yet another doug

This is Doug of Hendrick extolling the virtues of an earth jurisprudence-- he brought with him that night a copy of the foreword to "Wild Law" by Cormac Cullinan written by Thomas Berry (bless his still living soul!) who critiques the constitution by saying that this venerated document provides a detailed list of the rights of individual persons, thus, "Humans had finally become self-validating, both as individuals & as a political community." What is left out, according to Berry, is the rest of the natural world, "...the difficulty is no exactly with the rights granted to humans, the difficulty is that no rights and no protections were granted to any non-human mode of being." This reminded me of something that has been in my mind ever since i first heard it at Bangor Seminary long ago: We need a new myth. Berry, the "geologian" provides one: "It's time to replace our arrogance toward the Earth with a becoming humility, to replace our fear of Earth with a grateful response to a benign & gracious mother; yet a severe & demanding mother, a mother who will at times starve us with famine, assault us with storms, drown us at sea, yet will provide us with a world of endless excitement & infinite meaning..." it reminds me of Yeat's wild beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born...