(Photo of Mas De Gomis taken by Mika 2008)

“Concern with the environment is no longer one of many "single issues"; it is the CONTEXT of everything else- our lives, our business, our politics." Fritjof Capra (I told you I’d repeat some quotes lol)

“The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things.” Tao Te Ching. http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html

We’re living in a bit of an eco-fallacy. Somehow “ecology” got sidelined as a mere “subject” within human existence, like it’s optional. Simply inventing the word ecology can create a split, and instead of being the whole context of our lives, it’s become a specialist subject.
I can imagine, one day in the future, a teacher talking about the word ecology as though it were a footnote in history…

“Well, long ago, humans thought as though we were somehow separate from the world around us, from the processes that sustains life. We used this word “ecology” to describe the natural processes, but described it as though humans aren’t a part of it, which has had very tragic circumstances.

“Some while later, humans were suffixing “eco” onto nearly every word as they realized just how connected to ecology they were; things like ecopsychology, ecobusiness, ecopolitics etc. But the term “eco” was used so much it became superfluous and wasn’t needed for anything anymore, because every aspect of human existence was realised as a part of “ecology”. We cannot talk about human existence without ecology…”

Perhaps in the end, “ecology” will become superfluous. But before then, we need it, we need the idea of the importance of ecology and that idea needs reinforcing, it’s a word that will help us properly orientate our lives. And perhaps then, when our lives are so suffused with the concept, we can do away with the word.

But not yet…