Re/turning to soil: becoming one-bodied with the Earth.

This paper curates four experiential narratives and poetry by the five co-authors that illustrate epistemic and ontic shift from the Modern Western (ModWest) mindset to a holistic, embodied and animistic mindset. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, yet having been systemically influenced by the dominant ModWest views and values, each author has initiated an ongoing shift in consciousness, demonstrating how such transformations are possible. Affirming that a shift in consciousness is not simply a matter of cognitive change but is a thoroughly holistic process, the authors write in autobiographical narratives and poetry to capture and convey embodied and emplaced, experiential understanding and feelings, or 'felt sense.' Deep changes in the consciousness, such as these epistemic shifts, take the whole ensemble of "body + mind + heart + soul + spirit + the world" as the unit of change for learning. Through these writings, they sensuously and feelingly, existentially-and-spiritually and discursively explore possibilities of becoming one-bodied with the animate Earth. They call this the re-bonding project through which they address humanity's first-order bonding rupture between Humans and the Earth community.

From ego to eco: re-orienting for processual ontology in the "Dao-Field".

The planet Earth has become increasingly susceptible to human-induced (anthropogenic) ecological disasters. The currently raging COVID-19 pandemic adds to the vast scale of destruction and suffering that humanity and the planet are experiencing. In this paper we explicate the meaning of 'human-induced' destruction in the terms of the damaging and hurting metaphysics (beyond the physical or material) that modern humanity has been entertaining in their conceptual and emotional minds and materially projecting onto the world. In turn, the damaging and hurting metaphysics is explicated in the terms of atomism that conceives all existents as self-existing and independent, necessarily engaged in competition against each other for survival. We propose to replace such metaphysics with one of the processual ontologies, such as that of Alfred North Whitehead, in which humans see themselves and each other as continuously interfusing and co-creatively re/e/merging relata of complete interdependence. This way, all of us, all the time, become "one with The Ten Thousand Things."-an expression in Chinese for the phenomenal world of thriving diversity and conviviality. We further explore self-cultivation of inner work that aids the shift from ego self to eco self, such as meditative and arts-based practices.

地球は、人為的(人間の活動による)生態学的大惨事の影響をますます受けやすくなっている。 現在、猛威をふるっている新型コロナウイルス感染症の世界的流行は、人類と地球が陥っている大々的な破壊と被害をもたらしている。この論文で私たちは「人為的」 破壊について詳説する。本来の意味を見失いつつある形而上学の(物理的・物質的なものを超越した)観点から見て、現人類は概念的・感情的な心の中で物質的に世界に投影している。同様に、その形而上学は、すべての存在を自己存在と独立しているものとして必然的に生存のために互いに競争していると考える原子論の観点から詳説される。私たちは、このような形而上学をアルフレッド・ノース・ホワイトヘッドも提唱したプロセス存在論のひとつに代替することを提案する。それは、人間が自身と他のものは絶えず綯い混じり、完全な相互依存の共創的な出現、再出現、融合だと見ることである。これによって私たちはみな、常に「万物とともにあるひとつ」となる。 これは、多様性と共生の現象界を示す中国語の表現のひとつでもある。私たちはさらに、エゴセルフ (ego self ) からエコセルフ (eco self) へのシフトを促すため瞑想やアートベースの包括的な省察を用いて内面的な自己修養を探求する。.