There is good reason why a movement for local autonomy and self-reliance, the focus of this publication, is arising at this moment in history: Quite simply, civilization as we know it has entered a serious crisis and appears to be on the brink of disintegration.

While political and corporate leaders and the mainstream media address each looming catastrophe – global climate change, peak oil, food and water shortages, and, by the way, the total collapse of the global economy – as discrete problems to be solved with technology and money, more astute observers are seeing the big picture, and they’re telling us that a shift of historic proportions is underway.

Over the last several months a torrent of books, blogs, and films has sought to explain this historical moment and alert the populace to the coming transformation. From Joanna Macy and David Korten, to Derrick Jensen and James Howard Kunstler, to filmmakers Tim Bennett and Sally Erickson, and emerging authors such as John Michael Greer and Sharon Astyk, some very bright and perceptive people are conveying a similar message: “The party’s over,” as Richard Heinberg proclaimed in the title of his groundbreaking work on peak oil. The age of mass consumption, industrial empire, and corporate conquest is coming to an end, and our lives are about to become radically different. Re-localization – economic, cultural and political independence – is not some ranting ideology, but a sensible strategy for survival in the age that is at hand.

Pundits call these concerned observers “doomers” for their loss of faith in modernity, but many of the interpreters go well beyond sky-is-falling alarmism and argue that the collapse of modern civilization is actually a much-needed opportunity to positively transform humanity’s relationship to this planet. All these authors assert that it is now time for our species to grow up, to leave its irrationally exuberant childhood behind and live as a responsible and mature adult member of the community of life.    

According to systems theorist Graeme Taylor in Evolution’s Edge: The Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World (2008, New Society), humanity has reached a “bifurcation point” unprecedented in our entire history: The current crisis will result either in evolution to a more holistic civilization better integrated with natural processes, or societies will fragment and regress into utter disorganization. The outcome depends on how deliberately and consciously we choose ecological wisdom in place of the violent and reductionist values of the currently dominant worldview.     

Taylor’s book is a useful primer for grasping the magnitude of the problems we’re up against, their underlying causes in the belief system of industrial civilization, and paths toward transformation. Taylor argues that conscious evolution will require a comprehensive strategy – a holistic worldview that appreciates the interconnectedness of the cosmos and all life, a commitment to massive social activism to produce fundamental restructuring of our economic and political systems, and new technologies and design strategies that operate on principles of biomimicry and respect for ecological limits. I have found this to be a helpful undergraduate textbook, because it cogently introduces the coming global crisis while offering students hope that all is not yet lost, if we get to work redesigning our culture from its deepest foundations.   

Another book in this genre has just appeared, written by one of the wisest, most perceptive observers of the impending collapse, Dr. Carolyn Baker. She is a psychologist and historian who combines meticulous research with a keen sensitivity to the human condition. She has been reporting on the coming transformation on her blog Speaking Truth to Power and, having recently moved to Vermont, is now blogging for Vermont Commons. Her new book (it is her fifth) is called Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse (published by iUniverse). It is a powerful, fascinating, and very important book that provides a deep, holistic analysis of the present situation.

Baker surveys the ecological and economic disasters in the making, and concludes that, without any doubt, modern civilization is coming down. There is no longer anything we can do to prevent this; our choice is either to deny the inevitable and try (futilely) to prop up the existing system, or to fully accept the enormity of this historical shift with all the uncertainty, stress, and even horror that it will entail. Baker’s central point is that the death of our cultural identity can be a spiritual opening for us, an opportunity to cast off our egocentric way of living (we are a “culture of two-year-olds,” she says) and reclaim the ecocentric awareness of our indigenous heritage – a life in harmony with the pulsating vitality of the earth. This is the only way of living that has intrinsic meaning and purpose, that is spiritually and existentially nourishing, and the time has come to reconnect with it.    

As with all major transitions in life, this “quantum shift” in consciousness will be psychologically difficult; the loss of “much of what we have held dear in civilization” will engender disorientation, distress, and deep grief. Sacred Demise is essentially an invitation to surrender to this emotional upheaval, to learn from it and allow it to deepen and mature us.  Baker describes personal and communal practices we can use to turn cultural disintegration into a collective rite of passage, through which the limitations and mistakes of our immature worldview may be purged and transformed.

Sacred Demise draws on the wisdom of deep thinkers from various traditions; Carl Jung’s insights inform much of her discussion, as do the indigenous African teachings of Malidoma Somé, the research of Jared Diamond, and the spirituality of Thomas Moore and Eckhart Tolle, among others. Baker brings in many relevant and moving poems, and suggests a series of exercises for self-reflection. Weaving these elements with her own insights, Baker has given us a beautiful vision of humanity reconnecting with our ancient roots and with the Earth, finding spiritual resources to endure the coming apocalypse. For Baker, as for Taylor, collapse opens possibilities for transformation.

I brought many urgent questions and anxieties to my reading of Sacred Demise, and Baker addresses them with uncanny directness. She writes with an extraordinary empathy for her readers, acknowledging that these are frightening times and modeling the courage and clarity of vision we will need to get through them. While the book is fortified with relevant quotes, references, and serious intellectual discussion, it remains throughout a personal conversation between a wise, deeply engaged elder and those of us who are seeking to grasp the enormity of the impending cultural transformation. Even though Baker unflinchingly discusses the most difficult and disturbing topics – massive social upheaval and the possible extinction of humanity – the book reads comfortably, like gentle advice from a caring friend.

One additional book deserves mention in this context. Charles Eisenstein published The Ascent of Humanity (Panenthea Press) in 2007 and has followed it with a continuing series of brilliant essays on the website realitysandwich.com . Like the others reviewed here, Eisenstein asserts that the collapse of modern civilization and its massive institutions is inevitable, and also that this collapse will allow for a historic shift in human consciousness. In his massive (560-page) treatise, Eisenstein gets to the deepest core of modernity’s problems; he traces the existential separation of humanity from nature that began with the rise of agriculture and accelerated with the scientific and industrial revolutions. He examines the essential meaning of technology – the attempt to manage and control the natural world that lies outside the alienated human ego – and paints a magnificently thorough picture of how this control plays out in every aspect of our lives. Eisenstein covers intimate details of life, from children’s play to our medical practices, from standardized schooling to the role of entertainment, and much, much more. He concludes that modern life is deeply unsatisfying because it is essentially unreal, purposeless, detached from the wellsprings of meaning.

The Age of Separation, Eisenstein argues, has reached its apex. The culture of abstraction, monetization, management, and technique has by now colonized the world, and definitively proven that it cannot provide the leisure or security it has promised for centuries. Its time is up. As it disintegrates, a new Age of Reunion is emerging, with humanity rediscovering its humble but meaningful place in a purposeful, evolving cosmos. Like the other authors, Eisenstein lays out a holistic worldview that will supersede the stale materialism and reductionism of recent times; he explains how this worldview is emerging in postmodern physics, mathematics, and biology, giving us a dramatic picture of an interconnected, collaborative, creatively self-organizing universe, in which we play an essential role.
Taken together, these ideas strongly confirm that the colonizing structures of the modern corporate state – the money and financial system, the concentration of political and economic power, the use of violence and intimidation to suppress dissent, the deliberately sedative effects of media and entertainment, and so much more – are on the verge of failure. We are about to experience complete systemic meltdown.

Clearly, reconnecting with the wisdom to be found in local, traditional, indigenous, and communal ways of being is essential work if we are to come through the imminent collapse to achieve transformation on the other side.

Ron Miller has written several books on progressive and alternative education, and is currently editor of Education Revolution magazine a member of the Vermont Commons editorial board. He has taught at Goddard, St. Michael’s, and Champlain colleges, and established the Bellwether School in Williston.