The Many Intelligences
Psychologist, Howard Gardner sees intelligence not as a single faculty of the mind but as multiple faculties residing simultaneously in a person. Gardner classified intelligence in these seven categories in his 1983 book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences: logical-mathematical intelligence that we are most familiar with as the traditional intelligence; spatial intelligence that architects possess; linguistic intelligence of writers; bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence of sportsmen and dancers; interpersonal intelligence that is related to emotional intelligence; and intrapersonal intelligence that contributes to psychological maturity. Shortly after, psychologist Robert Sternberg proposed that intelligence has three functions: analytical, creative, and practical. These many intelligences are gifts we are born with, but we have them in varying degrees. Each of these talents can be sharpened and is sharpened throughout our lives. Only some intelligences are systematically developed in schools. Fortunately, schooling is a small part of our education. For example, practical intelligence comes more from life lessons than from teachers and textbooks. Emotional intelligence comes from interacting with people, from observing others and the many person-to-person relationships. We learn by emulating role models we have chosen consciously or unconsciously.
In 1995, Gardner added one more intelligence to the list of intelligences — naturalistic intelligence. This is the intelligence of the natural world that helped our ancestors to fish, hunt, grow food, read the stars, find water, and tame animals. When added with a spiritual connection with Nature, it is ecological intelligence that allows us to thrive in the natural world in harmony with all of Nature — the numinous and phenomenal natural world.
Ever since Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book on Emotional Intelligence, success has been redefined. It follows the person who has a higher Emotional Quotient (EQ) than an Intelligence Quotient (IQ), which is the logical-mathematical intelligence in Gardner’s terminology. Someone with higher emotional intelligence can deal better with people, rise higher in the professional pyramid, have happier relationships with family and friends, and be a positive factor in people’s lives. Emotional training is now in the spotlight at certain liberal schools. Mindfulness meditation is offered to employees in corporate firms. Managers learn conflict- resolution techniques. Prison reformers are bringing emotional well-being programmes to prisons to create a society with less crime and greater harmony.
Ecological Intelligence
Yet, ecological intelligence has become the most urgent need of the hour, compared to all other intelligences. The Earth is deteriorating at an accelerated rate. All the alarm bells have gone off now. A radical shift in consciousness is needed right away that embraces the Earth with deep compassion. Ecological intelligence is a higher form of intelligence than emotional intelligence because it encompasses emotional and spiritual intelligences. It means deep empathy with the natural world. The natural world includes all humans, animals, fish, insects, birds, reptiles, plants, the air, the seas, the mountains, the soil, the lava, the corals and everything in the ecosphere. Schools need to teach it from an early age. Adult education programmes need to be started to let adults catch up. Many Earth activists around the world are offering ecological literacy workshops, lectures, and classes.
Cultivating ecological intelligence encompasses a host of practices that involve all levels of being — the mind, heart, body, and soul. It reinforces the traditional view of intelligence as knowledge. It makes the person emotionally more intelligent by strengthening the heart centre. It increases spiritual intelligence by helping people connect to the transpersonal realms. It teaches about natural systems and their cycles. It brings intimacy with plant and animal lives, acquainting us with them as ensouled beings, making us love them as sisters and brothers of the same mother Gaia. It makes us experience the fundamental unity that exists in all creation.
The compassionate heart has a truer light than any other part of our being, which is why so many languages have idioms such as “follow your heart.” To follow our hearts, we have to love generously. And to live from the heart means to live in harmony with the people in our community, with all of humanity, and with the cosmos. Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone’s book, Active Hope, says:
“When we move in a direction that touches our heart, we add to the momentum of deeper purpose that makes us feel more alive. A great story and a satisfying life share a vital element: a compelling plot that moves toward meaningful goals, where what is at stake is far larger than our personal gains and losses 1.”
This leads us to the transpersonal domain of spirits and archetypes. Just as we can best know a person when we see their soul, so too, when we see the souls of plants and animals, we can know them best. We get enchanted by tree dryads and water nymphs as we did when we believed in fairy tales. We commune with the archetypes of the greater world. We establish a spiritual bridge between the heart and the spirit, within us and outside of us. At some point, we realise we are not isolated persons confined within the contours of the body and mind we possess. We are expanded beings, and inside us, the plants and creatures live. The breath of the greater life flows through our nostrils.
The Great Turning
Environmental philosopher Joanna Macy has coined the term “Great Turning” to refer to the point at which society turns away from the economic growth mindset that destroys the environment and rebuilds a harmonious relationship with Nature. As long as we have not experienced the unity of all creatures, we live as separative beings and need to deal with conflicts of interest. We have to re-member the parts outside of our self; we have to heal the division. This means our personal ecological intelligence programme will need to involve our family, community and environment. In this article, I propose a programme in which the Great Turning can be implemented at different levels as a unified system for collective ecological growth. It is inspired by Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, which she started in 1973 and has offered to thousands of people all around the world. My programme will explore various activities and activisms as a way of unfolding the fourth aspect of the Work That Reconnects — the Going Forth. Joanna Macy’s book, Active Hope, gives me hope that we can create a healed future. She talks of the pain that is racking our Mother Earth; how we feel it in our hearts, minds, bodies and deep down in our souls. She asks us to honour our own and each other’s pains. But then she calls upon us to act. She empowers us to believe in a future that can be reconstructed. The active imagination technique she uses to travel in time to a healed future, then return to the present with that vision and remodel the present, is a powerful tool of self-affirmation.
The programme I propose is an ecological intelligence programme played out in the communitarian field. It will flow in the three directions that are the three outflows of the Great Turning. There will be a shift in consciousness, allowing us to look at the world with new eyes. This will drive the actions to restore the planet. The end-result will be to create sustainable Gaian structures. Each of these will influence the other two, and together they will spiral upward. Active Hope describes the Great Turning’s three dimensions as mutually synergistic:
“In the past, changing the self and changing the world were often regarded as separate endeavours and viewed in either-or terms. But in the story of the Great Turning, they are recognized as mutually reinforcing and essential to one another 2.”
The ecological intelligence programme will have two branches that will reinforce each other. They will be: student study-action groups and community study-action groups. The details of the programme are laid out in the following section.
Village Action
At the start of the school session, children will form “villages”. A “village” is a concept, not an actual village. The felt-sense of a village, its intimacy and collaboration potential, is used to bring people together. People will cohabit a cause, a mission, a vision, as though they lived in a village together. A village will need workers, thinkers, leaders, negotiators, and elders. It will include students, teachers, parents, and people of the larger community. Each village will choose a task for the next three months with a concrete end result. After three months, all the villagers will come together, share their results, and evaluate each other’s work. The evaluation and mutual appreciation ceremony will bring in a sacred aspect to the healing of the planet. It will be an opportunity to learn from each other’s successes and be warned of pitfalls.
After the ceremony, the villagers will re-group into new villages. New tasks can be taken up by the new villages or old tasks can be reassigned to them. Some people may want to continue with their existing task. Again, there will be the Earth Day ceremony in three months. Each village must design a study component, develop solutions, implement them, and record results. The last part of the recording results is the collection of success stories. It is an important part of the project. This is what keeps hope active. This is what heals the planet and enables future generations to inherit a happy home. Let me elaborate on some sample tasks villages could choose to work on.
Carbon Life Cycle
Let us say this village has chosen to work on the Carbon Life Cycle, and has called itself Snow White. Some members of the village will study the carbon life cycle that existed before the Industrial Revolution. They will share it with the rest of the village, say, within a week. They will use an exhibit or a presentation to share their knowledge. Another sub-group will model the carbon life cycle that reflects the current situation. Both sub-groups could work together. Here, the carbon sources will include man-made sources from vehicles, factories, livestock, agricultural burning, and so on. This model will, at a glance, show the imbalance between carbon emissions and absorption. When it is presented to the village, the team will also present solutions that have worked to reduce the carbon footprint.
The village will then brainstorm solutions applicable to their particular situation. The steps can follow the method explained in Active Hope:
“As the goal of brainstorming is to spark creative thinking, it is guided by three rules: first, we don’t censor, explain, or justify our ideas; second, we don’t evaluate or criticize the ideas of others; and third, we save discussion for later. We’re creating options, not editing them. 3.”
At first, the villagers set goals that may seem far-fetched. Then they pick each goal and split it into smaller goals. They follow the process until actionable items are found. Then they can draw up a plan of action, divide the work among team members, set up a timeline, and establish reporting goals. Next, the plan is implemented.
For example, let us say an actionable item is to reduce fossil fuel emissions. A step in it is to reduce private transportation. This means public transportation is needed that runs on various routes and is frequent. An alternative could be a carpool system. People could plan to go shopping on the same day and share a ride. People could shift to clean-energy transportation, such as walking, cycling, and electric vehicles. If a factory pollutes the air or waterways, the village could engage with the factory’s management to change its practices. Going together to talk to factory owners gives weight to the action. If children go alone, it may not be safe for them, or they may not be taken seriously. They should be accompanied by adults, such as teachers, parents and community members. If the local political leader needs to be involved, petitioning and letter-writing have to be part of the action plan. If the factory is lacking some technology, the village could try to find subject-matter experts and connect the factory with them. If funds are required, the village could submit grant requests and plan to collect donations. The hope is that factory owners will get involved and advance the action plan.
After three months, the presentation of the Carbon Life Cycle project can be done in various ways, such as through talks, exhibits and expressive arts. Here is an idea for a dance: some people can play the role of carbon molecules, some people can be oxygen, trees, animals, factories, and cars. The dance will progress chronologically, from balance to imbalance and back to balance. At first, pleasant music will accompany the balanced carbon cycle. Then, gradually, the imbalance will begin. The music can change to a faster pace. When the carbon cycle becomes imbalanced, some trees, animals, and oxygen-dancers will turn into black carbon molecules. The dance steps and costume colour can indicate which role each person is playing. Towards the middle of the dance, there will be a large number of black carbon molecules, dancing to a fast and discordant music. Then the Great Turning intervention will occur. The actions undertaken by the villagers can be shown by dancers acting them out or by holding placards that state what they did. A narrator’s voice could recount them, too. The transformations will then begin: some cars will become cycles, some new trees will have been planted, some carbon molecules will morph into trees, animals or oxygen. At the end, a state of harmony will return, accompanied by pleasant music.
Every project encompasses all aspects of being — the mind, heart, body, and soul. During the presentation of facts and actions, the mind and body were used. While sharing the results, the heart and soul will come to the forefront. Individual stories of success will be shared by each village. For example, how did someone reduce his or her carbon footprint, and how did another feel after having made a lifestyle change? To gather such stories, each village can set up a mailbox, which can be a physical box, a postal address or an email address. Stories can be a one-liner, such as “I have started using my cycle instead of my motorbike once a week.” Or, “I have started walking with my friend. In addition to saving the air, we have established a deep bond that has solved a lot of our emotional problems.” Another story could be about someone who has started using paper more conscientiously. She writes in smaller handwriting and uses every bit of the page. She uses discarded envelopes to write down items she needs to remember. These individual action items are valuable, practical guides others can adopt.
To end the presentation, the village members can share their feelings about doing the project and whether they felt connected to nature in their souls. While learning about man’s role in destroying the planet, what did they feel? Was any part of their project especially touching or soul-stirring? One way to connect with nature at a deep level would be to be in nature, spend time with animals, go sea-bathing, and do gardening. The villagers can come together to read nature stories and poems or see nature films related to their project. Nature paintings can be made and passed around amongst the members. These paintings can be in each person’s house for a while. Computer screen savers can have these paintings. Mugs and T-shirts can be made with the paintings or the exhibits. The dance drama can be performed in other venues for a larger audience, in other cities, or filmed and uploaded to the internet for all to see. Each project will create a legacy with a greater impact than anyone can imagine.
At the end of the presentations, each village’s evaluation will be conducted by all members of all the villages who watched the presentations. It is encouraged that all participants of the larger community come together in the Earth Day celebration. The hope is that in the next three-month cycle, more people will join villages. Ideas disseminated by one village can be taken forward by another village over the next three months.
Plastic Life Cycle
Another village could choose to deal with the plastic life cycle. Here, they would address consumerism, ocean pollution, waste treatment, the R’s, and so on. Their dance could be to show the lifecycle of fish over the years. An action plan to reduce buying new items could be to let the community group know when someone is looking for something or wants to give away something. A person who has outgrown his shoes can pass them on to someone with smaller feet. Similarly, clothes, books, and home accessories can be passed around. Some articles that are not used frequently can be shared amongst a pool of people, such as diving goggles, helmets, and hats.
A packaging reduction plan is another idea this group could work on. It will mean a lot of activism and interaction with people who may not be willing to change. But every time a contact is made, a letter is written, it should count as a success story. Packaging in supermarkets can be reduced drastically. The juices we drink come in individual cartons, some of which are rather small. People can buy the drink in bottles they carry to the store. If they need a smaller quantity in a travel pack, they can fill the small bottles at home. Shops can store the drink in large vats with taps. People will have to pay for the drink alone and not for the packaging. This reduced cost could be an incentive. When stores started charging for plastic carry bags, people began bringing their own. Before disbanding all packaged drinks, stores could have both options available for a while. Because some customers take time to change, and some customers do not plan in advance.
The same packaging-free concept can be applied to bread, oil, eggs, cookies, meat, and so on. When people come to a grocery store, they know what they want to buy. It is a small step to bring the containers along. Forming sustainable habits is doubly satisfying — to the heart and to the purse. Stores will have to maintain two pricing models — with and without packaging. If the store can also save money by opting out of packaging, it should be an incentive for them to adopt this practice. Storekeepers have hearts too, so they could choose to go green, even if it means some initial loss of profit.
If a store does not change its ways, villages could promote alternatives to divert customers from the store, such as home-baked cookies without packaging. Other speciality foods can be bought and sold within a village and coordinated with other villages in the larger community. Pickles specialists would get a platform to try out their new recipes. People who do not have time to cook could use home-cooked food services. The small network is efficient and environmentally friendly. It creates a win-win situation for all. It binds people together and creates a social safety net. Other small network ideas can be found in E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful.
Greening the Earth
Another village could concentrate their energies on greening the earth. Every child could choose a plant as a friend. They can name their plants, visit them, talk to them, and listen to them. Perhaps the plant will tell them fairy tales or give them practical advice on diet. When they allow one plant to be the key to their heart, the doors of the entire plant world will open. The spirits of the trees will enchant them. The pain of the trees will flow through them, and they will advocate for the trees’ rights. This village could show the various reasons why plants and trees are disappearing. Some of them will be political reasons impacting many countries. Some will be due to rising heat, tied to the rise in air pollutants. The heat cycle will link to the melting of polar ice caps, rising ocean temperatures, and the decline of plankton. The water crisis and its political consequences can be tied together. There will be many knowledge-based projects in this village. Subgroups can be formed to tackle a single issue. Their solutions may be tied to other problems, and a holistic picture would be needed in which all subgroups collaborate. Here, the problems seem so overwhelming that it is important to break them down into smaller steps. A knowledge-sharing session, a dance, or a drama could walk the participants through the process, followed by the group. This will give a glimpse of working models others could follow. If an action is not complete, a new village could take it up after three months. New perspectives energise the cause, and when storekeepers meet new people with similar concerns, they realise it is a bigger movement than a passing fancy.
Some people do not realise the enormity of the environmental problem. It is most often because they lack a personal experience with nature. Let us take the example of how a smoker can be asked to quit smoking. Apart from detrimental health effects, cigarettes are a big pollutant. The butts have microplastics that often end up in the seas. They enter the gills of fish and kill them. The oceans are so polluted with plastic that sunlight cannot penetrate to the underwater oxygen-producing plants. Marine life is dying without oxygen. Simply telling this fact to tobacco addicts may not make them stop smoking. Giving them statistics or showing them pictures may have a greater effect. But inviting them to the village as members and to contribute in some way will open their hearts and souls to the need to heal the earth. They can be asked to find a sit-spot in nature where they feel safe talking aloud if need be. Listening to myths about plants can help, too. They can re-enchant their lives by creating their own earth-based myths. They can become heroes in their own myths, saving the beautiful damsel plant from dust falling from a nearby construction site. This is a success story — how a single plant was saved by building a canopy over it using four twigs and a piece of cloth. The smoking habit will be cured as they heal their surroundings and bring the healing home to themselves.
Such was the hope with which village action began. Even trying pays off. Because who knows, maybe months or years later, this will have an effect. As Active Hope tells us, many activists who fought for a cause all their lives did not see the fruits of their labour. But they kept going because they cared for future generations, and Hope is a gift of the Divine to man.
Community Action
The second branch of the ecological intelligence programme is community action. Along with village action, the earth needs healing in all possible ways, a neighbourhood at a time. Some neighbourhoods could be multi-cultural and multi-lingual. When people in small communities do not interact, it can be because of many factors: they are busy, shy about breaking the ice, they do not speak the same language, or they belong to different religions and are therefore unsure of each other’s social customs. Someone has to knock on their doors, introduce themselves, and invite them to the first community meeting. This person could team up with friends for the initial cold call. There is strength in numbers. The neighbourhood has people of all ages. The old may need emergency help from others at any time. Cultivating good relations amongst neighbours will help at such times. When people know each other personally, everybody feels safer living in the community.
After the first meeting, the community organises into a study-action group. In subsequent meetings, members can discuss problems affecting their shared living space and develop ideas to make it more sustainable. A good book to study together could be Rob Hopkins’ 2019 book, From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want. It has many ideas about community projects. Hopkins co-founded the Transition Town Movement in 2007, which organises people into self-sustaining green communities. This book provides strategies for ‘what if’ questions, such as, “what if there were no street dogs?” or “what if there were no open drains?”
Here are some of my ideas for community action. The community could invest together, say, for a water catchment system, solar electricity, a terrace garden, and lines for drying clothes. A local bakery or food-service system can be implemented. This will eliminate travel and packaging costs; save the air; and let someone earn something for their cooking services. Raw materials can be provided by the person who is ordering the baked food. Similarly, if someone is a talented tailor or needleworker, the community can get them pieces to work on.
Community members can network digitally and coordinate many activities. They can arrange carpools, time their shopping together to share a ride, and find buyers and sellers for second-hand items. If someone needs help with gardening, painting, feeding a pet, babysitting, or carrying heavy items, they could ask the community first before seeking outside help. The community is a good place to start feeling part of the human family because we share a common living space. Gradually, we can enlarge our consciousness and feel that we are sharing the air and everything on the planet with billions of people.
Some ideas for bigger projects are detailed below.
Quiet Zone
The community can decide to make their road a quiet zone for a few hours. They can set up posters at the entrances for visitors to see when they drive by. Also, if one member stops a noisy or honking vehicle, the other members can come around to support. There is always power in numbers, and safety, too, if the request angers the riders. The nuisance of street dogs adds to the noise pollution, as does loud music and TV from neighbours, and places of worship that use loudspeakers to blare their sermons and chants. In my opinion, noise pollution receives the least attention in many countries. The detrimental health effects of noise pollution are not socialised. Some of them are deafness, nervous disorders, and sleep deprivation, which can be fatal. As people start to go deaf, they need to turn up the volume to listen to their TVs, which only amplifies the problem. Noise pollution is hard to record and is subjective. The argument used against one complainer could be that they are too sensitive and need to be resilient. But if they have the whole community backing them up and voicing the same concerns, then the complaint has to be addressed. If an organisation is causing noise pollution, all the people in the neighbourhood could go together and explain how they are affected by the sound. An amicable solution should be tried before any external force is brought in.
Parking
Many roads are too narrow for two cars to pass by. Cities were laid out before cars were invented. Houses were not built with garages in mind. Even scooters do not have garage space inside many buildings. When multiple vehicles are parked on the road, no other cars can pass. If people need to travel out of town, they have to carry their luggage to the car parked far away. If the neighbours could be warned in advance that a car would pick someone up at a given time, they could park their vehicles on another street during that time. If someone has a garage free for a day, they could coordinate with people who need garages.
Gardening
Not all houses have plants, but all houses have vegetable waste. If there is a way for people to give their vegetable waste to a household that does composting, then that household can produce more compost, and the vegetable peels are saved from ending up as plain old trash. When people need compost, they can get some from the composting house. If there is a common plot that all can access or a park close to the community, the community study-action group could adopt it as their community garden. They can fence it, and all members will have a key. Each one works on the land as much as he can commit to. He brings his own tools, seeds, and plant food. Or the members could coordinate watering and weeding duties, and share the cost of seeds and fertiliser. When the fruits or vegetables grow, the entire community gets them.
Our Personal Mission
Each of us has to answer the big question of what our life means, and why we are born now on such a wounded planet. Is it a punishment or a privilege? Or is it our responsibility to turn any punishment into a privilege? Let us take courage from the last word of the book, Active Hope:
“What helps us face the mess we’re in is the knowledge that each of us has something significant to offer, a contribution to make. In rising to the challenge of playing our best role, we discover something precious that both enriches our lives and adds to the healing of our world. An oyster, in response to trauma, grows a pearl. We grow, and offer, our gift of Active Hope. 4.”
When we are looking to actively work towards reconnecting with Nature, the Mother guides us with a three-step process:
“[…] it is not through ignorance or uncon-sciousness or indifference that you fail to see evil — you can see and even feel it, but you refuse to collaborate in spreading it by giving it the force of your attention or the support of your consciousness. And for that, you must yourself be above the perception and sensation — able to see evil or ugliness without suffering, without feeling shocked or troubled. You see them from a height where such things do not exist, yet you have the conscious perception of them — they don’t affect you, you are free. This is the first step.
“The second step is to be POSITIVELY conscious of the supreme Goodness and Beauty behind all things and supporting all things, permitting them to exist. Once you have seen Him, you can perceive Him behind the mask and the distortion — even ugliness, even cruelty, even evil are a disguise for that Something which is essentially good or beautiful, luminous, pure.
“With this comes TRUE collaboration. For when you have this vision, this awareness,
when you live in this consciousness, you also get the power to PULL That into the manifestation on earth and put it into contact with what, for the time being, distorts and disguises; thus the deformation and disguise are gradually transformed by the influence of the Truth behind 5.”
The passage above was part of the Mother’s explanation of one of Sri Aurobindo’s aphorisms that helps us navigate our current environmental situation and surf over the turbulent waters of our times:
“To feel and love the God of beauty and good in the ugly and the evil, and still yearn in utter love to heal it of its ugliness and its evil, this is real virtue and morality 6.”
