12 Steps for Planetary Recovery

  In the 1930's, a handful of people  confronted  the life - threatening  condition  of  alcoholism  and  launched  a program  of  recovery called  the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  This program is so effective; it has inspired many other twelve-step programs that have touched the lives of millions of people around the world.

   Now we are facing an even more life-threatening condition: the destruction of the environmental life-support systems of our planet.  Like alcoholism, this destructiveness is based on addictive attitudes, lifestyles and behaviors; and as millions of recovering addicts have shown, these self - defeating patterns can be changed.

   Twelve Steps for Planetary Recovery is designed to address our personal, local and global condition. Practicing these steps will free us individually and collectively to discover solutions to our environmental   crises and the interrelated emotional, economic, spiritual and social problems that confront us.   One day and one step at a time, they can become a guide for our individual and collective lives.

1. We, humanity, admitted that we were destroying the planet and that our need to dominate, consume and control had become unmanageable.

2.  Came to believe that we, the earth and the universe are one, and that our tendency to dominate could be balanced by our desire for unity.

3.  Made a decision to call on a power greater than ourselves to bring us into balance.

4.  Made a fearless and thorough moral inventory of our beliefs, attitudes and practices, and evaluated their impact on us and the rest of the planet.

5.  Admitted to  ourselves, a higher power  as  we understood it, and each other  the exact nature  of our wrongs; released shame, so  that we could move forward with compassion  for ourselves and others.

6.   Became willing to make social, attitudinal and economic changes in order to be in balance with our planet and in harmony with ourselves.

7.   Humbly asked our Higher Power to help us change our technologies, social relations, and personal and collective lives so that we could promote life enhancement and sustainability for ourselves and other species.

8.   Made a list of all the ecological and social damage we had caused and became willing to reverse it.

9.  Cleaned up our rivers, oceans, landfills and air, as we cleaned up our thoughts, emotions, actions and social relations.

10.   Continued to monitor how our attitudes and economic and social behavior impact the web of life, and when we were wrong, promptly called ourselves to awareness.

11.  Sought through observation, experimentation, cooperation and meditation to expand our conscious contact with ourselves, the earth and the universe, so that we could continually support our collective well-being, evolution and sacred rhythms.