Achieving Perspective: The Environmental Ethics
Pattiann Rogers is an award-winning American poet. Her subject matter includes nature, science, and the environment, often focusing on their divine link with humanity. In her poem “Achieving Perspective,” Rogers explores the origins of life, the universe, and human consciousness, bringing her readers into the realm of what some might even deem “holy.” She pushes us to question why and how we exist within this universal order, and even more boldly, what good we can do by simply situating ourselves within our environment and surrendering to its consciousness. To Rogers, the environment is wholly alive, galloping along at a full-force speed, no matter what we humans here on earth are choosing to quibble about.
It can be easy to forget that our choices fundamentally impact the environment around us, and even worse, that we can cause its very destruction. In “Spiritual,” Lisa Sideris writes of Thomas Merton, an early twentieth-century Trappist monk and social activist, whose writings spoke of his spiritual connection to the forest environment he inhabited for much of his life (325). When a pipeline tried to run hazardous material through his forest, Merton fought them through peaceful protests, writing of the imperative of humanity to defend their land, which “evokes the divine spirit as an energizing force that grounds humans in place and inspires moral commitment” (327). Humanity is an inherent component of their surrounding environment.
Rogers writes, “The galaxies of the Cygnus A cluster / are colliding with each other / I try to remember that / nothing at all separates our bodies / from that vast emptiness expanding” (Rogers). Instead of giving in to hopelessness or despair, Rogers chooses to bask in the miracles of the world around her, the holiness of consciousness, and the limitlessness of space and time. Like Sideris and Merton, she has situated herself directly within her environment, surrendered to its life force, and is willing to learn and grow from the experience.
In her essay “Ethics,” Joanna Zylinska writes that humankind must respond to the current threats to life’s very existence and the continuing narratives regarding its impending demise (145). Her twenty-one theses for a “supposed planetary emergency” describe the continual unfolding of the universe and prescribe the ethical necessity of responding to both our surrounding environment and our relationship with it (147).
In “Achieving Perspective,” Rogers takes a similar stance on what it means to be human on a planet seemingly in trouble. She writes, “The galaxies / Are colliding with each other in a massive swarm / of interpenetrating and exploding catastrophes” (Rogers). Rogers and Zylinska understand the irrefutable consciousness of the universe, that none of us are separate from its ongoing creation, and that there is an irrevocable link between it, the environment, and humanity. It is the responsibility of each person to respond and to act in defense of our environment, whether in solidarity or in their own unique way.
Rogers, Sideris, and Zylinska are ultimately arguing for the same truth: that a Divine Consciousness exists and by our very awareness of it we have a moral imperative to act in its defense. Whether we call it “perspective,” “spirituality,” or “ethics,” the result is that we have put a name to the consciousness of our environment, and by doing so, we have made ourselves morally responsible to no longer turn away. Humanity’s relationship to the environment is real and undeniable, no matter whether each person is conscious enough to realize it or not.
Works Cited
Rogers, Pattiann. “Achieving Perspective.” Poetry Foundation. www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=34631. Accessed 28 Mar. 2021.
Sideris, Lisa. “Spiritual.” Fueling Culture: 101 Words for Energy and Environment, edited by Imre Szeman, Jennifer Wenzel, and Patricia Yaeger, Fordham University Press, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/athabasca-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4681124, pp.325-28.
Zylinska, Joanna. “Ethics.” Fueling Culture: 101 Words for Energy and Environment, edited by Imre Szeman, Jennifer Wenzel, and Patricia Yaeger, Fordham University Press, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/athabasca-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4681124, pp.145-48.