I continue to look for the most basic tenet that explains what it is we lost--what changed that allowed us as a human group to do what we've done to our home over the last 10 to 15 thousand years--and I keep coming back to the same one: it was when our vision changed.
When we simply were, without question, part of the community of life our vision was just that: we were a part of everything. When some of our ancestors chose the path of agriculture and pastoralism, our vision changed so that we started to exercise control over the growing of plants and animals, disregarding the determinism in each of the life forms we attempted to control, in favor of our own 'survival' (read preferences).
At that point of 'success' our vision was no longer as a part of everything. We had taken dominion over some things, a slippery slope to be sure. Once we started trying to control some of life, we had no choice but to either abandon the notion altogether or attempt to control all of life (we had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). Obviously we chose the latter.
We could no longer be a part of the rest of life. We were now a part from the rest of life. The die was cast. We have not retreated ever since.
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