{"id":511,"date":"2010-03-06T12:40:45","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T12:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2010\/03\/thoughts-on-the-sacredness-of-all-things.html"},"modified":"2010-03-06T12:40:45","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T12:40:45","slug":"thoughts-on-the-sacredness-of-all-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/03\/thoughts-on-the-sacredness-of-all-things.html","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on the Sacredness of All Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

This blog frequently covers
\norganic food issues.  <\/span>It could be
\nsaid to do so a little obsessively. 
\n<\/span>Most of my readers will prefer eating organic, but is this an important
\nethical issue?  <\/span>How is that Pagan?<\/p>\n

We experience the Sacred in the
\nworld, whether or not it exists transcendental to it. Every relation with
\nanything has a spiritual dimension. 
\n<\/span>Everything. <\/p>\n

This means that everything is
\nmore than simply a means to our ends. At the same time, we are beings of need.  <\/span>Of necessity, many things must be means
\nto our ends, particularly what we eat. <\/p>\n

Doesn’t this put us in a
\nquandary?  <\/span>I don’t think so.  <\/span>I think it is an opportunity to deepen
\nour spiritual insight.  <\/span>Our relation
\nto agriculture is a wonderful place to do this.<\/p>\n

When I was a boy, we occasionally
\nsaid grace around the table.  <\/span>When
\nwe did I always wondered why we did not thank the plants and animals we were
\neating.  <\/span>We only thanked God. But
\nit was the plants and animals who died that we could live.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Not thanking them evidences the
\nstate of mind that has led to the hellish mass production of chickens, eggs,
\ncattle, salmon and hogs.  <\/span>It has
\nled to the massive fields of monoculture sustained by a steady flux of chemical
\npoisons and practices that leach the life from the soil.<\/p>\n

In other words, when we regard
\nsomething as simply a means to our ends, all that matters is using it
\n“efficiently.” For me, this attitude is akin to using a cathedral as a latrine
\nbecause it is convenient.  <\/span>How we
\ntreat the food we consume is in part a measure of how we treat the Sacred that
\nwe honor.  <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The old hunting and gathering
\nethic of having respect for everything is deeply in touch with a Pagan
\nsensibility.  <\/span>As agriculture
\ntransformed human lives, along with advantages it brought disadvantages.  <\/span>I think the biggest of these was that
\nwe shifted our spiritual appreciation and respect from concrete beings: this
\nsalmon, this deer, this plum tree, to increasingly more abstract entities:
\nMother Earth, Father Sky, and so on. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

I am not saying it is an error to
\npraise and honor Mother Earth and Father Sky, the Lady of the Moon and the
\nHorned Lord of death and rebirth – far from it.  <\/span>I am saying it is a mistake for us to stop there.<\/p>\n

As societies became more divorced
\nfrom the land that sustained them, it seems to me their spiritual world tended
\nto become increasingly abstract and distant: God with a personality, and
\nfinally, God without a personality. 
\n<\/span>Perhaps this is why so many in the modern world are concerned with
\n“proving” God exists.  <\/span>They have cut
\nthemselves off from the most easily accessed means of encountering the More
\nthan Human, and then wonder why they feel so alone in the universe.<\/p>\n

All these more inclusive and
\nabstract dimensions of Spirit are real in my experience, but when divorced from
\nSpirit “all the way down” we are left with little reason to care about the
\nroots of our encounters with this world. 
\n<\/span>When we do not care about the roots, we tear them up, unthinkingly, and
\nput their use under the control of the organized sociopaths that are
\ncorporations.<\/p>\n

Caring only for the power that
\nmoney brings, corporations steadily distance us from caring for the Sacredness
\nof the Earth, and so dissolve away the foundations of our humanity.<\/p>\n

Aldo
\nLeopold once wrote – and this is one of my favorite quote<\/a>s –<\/span><\/p>\n

For
\none species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun. . . .
\nwe, who have lost our pigeons, mourn the loss. Had the funeral been ours, the
\npigeons would hardly have mourned us. In this fact, rather than in Mr. DuPont’s
\nnylons or Mr. Vannevar Bush’s bombs, lies objective evidence of our superiority
\nover the beasts.<\/span><\/p>\n

When
\nwe begin to treat the weaker things in this world as of no ethical consequence,
\nas inconsequential from a Spiritual perspective, we set into motion that fatal
\nprogression that leads to the loss of what is most unique about our humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog frequently covers organic food issues.  It could be said to do so a little obsessively.  Most of my readers will prefer eating organic, but is this an important ethical issue?  How is that Pagan? We experience the Sacred in the world, whether or not it exists transcendental to it. Every relation with anything…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,112,106,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-nature","category-pagan-culture","category-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nThoughts on the Sacredness of All Things - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/03\/thoughts-on-the-sacredness-of-all-things.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thoughts on the Sacredness of All Things - A Pagan's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This blog frequently covers organic food issues.  It could be said to do so a little obsessively.  Most of my readers will prefer eating organic, but is this an important ethical issue?  How is that Pagan? 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Every relation with anything…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/03\/thoughts-on-the-sacredness-of-all-things.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Pagan's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-06T12:40:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gus diZerega\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Thoughts on the Sacredness of All Things - A Pagan's Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/03\/thoughts-on-the-sacredness-of-all-things.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Thoughts on the Sacredness of All Things - A Pagan's Blog","og_description":"This blog frequently covers organic food issues.  It could be said to do so a little obsessively.  Most of my readers will prefer eating organic, but is this an important ethical issue?  How is that Pagan? 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