Howard Thurman as a Green Man, Hildegard as a Green Woman

For Howard Thurman our feeling that we are part of our “total environment” is part and parcel of holiness.  He was ahead of many theologians and activists and religious figures when it came to standing up to the ecocide that humanity is involved in and that still, fifty years after his death, half of American politicians remain in complete denial about. 

As prophets do, he broke through the sleep of denial and anthropocentrism and species narcissism that shuts its eyes to climate.

Consider this teaching: Man cannot long separate himself from nature without withering as a cut rose in a vase. One of the deceptive aspects of mind in man is to give him the illusion of being distinct from and over against but not a part of nature. It is but a single leap thus to regard nature as being so completely other than himself that he may exploit it, plunder it, and rape it with impunity.

Thurman illuminates the spiritual malaise that has brought about the great devastation of the planet through ecological neglect.

We have been living an “illusion” that we are not ourselves of nature but “distinct from and over against” nature — that we are here to “master” nature, as Francis Bacon and Descartes bragged about early in the modern age. The exploitation, plundering, and raping of nature has been the clear result.

For standing up to eco-destruction, Thurman deserves to be called a Green Man.  For a Green Man (or  Green Woman) is a spiritual warrior who is committed to saving Mother Earth.  Here too, Thurman links hands with Hildegard of Bingen, for it was in her day, the 12^th century, that the Green Man came to the fore riding into consciousness as it were on the coattails (or long gown?) of the goddess. 

For example, at Chartres Cathedral, constructed in that century, there are about 174 images of the goddess (Mary in many manifestations) and 42 images of the Green Man.  Hildegard wrote about the Green Man which was so alive in her time and even says that “Christ is a Green Man” or the “green figure itself” who “brought lush greenness” to “shrived and wilted” humanity. 

One of the first steps in being a Green Man is connecting to the whole, to the cosmos, for as Thomas Berry observes, “ecology is functional cosmology.”  Thurman speaks about our need as human beings for a cosmology: 

It is natural that man should concern himself with beginnings. This is a part of the curiosity of the mind. Without it there would be no exploration of the world and there would be no growth…. This is an inherent characteristic of mind; it is not unique to any particular age of man, culture, or society. Contemplation concerning origins is a part of the curiosity of the race.

Today science is gifting us with a new story of the universe, one that is being understood around the world.  To be continued

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations, pp. 216, 203. 

See also Matthew Fox, “The Green Man,” in Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, chapter two, pp. 19-32.

Banner Image: Hildegard of Bingen – Selestat (Alsace); Saint Faith church; photo by Wolfgang Sauber; on Wikimedia Commons. Howard Thurman Howard University chapel – detail of stained glass window. Photo by Fourandsixty on Wikimedia Commons.

Do you agree that humanity is often living in an illusion that we are separate from nature?  Doesn’t it follow that we are separate from ourselves because we too are nature?  When politician get stuck in this mentality that shows in denial of climate change, isn’t it imperative that new people run for office?  How about yourself?

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature,  to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God