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The Global Systems Review Issue 8  May 2009

The Global Systems Review is a periodic e-newsletter that explores critical world issues through the lens of whole systems thinking.

This edition of the Global Systems Review is dedicated to Mother’s Day for peace and planet.

In this Issue:

• The Greatest Mother of All – Celebrating Mother Earth and our ‘inter-being’ with the natural world. More...
• Mothers of Peace – Honoring women as leaders of peace and the partnership way. More...
  

The Greatest of Mother of All
Louise Diamond

This Mother’s Day, when we send flowers and take our moms to lunch, let us also remember the greatest and most essential of all Mothers – Mother Earth.

Yes, she is alive and well after a mere 4+ billion years of existence, only 100,000 of which we humans have enjoyed her gifts.

Most of us are not used to thinking of Mother Earth as more than a metaphor. In fact, we tend to tell ourselves this planet is an inanimate rock, here for our use and pleasure. Indigenous peoples, who lived closer to the elements, have a different story. They understand themselves in a deeply interconnected living whole where every being is their relative in a sacred web.

The field of Deep Ecology has developed recently, which holds that not only is this earth a vibrant single living system, but that every one of its inhabitants has its own inherent value and place in the whole – that is, that we humans are no more or less important than any other species.

Whatever our view, we must admit that the Earth, like a mother, has held us and cared for us in every way. We are fed and clothed by her. Our bodies are made up of her elements and her waters. Our medicines come from her plants; our shelters from her forests, rocks, and sands. Our modern electronics are possible because of her minerals. Our homes are heated by her stores of fuel. The sun that holds her in orbit warms us and makes our lives possible. The air we breathe is her atmosphere.

Every aspect of our being and our lives together depends in some way on the natural world. Thich Nhat Hanh calls this state of interdependence ‘inter-being.’ We ‘inter-are’ with the trees, the wind, the oceans – meaning that everything is dependent on everything else. We’re all in this together.

In the Western world, we have been telling ourselves a very different story about Mother Earth based on a Judeo-Christian worldview that God gave man dominion over the earth and all her creatures. And we have acted on that belief, taking what we want from her when and how we want it, to satisfy our need and greed, without much thought to the short- or long-term consequences – to other beings who share this world or even to ourselves and our descendants.

We have also not considered the basic law of reciprocity – that is, when we take, we must also give back. The cycle of giving and receiving is as natural and as fundamental as the breath - we cannot only breathe in without breathing out. Indigenous peoples understand this. When they take water, game, trees, minerals – whatever – they give back; they pour libations, offer thanks, make prayers, ask permission, leave no waste, or in some other way honor the relationship.

We, on the other hand, bulldoze whole mountain tops to take coal, and dump the waste in our rivers and fields. We dredge oil wells in the rain forest and leave unlined pools of oily remains to seep into the streams and rivers that people drink from and bathe in. We fight wars over who has access to the wealth from diamonds, rubber, poppies, oil, and more. And more; and more.

Not thinking of the inter-relatedness, or not caring, we choose convenience of lifestyle over the health of our atmosphere, and pour carbon dioxide into our air in unsustainable amounts. Because Mother Earth is a living system where everything is connected, that now affects our climate patterns, which in turn affect our sea levels, extreme weather events, food production, and ultimately movement of whole populations. And more; and more.

In short, not thinking of Mother Earth as a living being of which we are an integral part, we foul our own life support system. And we have done so to the point of existential threat.

This Mother’s Day, let’s honor the greatest of all Mothers by changing the story we tell ourselves about this beautiful blue-green ball floating in space, this one world we all call home. For it is the story – the mental map, the mindset, the worldview, the narrative context – that determines our actions. A new story that acknowledges our true relationship with this greatest Mother of all will go a long way toward changing our self-destructive behavior with the environment.

And if we can’t take Mother Earth to lunch, at the very least we can say ‘thank you!’

To give Mother Earth the gift of a tree, go to:
www.plantabillion.org or www.BeGreenNow.com

To learn more about the Native American view of the natural world, and to give yourself or others a way to offer ‘Greetings and Thanks,’ go to:
syracuseculturalworkers.com/poster-greetings-and-thanks-natural-world

To learn more about Deep Ecology, go to:
www.morning-earth.org/DE6103/Read%20DE/Harding,%20What%20is%20DE.pdf

To learn more about Inter-Being, go to:
efipaz.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/interbeing/

Mothers of Peace
Louise Diamond

The foundation of what we now know as Mother’s Day came from a shout-out by Julia Ward Howe to the women of the world to meet together and discuss how to create world peace.

Women, in fact, are peacebuilders all over the world. They are also, increasingly, the primary targets of war. Indeed, the violent abuse and repression of women is widespread around the world. Women are considered dangerous or inferior, and are to be ‘kept in their place’ through wife beating; bride burning; rape; female genital mutilation; stoning; laws and cultural mores restricting movement, education, dress; and behavior; unequal pay and job opportunities; various male-oriented structures and institutions; and more. What is this really about?

Yin and Yang, breathing out and breathing in, day and night, winter and summer, expansion and contraction – the natural order of living systems is the balance of seeming polarities. What we see as opposites if we separate them are actually disparate elements of a larger whole. So it is with feminine and masculine energies – two halves of the one circle of humanity. Yet we have separated men and women in our worldview, resulting in a profound and ultimately unstable imbalance.

Linear, aggressive, pro-active, competitive, rational, problem-solving, independent, straight-forward – these we associate with men, and hold in high esteem. Cyclical, receptive, intuitive, cooperative, emotional, nurturing, relational, mysterious – these we associate with women, and hold in lower esteem. Women’s movements around the world struggle to re-balance this equation directly. Meanwhile, the field of peacebuilding that has arisen in the last several decades embodies a rare and unique blend of the masculine/feminine mix.

Peacebuilding is all about listening, dialogue, re-humanizing the ‘other,’ healing, reconciliation, and building trust relationships, as much or more than it is about negotiation, joint problem-solving, and treaties. That is why, while war-making and official peace-making continue at the mostly-male level of militias and governments, grass-roots peacebuilding is a field filled with and often led by women (and men who have found balance with their ‘feminine’ nature).

Riane Eisler, cultural anthropologist and best-selling author, describes the continuum of social relations book-ended by what she calls the dominator model of society and the partnership model. The former is about ranking – who’s better than, more worthy than, more powerful than, more entitled than another. The latter is about linking – respecting the value and contribution of all as essential parts of the larger whole. She, (and I and many others) believe that we are in the midst of a massive evolutionary shift from an extended period of dominator model society to the partnership way. War and violence arise from the dominator model; peace and healing from the partnership model.

(And by the way, this shift from dominator to partnership is also a way to describe the changing story we spoke of in the article above, from seeing the earth herself as a ‘thing’ to be used to seeing her as a living whole, of which we are an integral part and with whom we are partners in sustaining the family of life.)

This Mother’s Day, let us take Julia Ward Howe’s proclamation to heart; let us celebrate, support, and join all the Mothers of Peace – all those putting their energy toward strengthening the partnership way of life together on this planet, whether they be men or women. Better yet, let’s all decide to be a Mother of Peace.

To read the original Mother’s Day Proclamation, go to:
www.prism.net/user/fcarpenter/howe.html

To learn more about the dominator and partnership models and Riane Eisler’s work, go to: www.partnershipway.org

To learn about opportunities for women in peacebuilding, go to: www.peacexpeace.org