The Dark Night of The Soul is a moment that occurs as part of a transformation in identity. It’s the dissolution of an old identity as things break apart.
It’s full of wishful thinking that eventually gives way to the asking of crucial questions, the answers to which reveal qualities that we realise we need to develop further.
Our problems reveal where and how we need to grow.
Right now Western civilisation is going through a Dark Night of The Soul. Our industrial, fossil fuelled, economic identity is dissolving and breaking apart.
Our old way of seeing ourselves as made and put here, as separate and apart from nature is falling apart.
All around us, wishful thinking plays out, grasping at straws to keep things the same despite our knowing deep down that we have to change.
The problem of climate change reveals where and how we need to change. Our studying of the problem has revealed how Earth systems work, in greater detail than ever before.
We know better than ever who and what we really are - we are nature. We live in an ecosystem. We participate in a self-regulating, interconnected and interdependent system that creates conditions conducive to life.
We are life.
We are awareness and our presence lends a growing amount of self-awareness to our self-regulating system.
This is what Prof Tim Lenton and Prof Bruno Latour call Gaia 2.0.
Whatever happens on this Dark Night of The Soul, whatever remains once our current identity dissolves, whatever coalesces as our new one comes together, we can be sure that if we are to learn and to benefit and to thrive, we will have become more connected, not less.
That we will be more enmeshed in life, not less.
More interwoven, mutually reinforcing, collaborative, positive, and of great value to everything around us.
That way we get to mimic life and find true sustainability by working with the laws of nature to better create conditions conducive to life.
That’s what lies beyond climate change, beyond the wars that will inevitably be fought as our old systems crumble and our new ones emerge.
That world beyond climate change has its roots right here and now.
And although what we do may not be mainstream now, and although we may witness a lot of things falling apart and we may feel frustrated and afraid, we are planting trees for the benefit of our descendants.
We are laying foundations as part of an inter-generational project that will see us waking up to our true nature - waking up to Gaia.
Are you ready to wake up?