DEAR READERS: In this time when we have become the dominant species on Earth, creating the Anthropocene epoch, we face an existential spiritual crisis. By "spiritual," I allude to our nonmaterial state of well-being and those values, beliefs and ethics by which we live. This is independent of the often-unjust moralistic fabric of the times, and is affirmed by our emotional and mental health and the caring relationships we create and enjoy.
The Anthropocene epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the current period in Earth's history: the time when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet's climate and ecosystems. It is in this epoch that we come face to face with the consequences of our actions and beliefs -- a call for accountability for the state of the world in which we indubitably do more harm than good.
Many currently suffer from eco-anxiety. The American Psychological Association describes eco-anxiety as "the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one's future and that of next generations." The violence of person against person mirrors our long history of violence against nature and other animals.
The many broken hearts of survivors and witnesses to war, terrorism, domestic violence, "natural" disasters and other psychophysical traumas call for a Great Healing, which is only possible in an empathic society where social justice, eco-justice and economic justice are in accord with the Golden Rule, extended to include all sentient beings.
Compassion fatigue is another dire concern. While it may include a diminution of empathy, it is the antithesis of empathy-deficit disorder. It is an endemic psychopathology involving desensitization, objectification, aggression and disassociation, and it is exemplified to various degrees by rapists, trophy hunters, animal torturers, mass shooters and serial killers. Compassion fatigue has both physical and psychological consequences, including exhaustion, frustration, anger, guilt, disrupted sleep and appetite, weakened immune system, illness, anxiety, depression, despair, alcoholism, drug addiction and suicidal ideation. It must be recognized early as a situational and relational psychophysical crisis, and supportive intervention must be sought by sympathetic and understanding friends and relatives, as well as professional stress-management therapists.
The climate and plant and animal extinction crises are a consequence of our collectively ignorant, harmful and destructive existence. The looming food, public health and economic security crises are also a consequence of our unsustainable numbers and appetites. This must all change if we are to evolve -- rather than continue to devolve, seeing ever-more millions die in wars, famines, pandemics, floods, fires, droughts and unlivable temperatures.
Nature has become our nemesis rather than our sustaining provider because in satisfying our material needs, we have sacrificed the spiritual -- the guiding ethos that once enabled and ennobled us to live in harmony with all our relations in the community of planet Earth. When we disrespect and disregard these relationships -- our sacred connections and duties to preserve and protect -- according to the Anishinaabe, we bring on what the Hopi call Koyaanisqatsi: life out of balance.
Some pray to their God, while others doubt the existence of God in a world of animal and human violence and suffering. Many contend that God helps those who help themselves. But those who help others, including other species, enjoy the sense of grace that comes with empathic suffering and compassion-in-action that can never be experienced by those who simply pray for personal salvation.
The spiritual and environmental crises we face today are clearly and fundamentally due to our lack of understanding and respect for the sanctity of all life that engages us spiritually in a hallowing covenant of planetary care. This responsibility continues to be abdicated by most current technologies and industries that pollute the planet, and along with the burning of fossil fuels, jeopardize our physical health. The collective, miasmic and delusional psychoses of egotism and anthropocentrism can be rectified and prevented by right example through right living, right education, right industry and by embracing equal justice for all sentient beings.
As we embrace the beauty and wonder of intelligent, sentient life around us and within us, we begin to understand and appreciate the myriad of sustaining and regenerating relationships we have -- and need -- for our physical and mental health and ultimate spiritual well-being.
The stunning display of a red-winged blackbird dipping one wing to show his crimson plume while bursting into song as I walked beside a local stream eclipsed, in my mind, all the neon lights from New York to Singapore. After all, he was more ancient, original and authentic, and a part of me that could never be a part of the Technopolis and its dystopian state.
When our minds are opened by our hearts into empathic communion, we become open to the life around us and within us. So it was with our ancestors, who acquired the wisdom of the herbs and fungi that can heal, nourish, poison and kill. In our recovery of this spiritual sensibility, we may come to deserve our self-anointed title of Homo sapiens: man the wise.
(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.
Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)