The web of life on planet earth is a complex and intricately balanced system. It is very easy to throw an ecosystem out of balance if one does not act with caution. Most animals do not wield the kind of technological power that humans have. Bears do not have the ability to overfish salmon to the point of extinction because they do not have fleets of fishing boats. Humans on the other hand, have a great deal of technological power and tend to be far more interested in their own gain and comfort than they are in acting with caution so as to ensure that earth remains in a stable and sustainable ecological state. The introduction of cities (and the agriculture which allows cities to exist) heralded the beginning of the human race having a significant impact on local eco-systems. If a local area could not support the number of humans that lived there, we just changed the local eco-system as well as drawing resources from further a field. 

Now in the twenty-first century, humanity has so much technological power that we can easily upset the balance of life in ways that we cannot even begin to comprehend; and the more powerful we become, the more rapidly that power increases - far more rapidly than our knowledge increases. It becomes inevitable that with humanity constantly introducing newer and more powerful technologies to our planet (ones that our world has never had to cope with before) that we would damage the world that we live in.

One of the definitions for the word "sacred" is "a thing that should not be touched". This is one of the most practical ways in which the balance of earth's interwoven eco-systems is sacred. They should not be fiddled with lightly because playing about with that balancing act can have disastrous consequences. The amazingly inter-dependent balancing act that exists between all of the life on earth and the environment that those living thing exists within is too complicated for us to understand very well. This means that our only reasonable choice is to be careful.  We need to understand as much as we can, and tread as lightly as we can. As a species, humanity has a very large collective power, and we are capable of "gumming up the works" very easily just but putting too much strain on one part of an ecosystem...resulting in the whole system crashing down. 

I am not saying that we all need to go back to living as hunter-gatherers, living in huts with no advanced technology. I am aware that that is not going to happen. There are far too many people on planet earth for it to support us all as hunter-gatherers. Not to mention that most people have no desire to live that way. What I am saying is that we need to make careful choices when we decide what we invent, how we use those inventions, and how we live. We need to be developing technologies that will not injure our planet, instead of technologies that treat our world as a boundless resource that cannot be harmed no matter what we take out of it or what we dump into it.

It is entirely possible to create an advanced technological society where the technology that is used is based on the chemistry of existing ecological systems. This is called "biomimicry" and it is already making a serious impact on the dirty and irresponsible chemistry that we are currently dependent on...not because people are flocking to it out of an ethical obligation but because it is far more efficient and less costly. We can indeed have methods of industry, invention, and agriculture that work in harmony with the evolutionary framework of the living earth.

The fact is that the biochemistry that nature came up with via evolution is far more efficient than their human created counterparts. This means that it isn't even smart from a "bottom line" business perspective, to use the standard technologies that humanity relies on. We need to be working full tilt on reinventing the underpinnings of our way of life so that they are no longer ones that damage our world. Unfortunately right now the world of "biomimicry" technology is in a fledgling state and very few scientists are taking an interest in the field. However given the results that have been seen so far, it is obvious that the old polluting ways of doing things will not be able to compete financially with the new ones even if companies were allowed to pollute without any consequences and even if the oil were not running out. I just hope that biomimicry and other evolutionarily compatible technologies come into being before peak oil hits in a big way, or life on planet earth will get rather difficult for the humans on the planet.

Part I. . . .* The Web of Life

. . .1: As living beings we are a part of an inter-dependent web of life. 
. . .2: That web of life has a sacred balance
. . .3: No life can exist without the web, and the web cannot exist without the life within it. 
. . .4: We cannot escape our own biology or escape the sacred balance of the web of life.
. . .5: Knowing this, we choose to live with respect for our own biology and with respect for the web of life
. . .6: Our knowledge is imperfect, yet we choose to walk softly on the earth, even if it is inconvenient to us

Part II. . . .* Emotional Wellness

. . .1: We cannot walk softly on the earth while railing against the past, because emotional pain can blind us to reality.
. . .2: Emotionally wounded people (who have not yet healed) tend to be destructive to themselves, to others, and to the web of life and its sacred balance.
. . .3: Though we did not create them, we choose to take responsibility for the emotional wounds that we carry, and choose to seek healing for them
. . .4: We choose to understand our past and to be honest with ourselves, no matter how painful that might be, so that we can heal.
. . .5: We choose to build healthy relationships with one another, based on good boundaries, to admit our failings, and to ask for forgiveness when we make mistakes.
. . .6 :We choose to understand ourselves and those around us; to work toward healing, and to live in keeping with our evolutionary past, so that we can be whole and walk softly on the earth

Part III. . . .* Sustainability

. . .1: No technology or business model or society can be sustainable if it treats the earth as a source of limitless resources, a place of limitless energy, or as a dumping ground for poison.
. . .2: No technology can be undamaging to the sacred balance if it does not work within the evolutionary framework of life which already exists, respecting those systems which have evolved into a natural balance.
. . .3: Knowing this, we choose to try to the best of our abilities, even if it inconveniences us, to make use of the least damaging and most sustainable technologies that we have access to and can reasonably use, in order to walk softly on the earth.
. . .4: We did not create the world of commercialism or the products that are available to us. We did not create the society that we are interwoven into. Many of us cannot realistically live in a completely self-sustaining way that does not depend on toxic products and manufacturers.
. . .5: Knowing this, we choose to try to the best of our abilities, even if it inconveniences us, to do our best to avoid unnecessary and rampant consumerism, shun the throw-away society, avoid the toxic products that surround us and limit our use of unrenewable and polluting forms of energy so that we can walk softly on the earth.

Part IV. . . .* Politics

. . .1. We did not create the countries or the political systems that we live within. There are limits to the amount of political change that we can make, and limits to the people that we can help get into political offices.
. . .2. There will be times in which our political choices will come down to a choice of priorities; between putting the well being of our planet first, and putting our other concerns first.
. . .3. Knowing this, we choose to act to the best of our abilities, even if it inconveniences us, to make those political choices that will put the well being of our planet above our own short-term gains so that we can walk softly on the earth.

Part V. . . .* The Environment

. . .1. There is no such place as "away". The universe is a closed system in which nothing is fully isolated from anything else. All of the things that exist will continue to exist in one form or another.
. . .2. Ecological systems are far too complex for us to fully understand them. We cannot know ahead of time what all the results will be when we make any significant change to the existing balance of an ecosystem.
. . .3. We also cannot always know ahead of time what kind of a change will count as "significant" to the web of life or the environment in which that life exists.
. . .4. Although environment systems tend to find a natural balance point., they do this on a very slow time table. Human life, and technology acts on a much more rapid and far-reaching manner.
. . .5. Knowing this, we choose to try to the best of our abilities, even if it inconveniences us, to live in a way that is the most sustainable and the least damaging that we are able to manage. We also choose to constantly work toward further positive change as we become able, in order to heal our planet and keep it whole, so that we can walk softly on the earth.

On this day I so pledge;

by earth and sky;

by sun and moon;

and by the oceans ancient womb which gave me life.

May Gaia bear witness to my pledge and hold me to it.

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