Culture
PT407 – The Planet, Psychedelics, and Psyche: Optimism in Ecology
April 25, 2023
Featuring: Deborah Parrish Snyder
In this episode, Joe interviews Deborah Parrish Snyder: ecologist, Director and VP of the Institute of Ecotechnics, and Co-owner and CEO of Synergetic Press, which has published over 40 books on ethnobotany, psychedelics, biospherics, and social and ecological justice.
In this episode, Joe interviews Deborah Parrish Snyder: ecologist, Director and VP of the Institute of Ecotechnics, and Co-owner and CEO of Synergetic Press, which has published over 40 books on ethnobotany, psychedelics, biospherics, and social and ecological justice.
Straddling the line between ecology, psychedelics, and psyche, she discusses the many projects of the Institute: Biosphere 2, the large-scale closed ecological system she helped design in 1986; London’s “October Gallery,” a man-made city biome project that could be a model for other cities; their “Eden in Iraq” wastewater project; and the Heraclitus, an 82-foot ship which has sailed 270k miles around the earth, studying different cultures, mapping coral reefs, and more, and will soon be setting sail again after being rebuilt for the last decade.
She talks about where we’re at as a society in regards to the environment: how we’re in a period of consequences and it’s easy to feel hopeless, but much of the youth are “solutionists” who don’t want to hear apologies, and instead, want to do something about it. She believes that while schools don’t teach ecology, it’s never too late to learn, and non-ordinary states of consciousness could help people remember our connection to nature, care about our planet, and find the others who feel the same way. Consider pairing your self-exploration with improving the world around you: what can you do to turn your perfect, overly fertilized lawn into a regenerative landscape instead?
Notable Quotes
“We are nature. It’s not like we are part of nature, we are actually nature. This is an Indigenous concept that Western culture has abandoned (or never had to begin with, I’m not sure). Whenever our industrial, technological revolution gave us ways that we could start to live without nature as our main support system, that’s when we started to lose the plot, because there wasn’t closed loop thinking, there wasn’t [understanding of] what would be the long term effects of these things. So we’re starting to see that now. I don’t think humanity went into this intentionally, but at the same time, as we start to recognize the science, we should not be in denial; we should be activated to right the course of the ship.”
“I think that economics continues to drive that complex, but the more people that are awake and connected, the better. And as the war on drugs begins to become rational, and decriminalization of these tools becomes more accessible, we can start to build a society, I think, that is a bit more connected with nature and a bit more connected to each other, because these things don’t just give you an ‘Aha!’ connection with nature, they also give them connection with yourself and they can give you connection with others. …So keep your eyes open. If you’re not happy in your community, look for the others. Find the others; they’re out there.”
“The Western mindset of ‘we are going to conquer nature’: hopefully that worldview is starting to crack. It’s better that we become more like gardeners of the Earth, instead of plundering and pillaging.”
Links
Psychedelics Today: PT312 – Deborah Snyder – Ecology, Synergy, and the Biosphere
Psychedelics Today: T228 – Deborah Snyder from Synergetic Press
Ecotechnics.edu: Research Vessel Heraclitus
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, by R. Buckminster Fuller
Social Forestry: Tending the Land as People of Place, by Tomi Hazel Vaarde
Ecotechnics.edu: Las Casas de la Selva
Ecotechnics.edu: October Gallery
Ecotechnics.edu: Birdwood Downs
Dutch government ordered to cut carbon emissions in landmark ruling
Confessions of a Hope Fiend Paperback, by Timothy Leary
Seaclifforganics.nz: DIY – Johnson Su Bioreactor
Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna, by Dennis McKenna, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today: Wade Davis – Ayahuasca and a New Hope for Colombia
