I felt, as terrible heat waves and floods arise this summer, like re-posting this so very hopeful article about "Real Green Men" (and women).
The Green Man is an almost universal archetype of the renewal of life in the spring, and it is, of course, beloved by contemporary neo-Pagans as well, symbolizing manhood as re-newer and re-generator instead of as "warrior", which so often becomes authoritarian destroyer in patriarchal "alpha male" culture (and this includes "dominating" nature, instead of working with nature.) New (or very old) archetypes and models for men, as for women, and new myths for all , are so important now. The Goddess is rising, and so is The Green Man, by whatever name. Truly, as women rise and change, so must, and do, men. Men who are generators of life, and regenerators.
Below is a wonderful documentary that I ran across almost by accident, about a man in India who single handedly, and with extraordinary dedication, planted a thriving forest, beginning his work in 1979. His story began my search for other "Forest Men". To watch and listen is to be not only inspired, but to feel hope. Because I believe that this is what the future civilization will have to look like, these technologies of love, sustainability, Earth based science and spirituality, along with new and old ways for human beings to cooperate and get along with each other. We really have no choice as a common humanity - we must change, or die. I believe, instead of vast space stations and digital robots and endless wars, the future will have to look more like a forest, or a garden, if there is to be a future civilization at all.
Watching John Liu's documentary about the incredible restoration of an ancient landscape in China was extraordinarily hopeful. Or the stsory of Jadave Payeng and his family, bring a devastated island back to life. And more..........the message Jadav Payeng , and John Liu, and Brad Lancaster (and the Others I have, through the grace of UTube, been able to share here) carries is that renewal can happen in very simple ways, ways dedicated to helping the intelligence of Nature to do what nature does. Assisting, like planting trees, or allowing environmental diversity to be protected enough to return. These regenerated forests and deserts truly offer us hope.
I am reminded of a book by Alan Weisman called THE WORLD WITHOUT US, in which the author researched areas around the world that had become abandoned or off limits to people, like the neutral or demilitarized zone between North and South Korea - and the extraordinary renewal that took place in such environments. There was also a 2008 television documentary called "Life After People" that explored the same theme.
I will let these people speak instead. They are true Green Men.
