Hope Beneath Our Feet_ Restoring Our Place in the Natural World - Martin Keogh [67]
I believe we all suffer from the same amnesia, the same bouts of homesickness, some of us a little more than others. If there is anyone who vaguely understands the significance of the Aboriginal “walk-about,” then you will know what I mean. If you have experienced the chilling night call of the spotted hyena or the symbolic message of solitude in the shape and shade of one of Africa’s great trees—the Umbrella thorn, Acacia tortillas, then you will know what I am saying or perhaps, more significantly, where I am headed. I think we have all, in our own way, voiced the feeling “I need to get out of here.” And I am sure we can all relate to William Butler Yeats’ telling lines
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head …
We have entered what will undoubtedly be known as the Environmental Age. There is hardly a newspaper or news report these days that somewhere in its pages or broadcasts does not draw attention to the growing heaviness of the human footprint on our planet. We are being called upon to re-examine our origins, our status, our language, our economics, our responsibilities and our possible future as a species. We are being challenged, as never before to re-examine our relationship with the earth and with every living creature.
To me, a greater understanding of these relationships is becoming an important part of my work as an analyst. Can personal problems be effectively dealt with outside of an awareness of the impact of the natural environment on the human psyche and vice versa? I don’t think so. We shape our environment but we are also shaped by it. It is because of this and because so many of my patients present with identity issues that I now find myself paying an increasing attention to the task of assisting them towards a rediscovery of their biological roots and with it a restructuring of an identity that involves the tempering of the fierce centripetal, self-preserving force of the human ego.
It is important that we understand what the ego is or better still, what it represents. The ego is a psychological “territory.” It has “boundaries” without which we become psychotic. Through various denial-oriented mechanisms such as regression, repression, and sublimation, the ego is defended and protected against overwhelming emotions in the same way that we would protect and defend our physical boundaries against uninvited trespassers. From an evolutionary point of view, it is an adaptive, evolving, and necessary aspect of the psyche. Without it, there would be no everyday sense of reality. We would not be able to differentiate between thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. Like a conductor of an orchestra, the ego has an orientating function, coordinating skills such as intellect, perceptions, memory, and emotions. It is a point of reference to what we call a cognitive sense of me versus you. This sense of “me” is what is often referred to as the ego-self and because it is both personal as well as central to one’s psychological survival, it is naturally and fiercely centripetal. It is in this light that I doubt that this is the self that Apollo was referring to in his admonition: “Know thyself.” Instead, I believe it was an admonition to temper this centralizing force and to seek or create a direction toward a more inclusive sense of self, an Ecological Self—a self that can make sense of and embrace the wild parts of our psyche and of our debt to the natural environment without being overwhelmed by it. To know thyself is to become ecologically literate—to be sensitive to and informed once