The Trumpeter - Journal of Ecosophy (Athabasca University)

Caley, Michael T.

Cover and Contents

Zimmerman, Michael E.

 
 
 
The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 1705-9429 
Volume 24, Number 1 (2008) 
 
 
Heidegger in the Mountains 
 
Michael E. Zimmerman 
 
 
 
Michael E. Zimmerman is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center 
for Humanities and the Arts at the University of Colorado, Boulder. 
 
In spring, 1981, Dolores LaChapelle wrote a letter inviting me to take 
part in a small conference in Silverton, Colorado, that August. At the 
time, I had never heard either of Dolores, or of her book, Earth 
Wisdom, which accompanied her letter. In Colorado, however, she had 
attained almost legendary status as a woman who had summited the 
state’s dozens of 14,000-foot-high mountains, and who was such a 
fearless, avid, and talented skier. Her book, with its double-columns of 
print pushing the edge of every page, was packed with fascinating 
information that was often new to me. Indeed, when Dolores was 
researching a book, the little Silverton library led the state in the 
number of interlibrary loan requests! 
She had learned that I was interpreting German philosopher Martin 
Heidegger as a progenitor of the deep ecology movement, then in its 
nascent stage. According to Dolores, Heidegger’s celebrated idea of 
“releasement” (Gelassenheit) was crucial to the practice of powder 
snow skiing. For great skiing to occur, according to Dolores, the skier 
could neither be active (imposing her will on the snowy slope), nor 
merely passive. Instead, the skier had to “let the mountain be.” That 
Heidegger himself had been a devoted skier convinced Dolores that his 
notion of “letting things be” was grounded in experience akin to her 
own.  
In Earth Wisdom and elsewhere, Dolores drew upon her own insights 
and on those drawn from pre-modern traditions in order to indicate how 
humans can and should relate to the non-human world. Getting out of 
the city and into the mountains was one way for modern people to get a 
taste of what non-human nature could offer, but once in the mountains, 
one had to let them be. This in turn required an attitude, a practice, and 
Volume 24, Number 1 
 
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The Trumpeter 4
a perspective that did not come easily. Climbing, hiking, and skiing 
with Dolores were always special, especially for those willing to learn 
from Dolores’s coaching, which was measured, respectful, and 
compassionate. Dolores was intense, loquacious, highly intelligent, and 
often restive. Above all, however, she wanted to share her insights with 
others, so deeply was she attached to the many different kinds of “old 
ways” that opened paths into the beautiful and terrifying dimensions of 
nature. 
Among those who gathered late that summer to spend several days of 
talking and hiking with Dolores were Bill Devall, George Sessions, 
Steve Meyers, and myself. At what we would eventually call the 
“Heidegger in the Mountains” symposium, George Sessions and I 
argued about Heidegger’s claim that human existence has a special role 
in holding open the clearing in which such beauty and terror can be 
manifest. Sessions was always wary of anthropocentrism, which he 
claimed was discernible in Heidegger’s thought, despite Heidegger’s 
own critique of anthropocentrism. We didn’t settle the argument, 
although Arne Naess would have rightly observed that Sessions and I 
were at odds in regard to philosophical first principles, rather than in 
regard to the planks in the deep ecology platform, which was 
formulated a few years later. 
I honour Dolores LaChapelle for her worthy and important 
contributions to deep ecology theory and practice. I also deeply 
appreciate her warmth, her generosity, and her flexibility, as in the case 
almost twenty years ago when she accepted my invitation to give a talk 
at Tulane University, thereby suspending her vow never to give a 
lecture on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River! I will miss her. 


Heidegger in the Mountains

Recio, Belinda

 
The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 24, Number 2 (2008) 
 
The Waters Within 
Belinda Recio 
 
 
 
 
 
Belinda Recio, M.A., has authored and edited books on subjects ranging from 
dream symbolism and sacred arts to nature writing. She is currently working 
toward her doctorate in Environmental Studies. Her scholarship focuses on the 
function of cultural and imaginal representations of nature in the conservation 
ethic. 
You never enjoy the world aright till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed 
with the heavens and crowned with the stars. 
    —Traherne, Centuries of Meditations 
 
 
There, at the threshold of the sea, you are surrounded by 
Whelks, cowries, limpets, and wentletraps, 
Scavenger crabs, lost feathers, strands of seaweed, 
Smooth stones that tuck themselves into your hand, wrapping your fingers around them, 
Strewn starfish with missing arms, dreaming of their phantom limbs, 
And the hollow bones of birds, wind whistling through their chambers, 
Leaving euphonious echoes of feathers and flight 
Hanging in the air to evaporate like jellyfish on the sand. 
 
 
Here, you find an empty nautilus long abandoned by the argonaut 
Its opalescent whorl and spiral a labyrinth of sound and space. 
You lift it to your ear and there is the sea’s salty breath, 
And the ghostly song of a soft cephalopod heartbeat. 
The sound calls you to return to the primeval water, to feel the lunar pull. 
You enter the nautilus with your eyes wide open, feeling the saline sting. 
It is dark and cold and your tongue burns from the brackish taste. 
You are alone in this spatial cipher from the sea. 
 
 
 
The Trumpeter 68
 
 
Volume 24, Number 2 69
Now, as you make your way along the cool, lacquered corridors,  
You feel yourself breathing easier and realize that you are submerged. 
The ocean is passing through your parted lips, flooding you like an estuary, 
Flowing over the filaments of your newly formed gills. 
At last, you are an alchemist, a sea creature, a breather of water, 
Filtering oxygen atoms from hydrogen, conjuring breath from the abyss. 
The sea’s your mistress, your soul, your rising tide— 
Let her hold you steady as stars explode and cells divide. 
 
 


The Waters Within

Rangarajan, Swarnalatha

Madhu-Vidya: The Holocoenotic Vision of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Prattis, Ian

 
The Trumpeter  
ISSN: 0832-6193 
Volume 24, Number 2 (2008) 
 
Wisdom of the Elders 
 
Ian Prattis 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ian Prattis is the author of The Essential Spiral and is a dharma teacher in the 
Zen tradition of Engaged Buddhism cultivated by Thich Nhat Hanh. He gives 
dharma talks and retreats all over the world. When at home he is the resident 
teacher at Pine Gate sangha, a Zen Buddhist community in Ottawa, Canada. 
www.ianprattis.com/pinegate.htm. This article is an excerpt from Part Three: 
“This Moment Heals All Moments” of Failsafe, published in 2008 by Manor 
House Publishing www.failsafebook.com. 
 
Several years ago, at the beginning of spring after a severe winter in 
Canada, I participated in a sweat lodge ceremony with respected elders 
from the Ojibwa, Dene, and Mohawk First Nations. It took place in a 
remote part of Ontario and we camped close to the newly constructed 
inipi, specially built for this sweat lodge ceremony. Inside the lodge the 
prayers offered were very moving. We made deeply personal and 
collective commitments to serve the Earth Mother, to do all that we 
could to heal her and ourselves. At the end of the final round of the 
ceremony we emerged into the pristine beauty of a late snowfall under a 
clear, star-studded sky. There had been a two-inch snowfall while the 
sweat lodge was in progress. We walked barefoot in silence to where 
we were camping. Quiet smiles, not thinking too much. My smile grew 
immense when looking back at our footprints in the snow. I gestured to 
my companions to stop and look. Words were not appropriate. We all 
smiled with the same recognition and looked at one another with new 
eyes. It was as though these were the first footprints witnessed on 
Mother Earth. Such a vision strengthened our commitment and resolve; 
business as usual was no longer possible for us.  
Sacred Ecology is not a term that indigenous elders would likely use. 
They quietly assume that the proper relationship between human beings 
and the earth is a deeply spiritual one. An elder is recognized as a 
holder of wisdom, the repository of a precise, well-articulated earth 
The Trumpeter 16 
 
 
Volume 24, Number 2 17
science. Such wisdom is based on extensive investigation of how the 
threads of world order are woven together into one single brilliant 
tapestry. It may be understood only through the eyes of intrinsic 
humility and reverence for all of life. The knowledge passed on by 
elders about how to live a good life arose from that essential spiritual 
relationship between a person, the earth, and the cosmos. This venture 
was encouraged by a worldview that every item in the tapestry of life 
interconnects with everything else. The wisdom of the elders, expressed 
through ceremony and myth, provided the guiding means to care for the 
sacred balance that held earth, humanity, and cosmos in harmony. The 
world view of the elders also encouraged a vision of looking ahead 
seven generations into the future by taking good care of these intricate 
inter-relationships NOW—in this moment. Lifeways evolved that were 
anchored in a sense of thankfulness for the garden bequeathed to us. 
Hunting and horticultural patterns relied on sophisticated and intimate 
knowledge of animal and plant interactions with habitat and humans. 
Respect and empathy were shown for the slain animals through rituals 
of thanksgiving that did not portray the hunter and horticulturalist as 
superior to the life form taken. Such an ethos of gratitude fostered care 
for a sustainable eco-system that was enough; the hunter and the 
hunted, the horticulturalist and habitat shared a mutual awareness in the 
landscape that nature provided. The astonishing similarity of this 
wisdom across cultures was brought together by Peter Knudtson and 
David Suzuki in their 1992 book “Wisdom of the Elders.”1 The threads 
and premises of traditional ecological knowledge across geographical 
and cultural boundaries were due to the embodiment of a mythic 
landscape by elders located in different indigenous cultures worldwide. 
Knudtson and Suzuki drew on accounts by elders from Native America, 
Amazonia, the Australian Aborigines, Malaysia, Africa, Sarawak, 
Vietnam, and Mesoamerica. The collective wisdom about Mother Earth 
as a living system expressed uniquely by elders in different cultures 
provides the framework for understanding and balance that we should 
listen to very carefully. 
In contrast, our modern world has to a great extent abandoned all 
humility and sense of interconnectedness. With respect to a relationship 
with nature we have refashioned Reverential into Referential, 
journeying from mythological space to the relentless drive of ego. Even 
if we have cultivated a respectful awareness, we still manage to smash 
through the threads of cosmic order as innocently as children running 
through cobwebs—simply because we do not know what is there. We 
remain unaware of the natural epiphany that is waiting. If we are lucky 
                                                 
1 Peter Knudtson and David Suzuki. Wisdom of the Elders (Toronto: Stoddart, 1992). 
The Trumpeter 18 
enough to somehow experience the epiphany there is no world-view by 
which we can understand its significance. It is just marked down as an 
un-natural high! It is obvious that we need to create new ceremonies of 
respect for the earth mother. It is at great cost to ourselves and to the 
Earth Mother that we have ignored the repository of Earth Science from 
the Elders. In the twenty-first century we cannot replicate the conditions 
of indigenous culture, yet there is much we can learn about regenerating 
a commitment to planetary renewal from aboriginal ceremonies that 
unify peoples with their ecological insight. What can guide us? We can 
use instruments of mindfulness with their effect of freeing the human 
mind from suffering. Another way is to remember the Wisdom of the 
Elders and what our myths have been telling us from time immemorial.  
Joseph Campbell in The Hero’s Journey2 was adamant about the 
redundancy of the great religions of the world for the hero’s task of 
transforming the planet and the world social order. The great religions 
are all complicit in the partisan fracturing of the modern world with 
outmoded expressions of cultural nationalism. The vigorous 
propagation of any fundamentalist religious form as an exclusive 
“Way” is totally inappropriate for our modern times. Their “monkey 
holiness” is not the stuff that can aid the hero. Cultural nationalism is a 
redundant force in the twenty-first century—an impediment to the task 
of transforming the social and ecological order of the world. However, 
the religious right in America and their identical twin—the Taliban in 
Afghanistan—and other religious groups like them refuse to recognize 
that they are obsolete, still appealing to the ignorant and fearful. The 
Jesus Camps run by the religious right in America and the madrasa 
schools organised by the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan have too 
much in common to ignore their similar intent in creating hatred and 
destruction towards all unbelievers in their distorted vision of faith. 
Fortunately, the hero does have the “all” within him, within her, and it 
is essential for humanity to wake up to that. Transforming the fabric of 
the entire social order asks world citizens to do the work of becoming 
spiritually responsible, rather than remaining spiritual captives. This is 
to enable the revealed knowledge and wisdom gained from the Hero’s 
adventure to be applied to society and the environment. Hero’s are 
certainly needed. The hero’s task in the modern era can be ominous and 
lonely. Campbell, in the last paragraph of his classic, The Hero With A 
Thousand Faces,3 states: 
                                                 
2 Joseph Campbell, Phil Cousineau, and Stuart L. Brown. The Hero's Journey: Joseph 
Campbell on His Life and Work (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2003). 
3 Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: Pantheon, 1949). 
 
 
The modern hero . . . cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to 
cast off its slough of pride, of fear, rationalized advise, and sanctified 
misunderstanding . . . It is not society that is to guide and save the creative 
hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme 
ordeal—carries the cross of the redeemer—not in the bright moments of 
his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair. 
That is, until a critical mass of concerned and active citizens heed the 
call and change their mindsets. Then the task becomes less lonely. The 
call is to the adventure of changing the existing world order by arriving 
at a deep spiritual understanding of what needs to be done. The hero’s 
mantle is cast on all of us, as Joseph Campbell asks everyone to be a 
modern hero and heroine for our time. 
Understand the challenge 
Accept the challenge 
Listen to Nietzsche and live as though the day were here. 
I have always had an intuitive sense that myths carry the wisdom of the 
ages and I find solace, courage, and guidance in them. To me the 
world's mythologies are highly complex narrative forms that have kept 
alive the realities of creation and the manner in which light and life 
came to humankind. They also provide graphic insights into the way 
light and life can be lost. In a highly coded way, these cultural accounts 
document the placement of humankind within the universe and upon 
the planet. The aboriginal shamans and seers I have worked with for 
over thirty years are myth-keepers and are called upon to be 
intermediaries between humans, the earth, and the universe. Their task 
is to maintain a balance between the multi-dimensional levels of reality 
known to them, by ensuring that these levels can be experienced and 
integrated with respect. There is a body of myths worldwide that deal 
directly with environmental issues. The Tree of Life myths connect the 
planet, the universe, and human beings in a template that is repeated 
with astonishing similarity in culture after culture. The constancy by 
which these sacred stories narrate the lessons of being, creation, and 
transformation, provides overwhelming evidence that the distinctive 
style of these accounts is not a haphazard accident. These narratives lie 
outside of time and space, providing symbolic guidelines for an inner 
journey of personal transformation. In doing so, they provide insights 
about the interconnectedness of levels that can take care of the planet. 
This takes us full circle back to the wisdom of the elders. The elders are 
the source of such wisdom as well as being the keepers of it. If one 
understands the myths from the inside, as they do, and can discern the 
guidelines for the inner journey, one then knows what steps to take and 
what steps to refrain from.  
Volume 24, Number 2 19
The Trumpeter 20 
 
 The Jewish mystics, the Kabbalists, have the sefirotic Tree of Life 
central to their conceptions about creation. The divine tree, as the 
intermediary between the world of human beings and God, is composed 
of ascending levels of consciousness that sustain a balanced life with all 
of creation—planetary and universal. This same inexhaustible metaphor 
of levels appears in the Norse myth of the Universal Tree: Yggdrasil. 
The mighty ash, Yggdrasil, is centred as the axis mundi and connects 
the planet, humans, and the universe, as long as human beings, 
represented as Gods, choose to locate at the centre within themselves. 
Otherwise chaos and destruction ensue. All the cycles of existence are 
played out and orchestrated within Yggdrasil's domain. For the Lakota 
Sioux, the central pole of the Sun Dance lodge is known as the sacred 
tree, the centre of everything, the connector, the Great Spirit. This kind 
of symbolism is found in every myth about the Tree of Life. What is it 
telling us? 
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on the Tree of Life, placed at the centre 
of the world and the universe. The four directions of the cross connect 
the earth, humanity, and the universe in the most powerful symbol of 
our times. On this Tree of Life, Christ provided human beings with an 
example of boundless consciousness that speaks to every human heart, 
irrespective of particular religious tradition. Moyra Caldecott collected 
these and many other myths in her remarkable 1993 book, Myths of the 
Sacred Tree,4 yet the one that catches my attention more than any other 
is her account of Siddhartha Gautama and the Bodhi Tree: 
At Bodh-Gaya he sat under a tree and did not move from there for forty-
nine days. Time passed and did not pass. He could feel the great tree 
drawing nourishment and energy from the earth. He could feel it drawing 
nourishment and energy from the air and sun. He began to feel the same 
energy pumping in his heart. He began to feel there was no distinction 
between the tree and himself. He was the tree. The tree was him. The earth 
and sky were also part of the tree and hence of him. When his companions 
came that way again they found him so shining and radiant they could 
hardly look at him directly... He could have said, “There is no distinction. 
There is no suffering once one experiences the wholeness of things. There 
is only suffering if we think in terms of separation: I and Thou, this and 
that, before and after, here and there. There is only suffering if we desire 
what we think is outside ourselves, not realizing that we have everything 
because everything is contained within the "I"…… He took a leaf from 
the tree and looked at it. In it was the whole essence of the universe. He 
                                                 
4 Moyra Caldecott. Myths of the Sacred Tree (Rochester VT: Inner Traditions 
International, 1993). 
 
 
Volume 24, Number 2 21
held it out to his disciples. They saw it glowing with the same radiance 
that he saw. 
The Tree of Life in mythology is usually referred to as a sacred, 
symbolic vehicle of communication representing the Cosmic Axis, the 
centre of the Universe. The esoteric traditions of the East use the Tree 
of Life to describe the sushumna, the central energy channel in the 
human body, the experience of which takes the devotee to higher levels 
of consciousness. It is the metaphor through which human beings 
connect to all worlds and dimensions—universal and planetary. The 
underlying motif views humankind as being physically grounded within 
the synchronistic heartbeat of Mother Earth, for it is through this 
planetary vascular system that humanity connects to the experiences of 
life-sustaining forces: seasons, growth, nurturing, and creativity. On 
their own each of these qualities remains unfulfilled. It is the 
conjunction of the Universe (through humans) with Mother Earth that 
permits the harvesting of fruit on the sacred Tree of Life. Trees in their 
majesty and beauty are used as metaphors for this state of being in our 
language and art. The Tree of Life is inside every being, grounded 
through the legs into the earth from the heart. The conjunction between 
the Universe and the planet is made through men and women who feel 
the metaphor of the Tree of Life within them as real and rooted. The 
Tree of Life motif is ever present in a simple message that the world's 
mythologies have delivered over and over again. It is the human choice 
and commitment to be at the centre of one's being that creates balance 
between humanity, Mother Earth, and the Universe. The Tree of Life 
myths also graphically represent the alternatives—chaos, destruction 
and breakdown—yet they always hold out the possibility of re-creation 
given the same human choice to locate at the centre of being. Our 
global twenty-first-century civilization is mired in chaos, destruction 
and breakdown. The ancient Tree of Life myths are fresh and current, 
for they speak to us directly: guiding us to return to our centre of being 
in order to transform the current mess.  
 


Wisdom of the Elders

wolff, robert

Control, Chaos, Ecology

Halton, Eugene

Eden Inverted: On the Wild Self and the Contraction of Consciousness

Shepard, Florence Rose

Letters from Dolores

Conesa-Sevilla, Jorge

Thinking in Animal Signs: Tracking as a Biosemiotic Exercise, Ecopsychological Practice, and a Transpersonal Path

Karrow, Douglas David

Kentel, Jeanne Adèle

Henderson, Bob

Paul Shepard: His Influence in Thought, Word, and Deed

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