[ Episode #51 // Culture of Dying ] **Editor’s pick**

In Extraenvironmentalist #51 we speak with Stephen Jenkinson about our cultural difficulty with death. Stephen draws on lessons learned from decades of working with death to describe how we can frame our civilization’s trajectory. We ask how to find sanity in a time of alienation and if we can be a human in difficult circumstances. Stephen describes the distinct jobs given to us as our family members die. Also, John Michael Greer joins us briefly to talk about the death of Western culture.The globally dominant culture is suffering from an economic, ecological and social crisis that has deeper roots than failing budgets and environmental degradation. Do we have a role to play if our culture is headed towards its eventual death? Though our economic system has trained us to be needy, can we approach these challenges as if we were needed?

[ Episode #54 // Love + Marriage ]

Our cultural institutions face such immense challenges from economic and environmental factors that even our assumptions about love and marriage on the table. What does recent research into early human sexuality say about our ideas of love as practiced by our early ancestors? In hard times, did our predecessors practice fierce egalitarianism to ensure group survival?

In Extraenvironmentalist #54 Chris Ryan joins us to talk about evidence of prehistoric sexuality in the book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality co-written withCacilda Jetha. Chris discusses his research into why so many marriages fail. We try to develop a conversation about sex and love between all guys without turning it into a boys club. Is that even possible? Examples are given of rituals from ancient societies that bypassed jealousy to defeat feelings of scarcity amongst hunter-gatherer bands.

[ Episode #68 // Better Than Normal ]

Society dramatically underestimates human potential, placing our imagination within a limited range of possibilities. What are the psychological limits of our species? Is there reliable scientific evidence of supernormal human capabilities? What areas of scientific study could replace the failing aims of a materialist scientific paradigm? Would compelling evidence for special abilities change our beliefs and institutions?

In Extraenvironmentalist #68 we speak with Dean Radin about his new book Supernormaland his decades of research into telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance for our 2013 Halloween Special. We ask Dr. Radin if the stories of ancient yogis were exaggerated superstitions or if they may have some basis in reality. Dean describes his process for studying controversial phenomena and how he is working to build a reliable non-materialist scientific process.

Terence McKenna: Extra-enviromentalism

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As centuries pass by, the mass of works grows endlessly, and one can foresee a time when it will be almost as difficult to educate oneself in a library, as in the universe, and almost as fast to seek truth subsisting in nature, as lost among an immense number of books. 

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper - Bertrand Russell

It’s a fact: human beings are self-obsessed – to the point where we actively deny the existence of most other species on Earth. We spend our time in homes, schools, offices, factories and cities where most other life forms are excluded. For recreation, we sit in front of screens watching humans mirroring what we do in our own lives. We are fascinated by any minor fluctuation in type: Who’s the prettiest? Who’s fattest? Who can make the sweetest hoot? Who cares?!

The minutiae of human behaviour is rarely as interesting, as the exuberant, cascading variation of the other creatures inhabiting our planet. To see through solely human eyes is to miss the majesty of creation.

‘W’ – Waterbear – can hibernate for 100 years and survive 10 days, unprotected in space. There are 750 species on Earth living in every conceivable habitat from ice shelves to hot springs.

There are critters that can go into a self-induced coma for one hundred years. Others see the planet’s magnetic field and use it on endless journeys; dolphins see with sound and whales use ocean trenches to increase the range of their love songs.

Within his book, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Caspar Henderson turns us on to the natural world. This extraordinary and exotic book is a hugely important work. Superficially, it can be enjoyed as an expose of the many weird and wonderful creatures we share our planet with. But it is also a profound journey during which we have opportunities to speculate on the much bigger questions: the origins of life, the purpose of consciousness, the destiny of technology and the prospects for human existence beyond our biosphere.

‘A’ – Axolotl – able to regenerate entire severed limbs. Argentine writer Julio Cortazar imagines a character staring at one for so long that he becomes one

Henderson skilfully amazes us as we work through his treasure-trove of beasts from A-Z (Axolotl to Zebrafish) with unique oddities of extraordinary creatures. However, his genius lies in unravelling how our ‘being-ness’, or our humanity, emerges from other species. In each chapter he draws us back to the meta-narrative that binds all life, woven over billions of years. There is something to learn from every minutiae of wildness around us, and digging into the deep ecological, natural history of our species helps us understand who we are, and why we are.

Interacting with the natural world draws us profoundly into existence. Henderson segues into rumination on humanity’s perennial fear of dying -“a tragedy of cognition” which we may not share with simpler species, describing it as “a looming presence, a lurking, silent interlocutor behind a bewildering variety of masks, with whom we have an intermittent but unending dialogue with in our heads.” He draws on Russell and Hume to boost morale, and quotes Blake as he describes death: “the dark secret love of the invisible worm sickens and destroys the rose”, and as he accesses the ‘eternal now’ as its sublime defiance: “He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise.”

Agonisingly, as the pages of the bestiary turn, the dull horror returns; many of the most exciting and unusual species we share the planet with are threatened with imminent extinction and most of us haven’t even heard of them, let alone been in their presence.

In chapter “L” Henderson recounts a deeply moving encounter with a Leatherback Turtle. “The animal is vividly alive in a realm that is largely beyond our reach and our imaginations. Later I recall a phrase from Zhuangzi: “all the creatures in this world have dimensions that cannot be calculated”” Being with a giant mother laying eggs affected him profoundly as does the realisation that their populations are decimated in myriad thoughtless ways.

‘N’ – Nautilus – secrete tiny laminations inside their shells in relation to the lunar-tide cycle. Ancient shells have fewer laminations per chamber revealing the shorter days of antiquity (21 hours)

Henderson’s discourse demonstrates the biosphere still shimmers with ancient mystery. Nautilus still rise up to the moonlit ocean surface now as they did 500 million years ago. But it also laments that time is running out and each species lost is the passing of ancient and irreplaceable knowledge.

He draws on the analogy of archaeologists grimacing as they think of the library at Alexandra burning down 2000 years ago. It may have contained 500,000 scrolls which at the time may have represented a large proportion of externalised human knowledge. In comparison, biologists tell us we may lose 95% of other species on Earth – millions of species, each with unique dimensions of existence. This rarely makes the news, let alone influences how we live.

‘T’ – Thorny Devil – has a hydroscopic body drawing moisture from dew and rain to its mouth by capillary action allowing it to survive in arid deserts

The Book of Barely Imagined Beings itself is analogous to a living process – wild, diverse, mysterious and self-organising. The conclusion is one in which “nothing is concluded.” How could it? Life is a process and we are living it. Our response to the book is the ultimate epilogue. Of course, Henderson’s urgent call is for us to wake up from our shared, mass-hallucination and see that value on our planet lies not in gold, gadgets nor gimmicks but in the broiling exuberance of the biosphere.

Our hope must be that poignant works such as this connect with enough people to change our relationship with the natural world – before it is too late. We are at a point where trying to extract more from nature will be deathly. In contrast, deepening our relationship to nature and cultivating our earthly paradise can be our salvation.

The Blog of Barely Imagined Beings

‘S’ – Southern Right Whale – “males compete not by fighting but by trying to out-compete each other… in the sheer quantity of sperm that they pass to females in frequent and promiscuous couplings from their prodigious testicles (each about half a tonne)”

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“I am disgusted to report that TED has indeed hidden my “War on Consciousness” presentation and Rupert Sheldrake’s “Science Delusion” presentation on the TEDx Youtube channel. Both videos are now marked as private and so no member of the public can now view them or make up their own minds about them. If this is how science operates, by silencing those who express opposing views rather than by debating with them, then science is dead and we are in a new era of the Inquisition.”
- Graham Hancock

TED’s response here

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You may have been fooled into thinking that older generations were only concerned with property, pensions and a nice pot of tea. Prepare to have that media stereotype blown away. A blast of sanity here as brave campaigners with a sparklingly clear understanding of the danger we all face take action against investment in coal by occupying Bristol Barclays bank. Vive la Revolution.

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For more eco-tunes check out the top ten here

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