Since the advent of agriculture and the domestication of animals some 15,000 years ago, a rift has steadily grown between humans and the rest of nature. With the more recent development of the psychological concept of individuality and individual health, however, this schism has grown alarmingly wider. While domestication may be the source of the division between the human and the not-so-human realm, many Western philosophies have, over the years, added to and expanded this separation. Aristotle, Christianity, and the scientific revolution all assisted in the damaging notions that the mind is separate from the body and that humans are separate from nature. The harm that has been wrought in the name of understanding the cosmos has created a rippling effect that continues to devastate the balance of nature.

There are many environmental activists around the world trying to correct the destruction that is occurring, but it is essential to note, as Fritjof Capra points out in his book The Web of Life, that what is happening is actually a crisis of perception. As a result of this human divorce from nature, a very different mind has emerged: one that has lost its root connection with the earth, one that is cut off from the body, and one that views dominance as the principal mode of relating to the rest of nature. Hence, a change in how we perceive nature is the key to any long-term transformation or healing.

The realization that modern-day psychology is not effective in healing this schism has led the way to a new understanding of the human psyche through what Theodore Roszak calls ecopsychology (the merging of eco — the outer world of the environment — and psychology — the inner world of the psyche). This process of reintegrating the psyche into a healthy functional relationship with nature is outlined in Roszak's book, The Voice of the Earth. His eight fundamental principles of ecopsychology are, briefly:

1) The ecological unconscious is at the core of the mind

2) The ecological unconscious contains the living record of cosmic evolution

3) The goal of ecopsychology is to awaken the inherent sense of environmental reciprocity

4) The need to recover something of the child's innate animistic quality of experience

5) The mature ecological ego is the first step to ethical responsibility

6) The "masculine" traits that tend to dominate need to be reevaluated

7) The importance of small-scale social forms, and

8) The synergistic interplay between planetary and personal well-being.

Because ecopsychology liberates the boundaries of the ego, having a sense of one's place in nature is, perhaps, the pinnacle of knowing.

It can be seen, therefore, that ecopsychology's alternative to current psychological thought includes a much broader picture of health. While psychology confines the psyche to the individual human mind, ecopsychology suggests that the psyche has no rigid boundaries. Indeed, systems theory maintains that rigid boundaries cause any system — human or otherwise — to break down and collapse, because interaction with other systems is crucial for survival. It is common knowledge that nothing can exist within a vacuum. Fluid boundaries — ones that are permeable — allow for growth, change, and new information to pass in and out of the system. Seeing the mind, therefore, without inhibiting the boundaries, allows for a quality of growth that has the possibility of benefiting all of nature.

Psychologist and author James Hillman, in a Resurgence magazine article entitled "A Psyche the Size of the Earth," states that "psychology, so dedicated to awakening human consciousness, needs to wake itself up to one of the most ancient human truths: we cannot be studied or cured apart from the planet." Hillman's article examines such ideas as, "Where is the 'me?’ " "Where does the 'me' begin and the 'me' stop?" "Where does the 'other' begin?" Such distinctions are currently of great meaning since science, in the quest for truth, was greatly responsible for separating the observer from the observed, mind from body, and spirit from nature.

Having a sense of self prior to the scientific revolution, when an animistic view of the world was not deemed primitive or uncivilized, would certainly have included one's relationship with nature; "who I am" would have had a lot more to with "where I am." "Who I am" in this era, however, has come to mean less about "where" and more about "what." What I have, what I have done, or what I have said are often considered the hallmarks of what we have come to know as self-esteem, ego, or achievement. It's therefore not surprising that few people have a sense of place when mobility throughout the globe has become so easy. To gain a sense of self through accumulating things, all one need do is move to where the things can be most easily attained. The "where" has, therefore, become far less significant than the "what."

Because ecopsychology liberates the boundaries of the ego, having a sense of one's place in nature is, perhaps, the pinnacle of knowing. Intelligence, no longer confined to mere brain activity, can mean developing the self beyond the limits that modern Western science dictates. While such phenomena as psychic healing and insight, prophetic dreams, and telepathic capabilities are often denounced by science as pseudo, they are, in fact, perfect examples of connected intelligence.

Rene Descartes, the French philosopher of the 17th century, came upon the notion that the only thing he could be certain of was his thinking mind: "I think, therefore I am." Ever since, Cartesian philosophy has permeated Western science and philosophy, and to this day, people take it for granted that the human mind is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. The folly of such thinking has created hierarchical thinking and dualistic paradigms that have, over the centuries, enslaved so many and served so few.

The voice of ecopsychology is the voice of the earth. It is an ancient message with a new call for healing on a truly holistic level. What Chief Seattle said many years ago in a letter to President Franklin Pierce is still appropriate today: "Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the earth he does to himself."

The voice of ecopsychology urges humans to cease dominating nature, to recognize that relationship with the whole is the most important aspect of living, and to relax into being a part of the great web of life. It is, therefore, possible to understand the cosmos through association rather than observation, through connection rather than dissection, and with compassion rather than the detached manner that science has prescribed. Ecopsychology is a plea to become reacquainted with the ancestral knowledge that lies within each person, within each cell in our body, that we are, indeed, a part of nature.