Pagan Godspell

(Note: Parts of this review are taken from a previous review I wrote on Amazon.com)

From the American Heritage Dictionary: 

proph·et (prŏf‘ĭt)
n.

1. A person who speaks by divine inspiration or as the interpreter through whom the will of a god is expressed.
2. A person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression.
3. A predictor; a soothsayer.
4. The chief spokesperson of a movement or cause.

[Middle English prophete, from Old French, from Latin prophēta, from Greek prophētēs : pro-, before; see pro–² + -phētēs, speaker (from phanai, to speak).]

Not having grown up in a biblical household (i.e. a household that read the Bible, not a household in Nazareth…) for most of my life, I was confused about prophets.  I knew the word invoked a kind of secret delicious shiver from the core of my heart, somewhere deep - that there must be something profound to it, yet I believed the term prophet more or less fell down to the third definition listed above – a predictor, one who sees the future.  A fortuneteller.  This is certainly juicy, but didn’t possess the fierce, crackling power that I felt behind the term.  Upon entering seminary, pursuing some biblical study and diving into the nigh unparseable mess of authentic history as well as my own independent studies in deep ecology, ecofeminism and anti-civ anarchist thought, I began to understand the shiver better.  A prophet can see the future – that hoary gift and curse – because a prophet can see the present, authentically and truly, for what it is.  From there, the future becomes crystal clear.  And having seen the present, the prophet Speaks – in a voice that rings out like clarion bells, a summoning voice – of all that they see.  They have no choice.  It may not always be a voice of doom (though this is the predominant legacy of the prophets of civilization due to the nature of that Beast, I remain greatly heartened by the radically blissful prophetic work of Rob Brezsny, for instance), but it is always a voice that calls people to listen, to dig deeper, to learn to See themselves.  Prophets are, by their very nature, dangerous to the status quo.  I may not believe in saviors, but I do believe in prophets.

Derrick Jensen is a prophet.  In nearly every sense of the word.

I discovered Jensen and his book, A Language Older Than Words, via another author-prophet I admire, Inga Muscio.  In the second edition of her outstanding manifesta, Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, Muscio wrote something along the lines of Jensen’s book being a jaw-dropping, outstanding work that she pretty much recommended to everyone.  Everywhere.  (As an aside, in addition to Cunt, Muscio’s second book, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society, is one that I recommend to everyone.  Everywhere.)  As I happened to read this at my local indie bookstore, and as I happen to take it to heart when authors that I think are geniuses get excited over something - I trotted over the ten feet to the section on ecology, and lo!  There it was.  I bought it on the spot.  It altered my world.  When I looked up from reading it days later, my eyes were different.  My heart was different.  Everything was different – and everything was exactly the same.

For as long as I can remember I have been, like so many others, deeply concerned for the World.  And I knew that I felt an incredibly deep sadness, an intense loss, creeping towards despair…but I did not know how to articulate why. This book articulates why. A Language Older Than Words illuminates in precise and heart-rending prose the inextricable connections between cycles of abuse on personal and global scales.  At first, Jensen sets out to discuss the possibilities of interspecies communication, but as he delves further into the subject, the interconnections between patterns of abuse and the destruction of the environment, the degradation and annhilation of indigenous communities, sexism, racism, genocide - all become necessary to discuss in depth.  Indeed, in the face of such deeply woven connections, it seems impossible to talk of one part of civilization’s legacy or how to operate outside of any given piece of it without discussing the whole.  

The book is often incredibly painful to read.  Jensen’s talent for weaving the horrors of the world together into a plain-as-day picture of the destruction humanity has wrought, and continues to wreak, on the natural world and each other, is unparalleled in my experience, and his bravery in the frank retelling of the abuse he suffered as a child is staggering. I often run out of words trying to say why I think this book, and indeed the rest of Jensen’s work, is so important.

Jensen is a full Brother in the Holy Order of Hystericals.  He feels deeply and authentically, and his clear yet emotionally compelling prose is evidence of this.  If anything can be said about his work, it’s that it is deeply passionate.  His wounds are real, he sees them in the context of all wounds, and he feels the crush of the emotional terror and joy in the world, the sublime bliss of communion with a wolf spider, the aching, empty sucking void of loss at the destruction of the Land around us, the despair at one person’s ability to enact any real change in the system, and the resolve to work beyond that despair with an eye towards simply doing, doing, doing, writing, speaking, acting, being, because it is right – because it is the only thing to do.  All of his work offers moments of intense reflection for the reader – this one is merely the first of several powerful works.  Not all will follow his books and his philosophies on out to the conclusions he reaches or agree 100% with his positions – but A Language Older Than Words alone is a work that benefits anyone interesting in thinking outside the boundaries of our worldview.  It is a book that forces the question – “what can I do?”  There may not be easy answers, but to begin the work of asking this question (and for me, it is a question I will be asking myself the rest of my life) and making any answers, many answers, arguing with answers, enacting answers, is a critical step towards the necessary shift away from the poisonous worldview we live in, the worldview that is so graphically and painfully illustrated in Jensen’s work.

Every once in a while I have the experience of someone I know and admire saying to me: “I read this amazing book!!  You have to read it – it will blow you away,” and then they hand me a copy of A Language Older Than Words.  Every time this happens, I think “yep – prophet.”  Jensen may not be a medium through which the will of a god is expressed, but he may be a medium through which the will of the Land is expressed (one of several) - and if you’re me, that’s the same damn thing.