This picture of a perfect world-machine implied an external creator; a monarchical God who ruled the world from above by imposing his divine law on it. The physical phenomena themselves were not thought to be divine in any sense. And when science made it more and more difficult to believe in such a god, the divine disappeared completely from the scientific world view , leaving behind the spiritual vacuum that has become characteristic of the mainstream of our culture. The philosophical basis of this secularization of nature was the Cartesian division between spirit and matter. As a consequense of this division, the world was believed to be a mechanical system that could be described objectively, without ever mentioning the human observer, and such an objective description of nature became the ideal of all sciences.

From the earliest times nature - and especially the earth - was seen as a kind and nurturing mother, but also as a wild and uncontrollable female. In Prepatriachal eras her many aspects were identified with the numerous manifistations of the Goddess.

Under Partiarchy the benign image of nature changed into one of passivity, whereas the view of nature as wild and dangerous gave rise to the idea that she was to be dominated by man.

with the raise of Newtonian Science, finally, nature became a mechanical system that could be manipulated and exploited, together with the manipulation and exploitation of women

One of the most difficult things for people in our culture to understand is the fact that if you do something that is good, then more of the same will not necessarily be better.

This, to me, is the essence of ecological thinking. Ecosystems sustain themselves in a dynamic balance based on cycles and fluctuations, which are non-linear processes