Skip to product information
1 of 1

Pendle Hill Publications

Rhythms of the Ecosystem

Rhythms of the Ecosystem

Regular price $2.99 USD
Regular price Sale price $2.99 USD
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
The myth of dancing Shiva, god of creation and destruction, has spoken to many generations within Hindu culture, because it embodies a basic truth about human nature and the universe man lives in. Like any great symbol, it speaks to all men and yields up to them such treasure as they find in their own hearts. This pamphlet is the result of what Shiva said to me as a person who had already been made acutely aware of the ecological realities of our time.

In one of his right hands Shiva holds the drum of creation: from his other flows protection. A left hand holds the fire which destroys the cosmos, while the other left points to the upraised foot which symbolizes release, or in Western terms, salvation. There is a man’s earring in his right ear, and a woman’s in the left. Thus Shiva has a dual nature, and in him there is a reconciliation of opposites.

Likewise within man and his universe there exists a rhythmic tension between the forces for destruction, or reduction to smaller units; and the forces for creation, or synthesis. Let us examine these forces on various levels of complexity: the atom, the molecule, the cell, the individual human being, the groups he belongs to, and the world ecosystem. The Hindus say that the reason for the dance of Shiva lies within his own nature. So it is that the forces for creation and destruction lie in the nature of the universe. What makes this so, and what determines if the dance results in creation or disintegration?
View full details