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Quote by Ralph Metzner

“The reckless application of technology, harnessed to greed, degrades and destroys the ecosystems in which the energies of the elements are maintained in exquisite balance. Since the elements constitute us, we are also being degraded in the process. We are engaged in an ongoing assault on the planetary elements, the decimation of species, and the relentless suicidal degradation of our own habitats. In short, the situation can be called ecocide. Humankind is at war with nature.”

Quote by Ralph Metzner

Book:Green Psychology: Transforming our Relationship to the Earth
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Green Psychology: Transforming our Relationship to the Earth

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Ralph Metzner
Ralph Metzner

Ralph Metzner is a renowned psychologist, born on May 18, 1936. He has conducted extensive research in the field of psychology, particularly in the areas of consciousness studies, psychopharmacology, and human potential development. Metzner completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Stanford University, where he began his academic career. more

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EarthHumanitySpaceEnvironmentAwarenessPerspectiveUnityBoundariesSustainabilityGlobal Citizenship
Book:Green Psychology: Transforming our Relationship to the Earth
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LoveHumanityUnderstandingCommunityJusticeBrotherhoodGood WillAgapeMutualityInterrelatedness
Book:Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
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“When he has finished his morning round, Bartholomew is tired and feels lonely. There is still a little time before lunch, and instead of returning to Brother Alice's empty office, he gives himself permission to visit the gardens. He hungers for the sight of birds, he wants to hear the leaves whisper around him and to sit so still the birds accept him as a shrub. He wants the birds to land on his limbs and mistake his eyes for berries. In this cold dry space between seasons, few birds remain. No snow has fallen yet, but the ducks and geese and hummingbirds are gone, while Bartholomew, bound to his clock and trapped inside, has missed their going, the shape and sound of their flight. A few crows and sparrows are the most he hopes to find as he wheels himself into his blind between bushes, birds as ordinary and steadfast as he is himself. The white sky is birdless above him and the wind's small dirge the only song he hears. Deeply he breathes and listens closely inside himself for his own heartbeat, for the clock that keeps his body's time. Eyes closed, he tries to clean his mind of images and of the voices that would tell him he should not be sitting here, that he is a thief of time, or that the Fathers know of and will punish the theft. He breathes and does not mark his breaths with numbers, only in-out, in-out, until he hears the hum of blood in his ears and the inside of his mind is a uniform, cool gray, unmarked by shadows. He waits for birds, but does not name his waiting. His eyes open, his breathing shallows and he hears the wind. Listens, embodied now, with tension in his body. The moan comes again, is fainter. Waits two, three, four. The source is very near him. He moves his chair from the blind and circles the bushes slowly. The voice cries again, and this time, he knows it calls to him. On the ground, which is black and dry, half hidden in the tangle of oldest, lowest branches, bare of leaves, a crow rests, wings pulled tight against its body, impersonating a black stone. The crow's head inclines toward one shoulder, the black dot of an eye regards him and shares its knowledge: I am dying. It is my time to die. The moan now is almost beyond hearing, a soft deep sound free both of anger and of pain. It is too late to speak or intervene. Bartholomew is chosen witness and he watches the death, silent and simple and wholly terrifying. The last breath is released, the bird-heart stops its beating, the film of a lid closing hides the round eye, the black head slumps to rest against the wing, and Bartholomew breathes slowly, without moving, and binds his mind to blankness. If a spirit leaves, he does not see or hear or feel it go. If he has a soul himself, it does not stir. The death of the crow defeats the Fathers' time. At last the lunch bell rings, and it almost surprises him to find he is alive, his body capable of hunger and of obedience to bells. His hands fly automatically to the controls of his chair, automatically he leaves the garden and steers toward the dining hall, looking back only once to the still black form, mostly obscured by branches. The great room is warm and full of people talking, laughing, eating, all oblivious to death, and what separates him from them, what makes him lonely in their company is his awareness that they each and all must die.”

DeathHumanityNatureExistenceAwarenessLonelinessSolitudeMindfulnessObservationMortality
Book:Conscience Place
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