The 12 Steps of Ecological Spirituality

“The profound ecological degradation we are currently witnessing and the rise of addictive behaviors such as alcoholism and drug addiction are two sides of the same coin. Industrialized societies have created a culture of consumerism that disintegrates the human person at the same time that it disintegrates the Earth.”

Albert LaChance

The Opportunity:

Step 1 – We admit that we are powerless over an addicted society, and that our lives and all of life has become unmanageable and degraded.

Step 2 – We acknowledge the existence of an Originating Mystery with the potential to restore us and our world to sanity.

Step 3 – We decide to surrender our lives and our wills to this Originating Mystery, whatever we choose to name it.

Then – We work the rest of the steps and find that, little by little, one day at a time our lives and the life of the earth are being restored to balance.

We invite you to gather with others who have become willing to accept personal responsibility for the fate of the Earth. We share our experience, strength, and hope as we work the 12 Steps of Ecological Spirituality which reveal to us the root cause(s) of our dysfunctional relationship with ourselves, other people, other species, and all the life systems of planet Earth. We believe that these steps will provide a path that can help us to change these dysfunctional relationships. In so doing, we hope to encourage and to support all forms of ecological, peace, and justice activism that speak in support of life. While not a substitute for recovery from specific addictions, this process enhances our recovery from the fundamental addictive process and the havoc it wreaks upon our own lives, the lives of the most marginalized people, and all life on earth. In this way, we build personal and communal power to strengthen our efforts to lay the foundations for a new human-Earth relationship.

The Twelve Steps of GreenSpirit

1. We admit that we are powerless over an addicted society, that our lives and all of life have become degraded.

2. We come to acknowledge the existence of an Originating Mystery accomplishing the evolution of the universe. We accept that, if allowed, this Originating Mystery will reveal to each of us our natural relationship to self, to others, to other species, to the Earth, and to the universe.

3. We decide to surrender our lives and our wills to this Originating Mystery, whatever we choose to name it.

4. We examine ourselves, listing all our attitudes and actions that damage the created order, thereby stopping or impeding the emergence of this Originating Mystery.

5. We acknowledge to ourselves, to that Originating Mystery, and to another person, the specifics of our illusory thinking, attitudes, and behavior.

6. We become entirely willing to have all habits of illusion removed from our thoughts, our attitudes, and our behavior.

7. In humility, we request that this Originating Mystery remove all our habits of illusory thought, attitude, and behavior.

8. We make a list of all persons, all other species, and all of the life systems of the planet that we have harmed and become ready to do everything in our power to heal them all.

9. We make a strenuous effort to heal all phases of the created order–human, animal, or planetary–injured by our illusory thinking, attitudes, or actions.

10. We continue on a daily basis to go on examining our thinking and our actions as to whether they foster or impede the emergence of life. Where they impede this emergence, we admit it and become willing to be changed.

11. We continue through physical-mental-spiritual disciplines to so change ourselves as to improve our own ability to foster the emergence and health of the whole created order.

12. Having experienced a reawakening to self, to humanity, to all species, to the planet, and to the universe, we try to spread this awareness to others and to practice these disciplines in all phases of our lives.

We are not seeking perfect adherence to these principles. We seek to grow along spiritual lines and focus upon spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.