EARTH Lodge: creativity, survival & evolution

Though we don't often think about it, creativity is essential for our survival and evolution, both as individuals and as a species. One of the functions of the EARTH Lodge program is to provide an environment for creative expression and the inspiration to pursue it. For example, in the original Lodge (then called "Outdoor House") local artist Cristian Koshock came by to teach us about hand-building clay pottery, and this past equinox local teacher and community activist Ram Bhagat educated us about rhythm and drumming in the gazebo on Westhampton Lake.

And, in EARTH Lodge, "Creative expression" is a broad term that includes conversation, writing or dance as well as digital creations such as this group video composed by '08 Lodge members:"The Creativity Project." Lodge members also pursue more material creations such as linoleum block printing. This print, created by '08 Lodge member Jimmy Rague, is a good example of such a print. As we race into the digital age, elder technologies often slip away unnoticed and we are the poorer for it. Is there a good reason why we cannot retain the best of the old as we more thougtfully select and embrace the new? Why shouldn't we know how to build a fire as well as a website?

One of the unique aspects of EARTH Lodge is that the goal of more thoughtful engagement with technology and nature for the purpose of collecting a full quiver of skills, both old and new, that have joyful as well as practical purposes. In a time of crisis when the "experts" and promoters of orthodox economic,social and intellectual practices have been proven so wrong, it can be empowering to develop and exercise creative thinking for truly new solutions while learning practical new skills, both primitive and high tech - a mixture that enhances our ability to adapt and survive in a wider variety of circumstances.

Real learning involves far more than just reading and writing, although these are obviously essential. In his 1837 address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at a Cambridge graduation, Emerson noted that the three main influences upon the mind are that of nature, books and action. He says that "the first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature," and that although books are important neither they nor the ideas they contain should master us since "Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments." It is the actively engaged life, the one that takes risks, intellectual, emotional and physical, that is rich with learning from direct experience rather than hearsay.

Emerson explains why action is so important for the scholar and he describes how it functions to substantially enhance our more academic learning: "There goes in the world a notion, that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian,--as unfit for any handiwork or public labor, as a penknife for an axe. .... Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth....
The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.

The world,--this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct, that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its fear; I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power."