Earth stewardship has been missing from the Western episteme since the story of Genesis when Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden presaged a troubled relationship with the natural world.

An art opening at the Jung Center on January 11 will feature works of the Native Roots Artists Guild, followed in mid-month by an evening of traditional stories told by a Seneca storyteller, Ronnie Reitter, of the Wolf Clan. In February a presentation, “The Ganonyog and the Cornerstone of Jung’s Psychology,” will show the relatedness of Jung’s psychology to the belief system of native people. Native American traditions and Carl Jung’s psychology, based on a deep spiritual connection to the natural world share a vision that offers hope for a sustainable future. Oren Lyons, the Onondaga faithkeeper, said, “We are the environment.” Carl Jung saw it much the same way.

The C. G. Jung Center along with the local representatives of the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, Starlight Gallery, and the Native Roots Artists Guild will be applying for a New York Council for the Humanities grant for next fall. Each of these four groups will hold events related to the goal of raising public awareness of the ever more pressing need for earth stewardship as the planet shows increasingly greater effects of human interference.

This program initiates what will be an annual event in collaboration with the tribes of the Haudenosaunee to educate the Western psyche about its relationship to the Earth, and its responsibilities and obligations to the well-being of future generations. There is a great need for such ambitious initiatives.