Burnt Offering

The Dreaming

. . . from *Green Architecture* by James Wines:

The system of totemic identity, as a condition of dualities where one’s soul is shared by the self and an alter ego in nature, has intriguing implication for ecology. “All possible human temperamental variations can be in embraced in the act of symbolic identification with nature,” explains James Cowan. “It is a remarkable system . . . What is at work here is, if in an obscure way, a form of ecological classification linking all nature into an overall pattern. It is this ecological classification that might bear further investigation, in the interest of discovering whether there may be a pairing in nature deigned to preserve its balance and harmony between species. It this is so, then aboriginal thought may have provided us with an important new system of classification that can be used as a part of environmental protection” [Source not cited . . . The *Element of the Aborigine Tradition*?] Certainly one of the most useful lessons evident here is that fact that the aboriginal totem acts as a conscience, guiding tribal and individual relationships with the natural environment. It is an excellent model of a societal monitoring system built into the culture and its collective unconscious. This system is the opposite of Western civilizations’ response to ecology, which can usually be characterized as some kind of self-conscious compromise or begrudging concession to duty" (45).