mode of perception of the Moon, the concepts of poiesis and ecopoiesis are used.
There is a complex turmoil taking place in the world in this historical moment: violence in Gaza, and war in Ukraine involved the whole world community and revealed the fragility and dysfunctional nature of the state of affairs. In this issue of the journal, both world environmental traditions and new ideas in ecology are contributing to a new eco-human approach to understanding the world and humanity. The constructiveness of the eco-human approach or a paradigm is determined by systemic environmental thinking. “Ecology” is a radical system-forming concept necessary to rethink the entire cultural practice of humankind and realize new opportunities to solve the problems of preserving humanity and the planet.
The new section of our journal, “Poetic Anthology of Eco-Human Experience”, presents poetry from different ages, dedicated to various facets of our human relationship with the moon as a natural object. Poetic works allow us to comprehend the eco-human, eco-poietic nuances of our ability, together with this natural phenomenon, to generate new facets of subjectivity, to discover new forms of experience and meanings revealed on the threshold of human and more-than-human reality.
Authors of this essay recognize themselves as living in a particularly difficult time for peaceful coexistence between countries, cultures and with nature. Presenting themselves as part of this system and complex fabric, they ask themselves about a way to live healthily in a hostile environment. They describe the experiences of faculty, students, and alumni at Estudios en Artes Expresivas (TAE) in Lima, Peru, in hosting creative activities. They welcomed the events present in their reality by making art in community, to imagine different ways of responding to it. They know that the arts and their vitality allow them to respond to what they have experienced and bring them closer to beauty. Arts are part of human nature. In them human beings find the possibility of transforming pain and responding aesthetically, in community.
"Memories of the Future" is an ecopoietic project by artist / expressive art teacher, who is aiming to raise awareness on the disappearance of the Prickly Pear cactus, in the Balearic Islands and mainland Spain due to a plague of Cochineal. Inspired by Donna Haraway's writings (“Staying with the trouble”, in particular) the artist created surreal scenes as “speculative fabulations” from a mix of artificial intelligence, digital and analogue manipulation, with the aim of fostering new narratives and perspective shifts in the face of ecological issues.
The essay examines the key points of Pope Francis' 2015 Encyclical, Laudato Si'. It pays particular attention to the influence of the spiritual heritage of St. Francis of Assisi on the position of the Catholic Church on environmental issues. The concept of ecological spirituality is revealed. The important role of the arts and aesthetic experience in the spiritual heritage of St. Francis is shown. The correlations between the phenomenology of the creative process, poiesis, considered from the standpoint of expressive arts and therapy and the structure of Lectio Divina (divine reading in Latin) are shown.
Representatives of different countries are increasingly cooperating to determine the essence of ecological civilization and the ways to build it. One confirmation of this is the number of articles presented in this issue of our journal, the authors of which are specialists from Australia, China and the United States of America. These articles are a reflection of attempts at interdisciplinary understanding of ecological civilization from the positions of ecology, philosophy, anthropology, political science and other sciences. The topic of ecological civilization was previously touched upon in the previous issue of our journal through the publication of an interview with John Cobb and a report on the 16th International Forum on Ecological Civilization and the 5th International Youth Forum on Ecological Civilization.
An ecological civilization represents an exciting potential future of human flourishing on a regenerated Earth. It would require a transformation of our current economy, politics, and mainstream culture, leading to a fundamentally different civilization based of different values, goals, and collective behavior. An ecological civilization arises from modeling human society on nature’s wisdom—the same core principles that have kept natural ecologies healthy and resilient over millions of years. It is a vision inspired by life-affirming groups worldwide—Indigenous, political, community-based, and spiritual. While it’s visionary and seems a long way off, it may be closer than many people realize.
For all of its numerous benefits, modernization is a double-edged sword. After wholeheartedly embracing Western-style modernization in the 20th and 21st centuries, China has achieved astonishing world-renowned achievements, most notably in terms of its rapid economic growth and development. However, contemporary China has had to cope with many of the bitter aftertastes of the pill of modernization, especially in regards to the serious ecological crisis faced by most developed countries. In order to avoid the fate of self-destruction of both China and the wider world, a new civilization—ecological civilization—is needed. Organic-process thinking can provide a theoretical framework for such an ecological civilization. Although China has made great efforts thus far to create such an ecological civilization, the road toward building one is long and difficult, as there is a great deal of obstacles that must be overcome to reach this goal.
This essay by Beverley A'Court, describing therapeutic interactions with animals, is part of the continuing response to our invitation to share the experience of human – animal bonds. Interactions with local wildlife during author’s outdoor art therapy sessions over the past 25 years provided an opportunity to learn more about both the animals themselves and the role of field phenomena in art therapy. This essay is an informal exploration of the author’s observations of the impacts of animal encounters on clients. She identifies some theoretical and practical questions that arise when we include the spontaneous, active participation of animals and nature in the therapeutic process. She concludes that ecological therapies, with their holistic paradigm may develop ecological sensitivity and awareness in clients beyond their personal recovery from symptoms of trauma, for wider collective benefit.
The new section of our journal, “Poetic Anthology of Eco-Human Experience”, presents poetry, which reflects the human connections with the natural world. In this issue we offer a selection of poems about plants and fungi, written by poets of the 20th and 21st centuries, allowing us to see the eco-human, ecopoietic dimensions of these relationships, and human ability to generate new meanings and forms of experience through interaction with these forms of life. We invite readers to contribute to this selection of poems. Please feel free to send us poems on plants and fungi that you find relevant.
The article is interdisciplinary in nature, covering relational cybernetics and epistemology, biology, ecology, and systems theory. The authors define life as a relational unit, ecopoiesis, which is a constant spiral dance between differentiation and the maintenance of integrity. Based on the concepts of relational cybernetics, new ecological concepts, the category of ecopoiesis, the authors claim that the relation is the basis by which and upon which we say that, as observers, we draw differences and that those differences drawn from the relation are argued as distinctions. Strictly speaking, it is a trifference since the process implies the one that generates. In this process, information is the first step of trifferentiation. This leads us to the proposition that all cognitive processes occur in an entity capable of generating trifferences and processing them as information. On this basis, we have called the process that explains life as a relational unit, ecopoiesis, since it is a constant spiral dance between differentiation and the abduction of its complexity.
We are pleased to introduce a new section of our journal, "In Resonance with the Earth." We see poiesis as providing the basis for human beings' creative responses to their environment. The arts in particular offer forms that crystallize these responses in ways that touch and move us. "In Resonance with the Earth" containыs poetry, artworks, photography and poetic essays relevant to our theme. We encourage readers to find their own poietic ways of responding. This issue embraces a selection of poems by Beverley A’Court (Findhorn, Scotland).
The failure to effectively confront major challenges facing humanity, most importantly, the global ecological crisis, it is argued, is due to the failure of those analysing the root causes of these challenges to engage with and invoke political philosophy to find a way out, and concomitantly, the failure of ethical and political philosophers to effectively engage with the deep assumptions, power structures and dynamics actually operative in the current world-order. It is claimed that this is due to a tacit acceptance of a cultural dualism manifest in the opposition between the sciences and the humanities, with the humanities having been marginalized by the sciences. To overcome this dualism and marginalization of the humanities, and to defend communitarian ethical and political philosophy in a way that both challenges mainstream thinking and engages with the world as it is, with the potential to inspire and orient people for effective action, it is shown how communitarian ethical and political philosophy can be defended and developed through ecology incorporating the notion of ecopoiesis. It is shown how this can serve to create an effective counter-hegemonic culture, integrated as a dialogic grand narrative, uniting and orienting people to create a multi-polar world-order as an ecological civilization.
In this photo essay, Carolina Herbert explores her passion and connection with animals and the intimate and unconditional relationships they have with people. As she collects images and stories from people in her local community, she learns how vitally important animals are in people’s lives and the roles they play in supporting wellbeing, mental health, healing from trauma, depression and isolation. How they bring joy and play into the lives of families and teach children about loss and letting go. Animals connect us more deeply to what matters between us and to who we really are. She explores how animals also need our unconditional care and support especially when injured and how we can learn the gift of being able to deeply listen, attune and respond to their needs. In times when we are increasingly separated from our natural world, and, as animals’ lives are threatened in our escalating climate crisis, there is no greater time than now to restore our relationships to these unconditional love and joy bringing beings.
In an interview, an American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist, Dr. John Cobb talks about the ecological civilization and his perception of the ways to build it. He develops his thoughts on religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue, as well as the need to reconcile religion and science and to build what he calls Earthism, and how to develop a more sustainable future by replacing the national and global market by local economies.
We offer a selection of poems dedicated to wild and domesticated animals, written by poets of over the centuries. These verses express the mystery and drama of the relationships between people and animals, allowing us to see the ecopoietic, visionary, and sacred dimensions of these relationships, their ability to generate new meanings and forms of experience. We invite readers to contribute to this selection of poems. Please feel free to send us poems on animals than you find relevant.
Is it possible to understand the human-animal bond from the eco-human perspective? What would the human-animal bond be like from the viewpoint of ecopoiesis? We are ourselves animals, with distinctive capacities perhaps, but not fundamentally different from other living creatures. If ecopoiesis is the way in which we have made our world and all that is in it, does that not also imply an aesthetic responsibility to all that lives? In that case, it would be our responsibility to enable other creatures to flourish, in so far as that is possible. The human-animal bond is first of all a bond in which we recognize our kinship with other living creatures. To be kin implies to be kind. Just as we think it cruel to be unkind to members of our own family, is there not cruelty in the way that we are with other animals? Our hope is that our perspectives on this bond will show us not only new ways to think about other creatures but also to act in what used to be called a more “humane” way in relation to them.
An experienced photographer and traveler, Mikhail Korostelev shares in this interview what wildlife photography means to him, how photography has influenced his perception of the world of animals, and what role photography plays in the animal rights movement and the environmental movement.
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