SACRED ACTIVISM IN A DARK TIME

Book review of Savage Grace: Living Resiliently in the Dark Night of the Globe, by Andrew Harvey and Carolyn Baker. The book has a U.S. centre of gravity and was written in the early months of 2017, triggered by Donald Trump’s assumption of the presidency.

The ‘dark night of the globe’ refers to an increasing risk of a wrecked biosphere (including human extinction) through runaway climate change or nuclear war. In such a scenario, resilience is a key quality demanded of us. They authors define this as a ‘life-giving ability to shift from a reaction of denial or despair to learning, growing and thriving in the midst of challenge’. The emphasis of this book is as much on essential psycho-spiritual resourcing as it is on direct political action. The authors see these as belonging together, recommending a staged strategy of reconnection, resistance, resilience and regeneration to its readers.

‘Reconnection’ is much like the ‘re-enchantment’ we talk about in Druidry. It is a response to disconnection from “our sacred inner wisdom, from all other living beings as a result of our delusional belief in separation, and from Earth and the reality that we are not only inherently connected with Earth, but, that in fact, we are Earth”.

‘Resistance’ is, first, about discerning “the nature of the myriad enemies of the mind, body and spirit with which we are being confronted in the current milieu” and to learn how to stand for “transparency and integrity in the face of massive assaults on our fundamental humanity”.

‘Resilience’ needs to be cultivated physically, emotionally and spiritually as an “essential life skill” in the face of increasing dangers and uncertainties in our communities and world.

‘Regeneration’ is about committing “to living lives of regeneration in all stages, even in what could be the terminal one”. If humanity is destined to vanish, “what matters most is not the outcome of our efforts, but rather, our inmost intention”.

Savage Grace is built around five main chapters. The first, Kali Takes America, explores the image of a country archetypally possessed by the dark side of the destroyer/creator goddess. Here ‘reconnection’ is about finding transformative possibilities within this predicament. The adoption of Savage Grace as the title owes something to this. Here the authors cite the work of Vera de Chalambert, which can also be found on https://youtube.com/results?search_query=vera+de+chalambert+kali/

The second chapter, Resisting the Modern Face of Fascism in the Age of Trump contains most of the social and political analysis offered in this book. It usefully draws on a 14-point list, devised by Umberto Eco in the 1990’s. on what ‘Fascism’ can be usefully thought to mean, and what makes it dangerous and wrong, given that it will look different in every incarnation, depending on time and leadership. (Eco grew up under Mussolini.) For strategies of resistance, they draw on Naomi Klein’s No Is Not Enough*, already published by the time Savage Grace was completed.

The remaining chapters are entitled Living Resiliently Amid Global Psychosis; Regeneration: the Legacy of Love in Action; and Celebrating Reconnection, Resistance, Resilience and Regeneration. These explore the building of psycho-spiritual resources at the personal, interpersonal and collective levels, and can be successfully accomplished only by looking at our own shadow sides. Otherwise we simply project them on to our opponents.

Savage Grace is written with urgency by authors who have been addressing its core themes for many years. I highly recommend it to anyone who acknowledges the personal and political, inner and outer, mundane and spiritual realms as facets of one interconnected life. No convenient compartmentalizing here. Savage Grace is a document for our historical moment. It asks readers to reflect on where we stand and how we are responding.

 Andrew Harvey and Carolyn Baker Savage Grace: Living Resiliently in the Dark Night of the Globe. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2017 . (Foreword by Matthew Fox)

For further information about the authors see: www.andrewharvey.net/sacred-activism/  and https://carolynbaker.net/

*Naomi Klein No Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics Penguin Random House UK, 2017