for audio files see https://amplify-stage.sl.nsw.gov.au/transcripts/mloh103-tape0037-s001-m and https://amplify-stage.sl.nsw.gov.au/transcripts/mloh103-tape0037-s002-m Title Under the Rainbow [Tape Side A] Interview with John Seed. Last Updated 2017-07-27 Origin https//amplify-stage.sl.nsw.gov.au/transcripts/mloh103-tape0037-s001-m This transcript was generated by Amplify and may contain errors. Read more about how this transcript was created at https//amplify-stage.sl.nsw.gov.au/ . Ok, ah, tape ID It's Tuesday the 2nd of march 1993. . I'm in, ah, Sydney . and John Seed is in Lismore we're doing a two way for Under The Rainbow. . John can i get you to start by introducing who you are and . when you first came to the Nimbin area and how you see yourself and . and describe how you fit. Well, my name's John Seed and presently I'm. . I guess a rainforest conservationist and eco philosopher. . I arrived in Nimbin in August . . I'd been living in England for five years . and was on my way back to Australia, um, travelling for about nine months overland . through Asia, meditating in India and Nepal studying meditation . and I'd never heard of Nimbin or the Aquarius Festival 'til I arrived back in August . and then a . good friend of mine Carole Elliott who's, you know, a pretty important figure . I think in the Nimbin story, Carole Elliott and Norman Stannard, . When I got to Sydney, um, with my wife Greta . they said "oh you've got to go up to Nimbin . and we've got a place there you can stay out on Croftons Rd." . So we drove straight up, we didn't like Sydney too much, . We drove straight up and more or less been here ever since. . Can you tell us about those early days in Nimbin, how you started out. . Well I remember Carol and Norman saying "well . when you get to Nimbin just go to the Rainbow Cafe and ask for Jimbo." . And i thought, you know, I just thought of an Australian cafe and I thought . "That's an unusual name for a cafe, the Rainbow" and we got to Nimbin . and there was the Rainbow exactly where it is now . and we got there just in time for dinner which was a communal meal around one . long table . and basically I realised later the whole of the new settler community in . that region was sitting around that table that night you know . that everyone had gone back from the festival . and there was just a handful of people maybe 20 . or 30 people left after the festival and they were all sitting around that table. . So it's grown a lot since then. . So did you see yourself as part of . that back to the earth movement were you there to . you know, starting your own plot building your own house? . Well I quickly came to see myself that way . that wasn't my original intention in going up there originally i just moved to the . country and I had you know some interest in communities I'd been part of a . kind of abortive attempt at a community in Northern California a couple of years . previously that only lasted a few months but I had had time to buy a goat . and create my first garden which was in a spiral but quickly . I came to be very much part of that movement . and I was part of the original group of shareholders in the dream that became . coordination co-operative . that then went on to become the community at Tuntable Falls and both Greta . and I bought shares in that before you know there was any land or anything like . that we just bought shares in that dream. . But i myself was looking for a more spiritual community. . I'd been meditating in India and Nepal as I say . and as soon as we arrived in Australia we made contact with an English . Buddhist monk, he was wearing Thai Buddhist robes called Phra Khantipalo . who was teaching meditation at the Chinese. . Buddhist Society in Dixon Street in Sydney and we invited him up and he did . the first meditation retreats, I think it was still in ' . or maybe ' we organised maybe, over the next couple of years, five . or six meditation retreats for him which I think you know had quite a profound . influence on the direction of that community. . Most of the people who were up there at that time were you know took part in one . or more of those retreats and so . I was looking for a more you know cohesive, integrated, like minded community of . people who were committed to personal and spiritual growth . and Co-ordination Co-operative . and Tuntable were always a little bit to kind of crazy . and wild for my own tastes at that time and . so in 1975 . Dhammananda which is a community on Terania Creek Road . that had actually started before the Aquarius Festival, they bought . that land I think in '72 or '73 and . the land stretched from Terania Creek up to Wallace Road on the ridge . that separates Terania Creek from Tuntable Creek and . Dhammananda donated a section of their land on top of that ridge for the dream . that I had had and that I shared with them of a meditation centre. . And so in 1975 . several of us began to build up there we built a shed in '75 . and started to you know build the foundations for a meditation centre . and then later in '75 I went back to India . again for more meditation . and to spend some time with a teacher, a woman called Vimala Thakar who also came . back and forth teaching . in Australia and up in the Nimbin area a few times over the years after that. . And at that time in Dalhousie in the Himalayas, . while I was there to spend some time with Vimala and Norman Stannard . and Carole Elliott who started Birth and Beyond in Nimbin the home birthing . you know midwives I guess, they . and I met in Dalhousie to be with Vimala and we also met another . Thai Buddhist monk an Englishman whose name now is Christopher Titmus . and he's quite a famous . progressive meditation teacher who lives in England now . and he's no longer a monk but . he was in Dalhousie, Carole and Norman were doing a meditation retreat with him . and a whole bunch of young westerners were there. . So I went looking for Carol and Norman walking up the side of this beautiful . mountain and I came around a turn of the mountain . and there was this little chai shop . you know like a little tea shop called "The Tired Man's Delight" overlooking the . plain of the Ganges many thousands of feet below . and there was a whole bunch of young westerners there - Americans, New Zealanders, . Australians sitting around drinking coffee . and eating sweet cakes from this meditation retreat. . And I sat down with them and within five minutes we had agreed . that a whole bunch of them were coming over to help build this . meditation centre and . that we were going to then look for a piece of land nearby to buy . and to grow our food and build our houses and . that we'd be caretakers of the meditation centre and . that was what actually happened. . So within about 10 minutes of that meeting the next, . I guess at least the next five years of my life were pretty well laid out on a map . and what we discussed there was exactly what happened. . Christopher came to Australia a few months later, . no, maybe nearly a year later, to lead the first meditation retreat at this . meditation centre that we had built in the meantime and the . participants in - there was actually three retreats . and maybe about 50 participants in each so out of those hundred fifty people we . found 20 who wanted to share that dream of a spiritual community . and we each put in a thousand bucks and bought Bodhi Farm. . So that was in '75 - '76 . and basically up until the Terania Creek action in 79 . that was my life there. My son was born there. . His name is Bodhi, he's now 15 and he he was the first child born on . that farm so he was named after it and we built our own houses and . raised our kids and grew organic fruit and veggies and stuff . and lived a very pure and beautiful life there. . Tell us about some of the the rules of Bodhi Farm some of the the ethics etc.. . Well it was a very highly ethical society we lived by the Buddhist precepts of . no killing, stealing, lying, drugs or alcohol . and no sexual misconduct. . I mean sexual conduct that hurt anyone . and we didn't keep any animals, either domestic animals . or livestock. . We just didn't want to have any fences we just wanted to live with the animals . from the bush and we didn't want any dogs or cats getting into the bush . and we had a forest management policy which left 95 percent of the . hundred sixty acres that we bought was left as bush and the only areas . that we cleared were areas that had previously been cleared. . No, maybe about 10 per cent of the land, about 16 acres I'd say maximum, we . maintained for our buildings and our agriculture. . We looked after each other . and shared most of our things in common we shared all of our motor vehicles . in those early days for instance and . we had a communal meal every day we cooked for each other . and you know just looked after each other. . There was no doors necessary on the buildings no one you know it was a totally safe . place to have kids . and we were also you know very interested in social action, our style . of Buddhism was what you might call "Engaged Buddhism" . and we were involved in the social issues of those days. . Especially the home birth movement which was illegal . and we you know participated in those illegal home births we felt . that it was everybody's right to take birth and death . and these things back back from authorities and back into our own hands . and it's kind of a bit unreal now looking back on it you know like everything's . changed so much since those days . but it was a very beautiful time we built 16 illegal dwellings on this place. . There was no ... . multiple occupancy wasn't allowed then in fact it was partly the court cases, . the 16 demolition orders that were put onto our buildings . that were part of the trigger . or the part of the whole thing . that created multiple occupancy in New South Wales. . Looking back on those times now, do you do you think in some ways you were too hard on yourselves? . Oh no not at all. . I mean if we were to try and do that from a sense of sacrifice . or a sense of duty or anything like . that it would have been terribly difficult . but it was totally passionate desire you know we were following our bliss our . ecstasy and I can't think that any of us have ever been happier since then. . But things change and times change. We were on a wave. . And when you're on a wave . it's easy, you just catch the wave and you stay on it . but if you have to swim in the same direction it's a different matter. . So we were on a wave and it was great. . There's no sense of failure in the fact that a lot of those the level of sharing . and stuff that was happening then isn't still happening now at Bodhi Farm? . But if i'm well i mean. . Well, it's easy to get into that, idealising the past or something like that . that . but I don't think it's a sense of failure, Bodhi Farm is an incredibly . beautiful place now and in fact i'm living there again. . I've been away for quite some years but i've moved back there again . and i think it's fantastic. . And the fact that there's only one communal meal or two a week now and the fact . that people don't share their cars anymore because it was just such a hassle . maintaining shared vehicles. . and you know you know other things that you . I'll tell you another thing at the beginning was that no one owned their buildings . that anyone who built a building on the land, . it belonged to the land so that if you left . it was left there for someone else so there was no buying . or selling of buildings. That's kind of changed a little bit, . not totally . but things change, people get older . and i think it's still great. . What about the strain on relationships at a place like Bodhi Farm in those early days? . But if i'm in those as we go. . Well I can't remember anything anything particular. . I don't think . that there was such a strain on relationships I think . that there's a huge strain on relationships in a nuclear family situation where . the only people that you have that you're close to are like three . or four people . and then with them they're on top of you all the time, a place likeBodhi Farm all . of the kids had you know a dozen people that they loved and that they held . and were close to and so if your parents were off the air . it just didn't matter so much . and also there was levels of sharing and communion . and intimacy that i think that that's how we're meant to live really, . Really you know that's how we. . that's how our tribes were for hundreds of thousands of years . and I think it's a terrible strain to try and live any other way. . Can you tell us about the development of the green 79 of the Rainforest . Information Centre and where you fit into that? . Well that goes back to August ' when Terania Creek blew up . Sorry mate, I might just get you to start again and make it a statement. . Back in in August 79 I went to the Channon Market which . is a monthly craft and produce market down The Channon just near Bodhi Farm . and . and some of our neighbours from down in the valley at Terania Creek appealed for help. . They'd been struggling for five years to try . and stop the Forestry Commission from logging the end of . that valley rainforest down there . and they the Forestry Commission were coming in the following day with bulldozers . and they wanted neighbours to help to do a blockade and that seemed very . far away for me . from what I was interested in, I was interested in meditation . and organic gardening and stuff . but somehow the next day along with I think just about everyone from Bodhi Farm I . found myself down there with a few hundred people and we did this blockade . and it was incredible and somehow . or other, a lot of people were very very moved, their lives were moved by that . but my life was totally transformed . and in fact within two years it had pulled me off Bodhi Farm entirely but it . Started more slowly than that and I was sort of back and forth but . when I was in the rainforest I heard it screaming y . I heard it screaming for help . and over the next couple of years at Terania Creek . and later on in the campaign for the Nightcap Range . and the rainforests of New South Wales I became more and more, uh, my life . and the life of the rainforest became enmeshed so in 1981 . having learnt about the plight of the rainforests in many other countries . and empowered by our success in really being able to do something, moving . from a situation in August 79 where most people had never even heard of rainforests . let alone knew their significance to '82 . when the Wran government made the historic decision to protect the rainforests of New . South Wales, we felt incredibly empowered . that ordinary people who didn't have any particular training . or background could really do something and we'd also learnt . that the rainforests of the world were threatened, that . they contained more than 50 per cent of the world's species of plants . and animals . and at the current rates of destruction they would be utterly annihilated within . our own lifetime and . that this would be unprecedented in the history of the world and also . that many scientists warned that if we allowed this to happen . the life support systems of the earth would be destroyed . and complex life would vanish from the earth within a few human generations. . We also discovered in writing to groups around the world . that there wasn't a single group at that time . that had the world's rainforests on its agenda. . So that's when we started the Rainforest Information Centre in Lismore . and began networking . and trying to create a network around the world to work on forest problems in . Indonesia and Brazil and Malaysia and New Guinea . and other countries where the kind of conciousness . that we had developed didn't exist as yet. . And meanwhile we were still very very active in . issues in Australia, rainforest issues from the Franklin where about 10 . . or 15 of us from the Lismore area were invited down by the Wilderness Society to help . set up their Blockade of the Franklin River in '83 . and then also up to the Daintree where, most of the people at the Daintree protest . also came from the Nimbin, Terania Creek, Lismore area. . Not only rainforest issues, in 1980 we did blockades at Middle Head on the mid-north . coast of New South Wales to stop a sand mining operation there . and also we were very involved in Pine Gap and . a lot of the women were involved in the women's actions in those days the warship . actions trying to stop the nuclear powered . and armed American warships from entering Australian waters and so on. . I guess there's traditionally been a lot of resentment i guess because of . the fact . that there's been a lot of people at the forefront of those movements from the Nimbin . Byron North Coast area. . Do you have any apologies for that? . Oh no I just think people are so ungrateful. . I mean you look at the opinion polls and it's shows . that 90 per cent of everyone thinks that we need environmental thing and so on . and so on . and no one really acknowledges where the lead . from that came from and I know that it's unpopular and . that makes me have all the more admiration for the people that did it. . Here was this totally thankless task where people are abused . and vilified for waking everybody up. . You know it's like people want to stay asleep people would rather choke to death on . their own vomit in their sleep than wake up i don't know. . So i don't feel apologetic at all as you can hear. . Ok what about the role of green extremists. . And what about the term "Rainbow Warriors", do you associate with that? . Oh well I'm not sort of quite romantic like that myself, . Can i get you to start again and . make that a statement? Well i mean i don't, uh . I don't associate myself, I don't think of myself as a rainbow warrior . or anything romantic like that but I am a green extremist . and I guess I am a rainbow warrior if . that word has any meaning and I think that i'm surrounded by green extremists . and rainbow warriors here. . The local forest protection society, haha, so-called, you know the loggers wives . and the rest. They started a group called "Rage" . and it stands for something like rage against green extremists . or something like that. . So the Rainforest Information Centre printed these t-shirts with "green extremist" . across the front in huge letters . and it's our most popular item you see them everywhere around here . that we sell hundreds of them. You know people are proud to be green extremists. . Can you tell us a bit about your spiritual journey . and you're developing your relationship with the rainforest and . that that side of it? . Well you know this developed slowly from those years but i don't know yet . My spiritual journey changed from a buddhist perspective to . what I would call "deep ecology" over those years. . In the buddhist perspective really mind and spirit . and the inner life of human beings is primary . but it quickly became clear to me in the rainforest that my body . and my mind had evolved within these very forest over the last hundred fifty . million years ago when the first flowering . plants in the world were evolving in Gondwanaland, the giant . supercontinent included South America and Australia . and Antarctica covered in rainforests, the place . that is now Cape Tribulation the first flowering plants, the angiosperms were . developing my ancestors were some kind of little rodents scurrying around . trying to get out from under the dinosaurs a hundred thirty million years ago. Now . since that time my body and my mind have evolved to where I am now and . to try and separate the spiritual life from that incredible miracle of . that evolution it seems to me is a very futile task and also a dangerous one. . Because as a result of the way that we despise nature . and think of the earth as just dirt and having no soul, . having no intelligence and no life and by denying our connection with . that, i mean if we understand our own evolution then we realise . that we are just like a leaf on the tree of life and . that if we're alive then it's only because the tree is alive . and if we're intelligent it's only a tiny fragment of the intelligence of . the tree. . So here's the earth which holds maybe million species of plants . and animals in incredible symbiosis and cooperation and partnership . and we are one of those, how can we think of . that as being dead how can we think of that as having no soul so . my spiritual journey became one of surrendering to the body of which I am just one . cell the body of Gaia the living earth and finding . that it's very easy to receive instruction and meaning for my life from . that in the same way as you know my heart beats and you know my lungs work . and my fingernails grow you know . and they all grow, they cooperate in order to create the integration . that is this body. So I feel. that we humans, . If we will let go of our futile kind of self-interest with the small . "s" and recognise . that our own self-interest can't be other than the interests of the earth of which . we are just a tiny fragment, then once we understand . that then it's very easy for our lives to fall back into harmony again with the . earth in the way that of course our ancestors lives must have been in harmony . or they wouldn't have survived for a minute, you look around at every tree . and every plant every animal and it lives in harmony with the earth, . it doesn't struggle against the earth . and it is receives its instructions from the earth. . It knows how to feed itself how to breathe how to reproduce itself . but we in our arrogance thinking ourselves superior to nature have kind of shut . ourselves off from that, but the good news is that all . that we have to do is let go of that arrogance and recognize . that we are merely part of the earth, merely, miraculously, part of the earth . and then we too can fall back into harmony with the earth again . and it's only by doing this I believe that our race that our species . and indeed complex life at all will be supported on the earth. . We are the last generation of human beings that will be in a position to make . that decision. It's clear from ... David Suzuki says . that we have less than 10 years before the damage to the life support systems . reaches the point of no return, the damage to the air . and the water and the soil, the poisoning of the earth, these these things will reach . a point of no return very very soon and that unless we take responsibility for . caring for the earth correctly living correctly on the earth our children . won't get a chance . and no future generation of humans will have a chance because it will be too late. . But that can't come from a sense of sacrifice . or a sense of duty as long as we feel separate from nature and think . that we have to somehow protect this thing . "the environment", something over there separate from us, then . we're doomed to failure. . It's only when we realise that we ARE the environment . that every breath we take connects us to the earth, every drop of water or food . that passes into our body connects us to the earth, we ARE connected. . It's just that we ignore that connection . and we define ourselves as purely spiritual beings, whatever . that might mean, once we once we realize that we are part of the earth . the spiritual thing is actually very down to earth. . Anyone who wants to prove this to themselves only has to hold their breath for . three minutes. . Anyone holding their breath for three minutes will quickly realie what . I'm talking about. We can call it "the atmosphere" and think that it's over there . and that it's not really in our self-interest to protect it. You know stop the CFC's . and so on, . but it's not the atmosphere it's part of our own body . that we're talking about and by projecting it out there . we're destroying ourselves and we're destroying the earth. Once we acknowledge . that it's part of us, then there's no sacrifice necessary in order to protect it. . You know if someone's sawing our leg off we don't sort of say "look i'm too busy to . protect it." We know it's part of us . and we just do whatever we have to do. So anyway, that's my spiritual . position i guess. . I guess the detractors of the the Aquarian ideals who would say . that people who moved to the Nimbin area. . years ago were saying the same things then . that we only had you know less than ten years left. . But look we know we're still here and it hasn't happened. . Doomsday stuff hasn't happened. . I think it has happened but . I mean you know look around you look at what's happening to the world. . It's you know it's just a tragedy. . You know but you know the poisoning of the air and the oceans . and the quality of life deteriorating and so on but anyway i'm . Personally not saying . that it is going to happen in 10 years myself, i'm quoting David Suzuki who says . that, i myself feel that the Earth has more resilience than that, but the fact . that this is coming very very soon, . I don't think that there's any doubt about that. We're losing . an average of more than species every day. This can't go on. . There's only so much . that the Earth can take. I think everybody knows this anyway. . I don't think many people would say . that anymore i think most people would if they were really honest with themselves . realise that this can't go on. . Can you tell it's a bit about the way that you explored . that Earth-based spirituality. I'm thinking of the Council of All Beings which was something . that you instigated and you co-wrote a book called Thinking Like a Mountain. . Can you expand on some of themes of those? . This deep ecology philosophy which i've kind of been expounding you know was very . satisfying but I realised that it didn't change anything . that we could have these ideas . but it was still terribly difficult to change our behavior and as i looked into . that.... . I say ok . so the Council of All Beings was an attempt to bring deep ecology to life to . actually change our behaviour and . one of the things . that i realised as I was studying this problem of "how is it . that we human beings can be so stupid as to saw off the very branch . that we ourselves are sitting on" i mean why do we want to commit suicide? . What are we doing? How come it's so difficult to change? And I realised . that we modern humans are the first civilisation in the history of the world to . dispense with the rituals and ceremonies that all other people's have . and still do practice which . acknowledge and nurture that interconnectedness between human beings . and the rest of the earth community that it seems as though . that sense of interconnectedness which all other species have you know i mean baboons . and flowers never forget that they're part of the earth. . You know it never occurs to them. . So we humans are the first ones to think . that we might be something special, something superior, something different . and the way that we've you know remained connected to the earth . and remained part of the great symphony and not just got lost in our own ideas . and thoughts was with these ceremonies and these rituals . and so the Council of All Beings is a modern version of this. . It's a way in which through a couple of days of ceremony and ritual . and . and communion with each other we can reestablish, not the idea of deep ecology . but the living experience of deep ecology the living experience . that the earth is my body and once i feel . that the earth is my body it becomes much much simpler to defend the earth because . i'm no longer defending something outside myself . and so it's like ... . it wasn't me as a separate being defending the rainforest, the environment. . I became that part of the rainforest . that was acting in its own self-defense . and of course self defense is much much easier. . It doesn't require any great nobility . or any great you know special qualities, anybody can defend themselves. . Can you tell us a bit about what happens you know during those three days in the . Council of All Beings what do people actually do to get to come around to that idea? . that. Well first of all I'd have to say . that the Council of All Beings can consist of all. Can you tell us a bit about what happens during those three days in the Council Of all Beings, what are people actually do to get to come around to that idea. Well, first of all I'd have to say that the ouncil of all beings can consist of almost anything that is congruent with those ideas that I've expressed of being in harmony with the earth that what we've found is that it's the intention that any time a group of people gathers together for a few hours or a few days to share with each other that ending of the illusion of separation from the Earth to share with each other our love for the Earth and our desire to be more powerful and more empowered in the defence of the Earth This miracle takes place that we experience this that we experience an awakening, that we experience an embodiment of this. But having said that, the particular Council of all Beings that I lead you know are so different. There are hundreds of people now that facilitate these workshops around the world. I just did in the last eight months I've done like 20 in the United States and half a dozen in Russia and others in Holland and Finnhorn in Scotland and other places. And everywhere people are studying with me and studying with each other how to do this and everyone can do it differently. You know but the way that I do it. We usually start with the intention. We make our intention very clear because that's what the whole experience is based on. Then um, We may go into various processes that help us to feel bonded with each other and feel safe with each other. Then we go into a mourning or grieving process because what we've found is that unless we are prepared to feel. All the pain of the earth. we can't really be empowered in the healing of the earth. As long as we deny the feeling quality of what's going on, as long as we deny the pain and the horror and the despair and the rage at what's going on, which all of us feel deep down but most of us repress, then we're kind of numb to what's going on. So we invite ourselves to feel those things. And um..From there we go Perhaps to an evil lucian airy remembering where we re-enact the evolutionary drama from the big bang matter and space and time being created and the creation of galaxies, and then our own galaxy - the milky way and within that the sun and its planets, and then on the earth. The earth cooling and the crust forming and um, the development of the first cell. Um, the evolution of that cell through the oceans. You know like 90 per cent of organic life was in the oceans and in the last 10 per cent of the time we. amphibians came to the earth, became reptiles. And then some of those reptiles. Their scales turned to feathers and they became the birds. And other reptiles, their scales turned fur and they became the mammals, and that was our line. And we just trace back our story. But now it's not just written history that we're identifying with but our whole story. The story that's in our DNA, that's in every cell. It's in our blood. And we try and um, embody that as much as we can and, and to experience that, not just as being another story that we learn at school but that's my story, that's my creation myth. I wasn't created by an old man with a white beard 4000 years ago. You know, I've been here 4 thousand million years evolving on this earth. You know? And just to live that out. And then finally we find an ally in nature, a non-human being that wishes to speak through us in the council of all beings. It may be an animal or a plant or a, a, some, you know, it may be the rain or the sky. Some natural. Anything but a human being. Anything on the earth but a human. We know all about what humans have got to say but all of these others are the voiceless ones. They're the ones that our culture doesn't hear anymore. In fact we don't even believe that they have any voice. We think that they're just like machines and so, you know, we treat animals like machines and plants like machines. They have no soul. They have no feelings. And ah, the fact that they've been evolving alongside of us for 4000 million years is ignored. So we find an ally and then we make a mask to represent that ally and then finally we gather in the council of all beings with our masks on and we just invite our personality to get out of the way for a little while and we spontaneously invite this being to speak through us. And no matter how cynical or sceptical we might be to start with and of course, most people from the modern world. You know, I'd be very, very surprised if anyone came to the council of all beings for the first time without being highly sceptical about what was going to happen. Maybe this is just psychodrama. Maybe this is just a projection of our own personalities. But always everyone is incredibly moved by what takes place and it's different every time. But always we hear voices either from ourselves or from each other that we've never heard before, with incredible wisdom and points of view that are totally alien to what we've ever heard before. And it makes us realise that we can then speak for the earth because we've heard the earth. We, if we've had an authentic experience that we really believe that we've heard the earth speaking through these other beings, even through our own voice, then it's really easy to go up to Parliament House and you know, have someone say "Well look, you know, my constituency represents thousands and thousands of people. Who are you to tell me what to do?" and we can say "Listen, my constituency represents Hundreds of thousands and millions. Species and they're not even represented in your parliament. You know, they're not even represented, and I speak for them." You know? And to speak with a strong voice because you know, we know that we're speaking for these voiceless ones, these um, you know, the rest of creation which is being ignored. Which is being shoved out of the way. And the thing is that once we recognise that in spite of the 2000 years of Judeo-Christian you know, belief or 4000 or whatever it is years of believing that the world is a pyramid with human beings on the top, and that the world just consists of human beings and resources, do you know, that it's just there for our satisfaction. In spite of that, it's not true. The world is more like a web, and we humans are one strand in that web and if we destroy those other species then we destroy ourselves. So we all know that to be true but we don't know how to live that truth, we don't know how to change our lives and the council of all beings is a way of bringing that truth to life. bringing it home and changing ourselves, not on the level of ideas but on the level of values and on the level of um, lifestyle and behavior. [Ok, what about the terms, um, re-earthing and re-gendering? Do you believe that something else then that you've been at the forefront of?] Well these are there's are um, these are similar [Sorry mate I'll get you to start again] Yeah ok. So re-earthing and regendering are two other workshop forms that I've developed with many friends that I work with on these things and these are um, used different techniques to bring about the same effect of a deep experience of um, cooperation and communion with the planet. In these workshops we use the breath to bring us deep into um, parts of ourselves and levels of ourselves that we are usually unconscious of. These techniques are based on a, a Therapy that's called rebirthing where the breath is. to bring unconscious material from the personal part of our unconscious. You know, things connected with traumas that we had early on in our lives that we've forgotten about and repressed. And when we remember them a healing takes place. So by adding a planetary intention and a deep ecology perspective and some other things. ah, these other forms allow us to bring this other area that we're totally unconscious of which is our organic nature. I mean Freud found 100 years ago that we are unconscious of our sexuality but that's the tiniest part of it. We're unconscious of our organic being. We're unconscious of the fact that we've been evolving here for thousands and millions of years. We are unconscious of the fact that the food that we eat means that the earth is our body. That every time we place you know, it's like there's this incredible cycle where the earth somehow, miraculously grows these things and we take these things from the earth and we place them inside our body and they become our body and then we take a shit. And the earth in our body goes back into the earth again and there is this incredible cycle of earth. Which is flowing through us streaming through us and we just started out as this tiny cell in our mother's body and we grew there from this earth and we came out of our mother's body and we grew and grew and we are made of earth. Now this is n't controversial I don't think but we don't experience ourselves in this way. This isn't part of our identity. Same with the water. There's this incredible cycle. Where water is lifted up by the sun and it falls and on its way down it lubricates and creates all of life, including us. A tiny part of that water passes through our body, becomes our blood and all of our fluids, and then we piss it out back into the cycle again. And the air cycle is the same. So we are the intersection of these cycles and if we have a prefer. experience of that as being actually 'that is who I am'. Do you know? I'm not some disembodied spirit that's somehow trapped in this body. You know, I wasn't brought here from outer space. I am an earthling. I'm part of this. If we feel that deeply, then it changes the way that we behave. It changes the way that we think. So re-earthing and re-generating are ways of bringing about those changes so that we spontaneously, through the breath have an experience the changes our identity. [Do you feel like er, you've developed or helped develop a new religion or just help people rediscover old ones?] Well it's..it's ver..it's certainly er..it's certainly an old one but in this case I think that it's not just that it's [Sorry mate I'll get you to start again]. Yep? [Yep.] I-I think that there is a new religion that's being born here but it's not just religion. Er.. Um, it's er..it's..it's very much in harmony with all of the findings of science at this time. Do you know? And that ah..It's also not very new because this is re-discovering things that our ancestors knew about. and ah..In particular, it's rediscovering a lot of the things that were.. That were deliberately and violently ah, repressed in our society by um, Thousands of years of judeo-christian conditioning and most recently perhaps by the inquisitions. When nine million European women were burned at the stake for their love of nature and for their belief that the earth was alive and that the world didn't belong to men and to the spirit, but that the earth belonged to, you know, all people into the body and to itself. You know and so, the ritual and ceremonial life that allows us to experience ourselves as part of the earth was repressed at that time. [. What then of people who, you know, who would say that what, we've just been listening to for now you know there's a lot of old hippy dribble?] Well um, you know I'd feel a little bit sorry for them because I feel myself Well for those people who feel that ah, you know that all of this is just a load of old hippy dribble, I feel a bit sorry for them because ah, I feel that there's a remarkable challenge and a remarkable opportunity at this time for human beings to get real. You know, to get in harmony with the earth. If we don't do it we're going to be destroyed. And ah..It's an amazing thing to have been living here on this earth for 4000 million years. To have survived the most incredible challenges. Can you imagine our ancestors the fish, learning to walk on the land, you know? The incredible challenges that we faced of..our ancestors surviving ice-age after ice-age and..All of them survivors, all of them finding a way through. Passing this precious, precious flame of life from fin, to claw, to paw and into our own hands and then now we're going to fumble and let it drop. You know what I mean? It's an incredible thing. And so I feel to show people to be so busy playing at business as usual and holding on to those stupid ideas that we've developed in the last few thousand years and letting that beautiful flame drop for what? You know? For a microwave oven and a second car and an electric toothbrush? You know? Such a shame. So I just feel sorry for them and ah, I myself don't believe that the earth is going to die. I know that, you know, I mean the miracle was here before human beings came along and it'll be here after they've gone. The miracle was here before organic life started. There was a time when there was no organic life on the earth. There was just stardust you might say, you know? And it was itself into organic life and into us. And so that miracle.. We can't touch that. So I'm not really..ultimately I'm not despairing because I know that that is totally secure and totally safe, but I must say, I love this organic life. I love this flesh and bones and blood and breath and air. And I love this consciousness, and I'd be very, very..I'll, I'll struggle with all my might to protect it and to keep it going and ah, you know it's.. I feel so enriched and overjoyed in my life because of these realisations and I see this tremendous unhappiness in ah, you know, the faces and the lives of most people, and tremendous unhappiness in their relationships and their, their inability to love each other or to love themselves. That I just think people would be doing themselves a favour to..you know look at these things seriously. [Can I get a definition of the Aquarius vision?] Well the Aquarius vision, um.. I just think that it's um, getting back to our roots. John Seed thanks very much. [Great Ian thank you.] Thank's mate, that was great. Ok Ian, good to [inaudiable] [Have a good summer].