: : : The empire was Rome. A brutal, militaristic culture was transformed by the ancient Greek Eleusinian Mysteries according to Cicero. The Mysteries were initiations into the spirit of the Eternal Mother. Her cycles of death and rebirth were experienced by each initiate as a personal death and a rebirth into Spirit. So, then, we see in Cicero's estimate, a male-dominated brutal force of the fifth century B.C.E., civilized by the feminine face of God. But not by worship or devotion was this miraculous transformation accomplished, but by direct personal communion with the sacred, through a ritualized death of self and an ecstatic rebirth into a vision of eternal life. Put another way, Rome was humanized by the power of the Sacred Earth.

 : : : Today we live in a world increasingly dominated by a brutal militaristic culture, as we daily witness the grief and suffering left in war's wake. Yet, at this very same point in time, we have a groundswell of spiritual awakening globally. It is a spiritual awakening born of the matrix called apocalypse. As death greets us at every turn, we are forced to recognize what is truly sacred and vital to the survival of our collective humanity. It is an eco-spiritual groundswell stemming from a cognitive awareness of humanity's essential oneness and our symbiotic relationship to the Earth. The recognition that this symbiotic relationship to Earth is critical to our survival, and that our humanity is linked eternally to its mysteries, is called the Sacred Earth Paradigm.

 : : : Inspired by this paradigm, we derive concepts which speak to the sacredness of all life concepts such as sustainability, biodiversity, cultural diversity and global community. And from this fertile soil has grown a global movement. Indigenous peoples from Chiapas to Bhopal are able to articulate clearly the principles of sustainable development, biodiversity in agriculture, the preservation of cultural diversity, and relate them to an Earth-centered cosmology. It is this cosmological perspective rooted in a Sacred Earth paradigm which compels us to acknowledge the truly spiritual nature of this global political movement.

 : : : The understanding of humankind's place within an intricately woven web of life and of the eco-balance so critical for our survival is at once revolutionary and culturally transformative. At the same time it is archaic, that is, harkening back to the wisdom and cognitive understanding of an ancient people. So then, it is this archaic continuum rooted in the sacredness of the Earth that can provide the grounding necessary for our modern civilization, grown so grotesquely out of balance.

 : : : Thomas Merton, in the mid-twentieth century, wrote eloquently of western civilization's divided self and the psychic discord, even madness, which modern European man has visited upon the non-white peoples of the Earth and the Earth itself: "The white man...came into Africa (and Asia and America for that matter) like a one-eyed giant, bringing with him the characteristic split and blindness which were at once his strength, his torment, and his ruin."

 : : : Merton continues the metaphor with a look at the role of Wisdom: "The one-eyed giant had science without wisdom, and he broke in upon ancient civilizations which (like the medieval West) had wisdom without science, wisdom which transcends and unites, wisdom which dwells in body and soul together and which more by means of myth, of rite, of contemplation than by scientific experiment opens the door to a life in which the individual is not lost in the cosmos and in society but found in them. Wisdom which made all life sacred..." 1

 : : : And this wisdom of the ancient civilizations comes from keeping faith with the Sacred Earth. As Merton points out, the medieval western world still held this innate wisdom until the early 17th century when there began a revolution in thought which we call 'The Enlightenment'. This was nothing short of a radical shift in paradigm from one that held the Earth to be alive, conscious and sacred, to a mechanistic view of the universe where the Earth is inert and all objects are subject to rigid mathematical laws.

 : : : Rupert Sheldrake, in his co-authored book Natural Grace, explains the paradigm shift this way: "This revolution first came to consciousness in a vision of Rene Descartes on November 10, 1619. Descartes claimed that this vision was given to him by the Angel of Truth... . It was a vision of a machine-like world governed entirely by universal mechanical laws with no inherent spontaneity or freedom. This was the essence of the mechanistic theory of Nature. The soul, the animating principle, was withdrawn from the whole of nature and from the human body too... . This desacralized, de-animated soulless vision of nature became the foundation for modern science and was established as its reigning paradigm in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century." 2

 : : : Now, some four centuries later, the oceans are dying, the polar ice caps are melting, pandemics of antibiotic resistant diseases are upon us while war, greed, depravities and madness of all sort threaten to dominate our globalized culture; the time has come for another great shift in paradigm. That the Sacred Earth Paradigm be acknowledged and adopted by western industrial civilization 'a priori' any possibility of evolutionary growth in human consciousness and 'a priori' any possibility of healing the discord and disease of our modern psyche is the imperative of our time.

 : : : Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Christian and Islamic mystical traditions are all potent spiritual forces actively working toward a goal of a peaceful and compassionate world. But compassion and inner peace, urgent and critical to our humanity as they are, cannot alone restore the balance to a world teetering on the edge of extinction. A fundamental shift in cultural paradigm is required, from the separateness and alienation of individualism to the unity and cooperation of collectivism; a shift from patriarchal monotheism to a more balanced cosmology and from a mechanized model of Nature to a re-amimated conscious universe.

 : : : Fortunately, this shift has begun, not only in the minds and hearts of individuals but within the realm of science itself. In the early 20th century quantum physics cracked the eggshell of Newtonian laws. More recently theoretical physicists are working with concepts that re-animate Nature (i.e. 'morphic fields')

 : : : With a return to myth, ritual and sacred Earth ceremonies, we humans, acting as a bridge between the stars and the center of the Earth, can restore the balance and birth a shift in paradigm to one in which we are again 'at home' in the cosmos and at peace with the Earth. On a practical level, celebrating the Sacred Earth not only rejuvenates our spirits and opens our hearts; it raises energy. By raising the energy from the earth we ensure that the movement to save the planet and its population is never far from the source. The Sacred Earth is manifested through celebration, dance, puppetry and music. But the spirit of the Earth is revered and channeled through rituals of communion, prayer and silence. Those of us involved in a political movement must bring Earth prayers and Earth rituals to gatherings, rallies and demonstrations. Solstices and Equinox celebrations must become visionary events to harness the Earth's wisdom and rejuvenate the activists who are waging a long hard struggle for peace and justice.