Terra Mortis: Is the Earth Dying?

A Jungian and Indigenous View
Part I: A Few Rough Beasts
by Michael Owen

We’ve run out of planet. The trees have nearly given up. The animals have done what they can. 9/11, the GFC and Covid have tried their best to warn us. Monotheism has abandoned the earth for heavenly rewards. Indigenous peoples are now only 5% of the world’s population. Fifty percent of the world’s population lives in cities. And our relationship with beauty has been lost.

To think the unthinkable allows what does not have a home to find a home. Then it will not appear in matter the same way as it might have done. Perhaps.

Humans have exhausted the gifts that the Earth provides. A whole 1.7 planet’s worth. The Great Barrier Reef is dying. The great dying will gather pace until we hit rock bottom. Our grandchildren’s children will be bereft, left only with dust and diesel.

It may be that this planet will die, is dying or has died—but we don’t know it yet. She may right herself without help or interference from us. I hope so. Or if her life is in danger she will let her children die without sentiment so that she may live. However, all possible futures may not be open, we may have gone past a tipping point, and there may not be enough time. God, Goodall and Attenborough won’t save us.

There are mountains and oceans of evidence about the perilous state of the planet. There’s no need for more and we must ask, “What forces compel us to deny the obvious?” We think we have time. Maybe we don’t. So let’s begin to make space within ourselves for the thought that this planet of infinite beauty may die. Now stand back and watch the reactions, your own and others, to such a notion. Then read on.