ABSTRACT
Transformations occur in a relational process within space and time, a process that both effects change and is itself affected by changes within and between life forms and their environments. Any particular instance of such a transformation belongs within an overarching process of evolutionary change and our adaptation to it. There are moments when we can record such instances and discern their transformative aftermath in our environments and within ourselves. W. B. Yeats recorded this ripple effect in his poem ‘Easter 1916’:
The poem’s title refers to more than visible transformations within the Irish landscape at that time. Its focus is on a transformative moment in Ireland’s history: the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and consequent execution of sixteen Irish men by the British. Some of the sixteen – and subsequent readers – intentionally related their deaths to the religiously transformative event of Easter: Jesus’ ‘Rising from the dead’. For Yeats, their execution changed his perception of them and of his relationships with them. Hitherto he might have nodded, or passed a remark, to some of them in a Dublin street, each playing a part in the ‘casual comedy’ of life. Now, one he had so far dismissed as a ‘drunken, vainglorious lout’ has been changed:
His historic, poetic record of transformation in an individual’s views of, and relationships with, others also marks a change in his outlook on the world. It draws attention to those moments when changes in our environment and culture require, indeed force us to modify long-held views of ourselves and others in order to deal with them. When the facts change, so too do our minds, our interactions with others and our self-perception. This essay presupposes that the facts associated with climate change and our increasing understanding of what they entail is such an historic transformative moment, not least for our religiously based opinions and perceptions.
