Soulcraft Musings

Friday, November 13, 2026

by Geneen Marie Haugen

Cast Your Votes for the Dreaming Earth

The recurring ritual called the US mid-term election brought surprise this year, and plenty of reasonable people might feel we can now at least clear the imminent loss of democracy from the platter of worries we’re carrying around. Yet, no matter how significant the election results, for me there is always a feeling that our electoral choices are too limited, too small. Surely an election should be more robust than just trying to select the least psychospiritually immature candidate. No matter how much excitement is present on election day, we seem to carry on without much post-election transformation in the state of our national collective consciousness.

Eighteen years ago, there was a great moment when we saw Barack and Michelle Obama walk in the inauguration parade in D.C. Like many others, I felt then that something had moved, loosened up, evolved in the American psyche, at least for a spell. I could not have predicted the more recent years in my country of origin — because out-of-control cruelty, unconcealed corruption, and daily depravity were not in my field of likely possibilities, despite all the loud evidence to the contrary.

***

Some of the recent election results were still in flux when the birthday of our esteemed (and long departed) teacher, Thomas Berry, came round again (November 9) and I am grateful to be reminded of his tremendous vision — a vision that embraces both the exquisite possibility and the current derangement of the human-Earth relationship. In his seminal work, The Dream of the Earth, Thomas writes, “If the supreme disaster in the comprehensive story of the earth is our present closing down of the major life systems of the planet, then the supreme need of our times is to bring about a healing of the earth through [a] mutually enhancing human presence to the earth community.”

The possibility that the “human presence” on our precious planet could be beneficial to the greater Earth community is a radical notion, virtually unknown or unacknowledged in the politics and economics of modernity. To some, it may seem evident that beneficial human activity is part of Earth’s dream for us: How could it be otherwise? But if I mention this perspective to others, which suggests that Earth not only dreams but also has agency and intention, I try to be ready for a quick dismissal of the woo-woo-ness of such an idea. Because the life-assailing project of modernity — which is foundational to the economics of exploitation and extraction in which we are entangled — depends on a “dead universe” worldview, depends on an unfeeling Earth, depends on continued “resource” competition and domination of other species and other humans. But perhaps it’s this very worldview that underlies so much of human unease, underlies inchoate despair or impulse to violence. Perhaps it’s this bleak perspective that contributes to the malaise, even desperation, of young men and women. How are we to live meaningfully if the world is made up of unfeeling, insentient matter, if even human beings are regarded only as resources — which is the view peddled by consumer culture, tech culture, dominator culture?

***

I first encountered Thomas Berry through his book, The Dream of the Earth, which was deeply resonant with my own unarticulated sensing that Earth expresses longing and intelligence. Thomas believed that the planet experiences, has interiority or psychic depths. He writes, “From its beginning, the universe [including Earth] is a psychic as well as a physical reality.”

He believed that our human ventures need to be coherent with Earth’s life support systems, which is both an utterly simple and enormously complex challenge. Obviously, our species has brought forth massive incoherence with living systems via industrial mining, monstrous dams, razing of forests, extinctions, enslavement of workers, wars, and more. But human beings — literally made of stardust, literally made from elements formed in supernovas — have also created telescopes that can “see” backwards in time nearly 14 billion years, to the origin of our universe. Surely we have the capacity to creatively revision our relationship with the larger body on which our lives, all Earthly life, depends.

Surely Earth does not dream what modernity dreams: for more data centers, more billionaires, more apps, more cheap stuff made by exploited children, more disrupted communities, more desperation, more dystopia and doom.

Tuning our receptors to Earth’s dreaming is a sensitivity we need now.

On a good day, I can imagine politicians and economists who are psychically porous enough to dream with Earth, who can hold the question: Is this policy in accord with living systems?

On a good day, I can easily imagine vibrant communities — young people especially — allying themselves with Earth’s living systems — waterways, forests, fungi, food pathways, intricate relationships, great mysteries — and discovering new ways to bring the human species into meaningful, imaginative, and conscious relationship with the animate being known as Earth.

***

The Persian poet, Hafiz, has a marvelous poem that’s been “playing” in my imagination for a few days now. It’s called “Cast all Your Votes for Dancing”. And yes, I vote for dancing!

And right now, I’m casting all my votes for the dreaming Earth.

Photo: Astrology Astronomy Earth Big Bang Space Stars Moon Planet Milky Way Galaxy. [Elements of this image furnished by NASA]. Nikonomad

To read previous musings click here.