God blessed them [Adam and Eve], and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
Genesis 1:28
Those two words ‘have dominion’ have been responsible for so much misunderstanding. At the heart of Druidry is the desire to walk in the footsteps of our ancestors, to walk with love and respect for the earth. Druids long to feel the life of the deep, rich soil under foot; to breathe crystal clear air deep into clean lungs; to be alive with the freedom and wild passion of animal nature. This wild and gentle relationship does not sit well with the word ‘dominion’, or with the treatment of the earth as a mere ‘thing’ to be used and disposed of. The picture of human exploitation, of forests cut down, of polluted seas, of concrete wildernesses and violent streets, seem to Druids to be a direct result of such ‘dominion’, the fault of Christian theology, and we Christians appear to have done little to challenge the ecological disasters that are suffocating and strangling our world, or to correct the thinking that lies behind the abuse.
From: Christians and Druids
This topic really lies at the heart of my pagan leanings. I despise the use of the word dominion when referring to how mankind is to exist in relationship to nature. It’s been used to justify far too much superiority and general disregard for the planet that we all share.
Before we go any further, I’m not a panthiest. God is in everything, but everything is not god. I do believe in a single personal God, who created everything and who put His Spirit into everything. Genesis begins:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
This Spirit is still present and much discussed in the New Testament. A druid might refer to this as the Awen, the inspirational breath.
But, back to the issue at hand. Because of this belief I can hardly justify taking “dominion” over creation. Right or wrong I believe man has a special place in this world… but we are not God. Modern translations are less likely to use the word dominion, but the concept is still prevalent in our society.
I prefer the use of the word stewardship. The word, when considered, evokes many layers of meaning. Firstly, a steward, by definition is not the rightful owner. It has been given to the steward to care for something in the place of someone else. It doesn’t get much more perfect to explaining my understanding of us here. To my mind it calls up images of responsibility, of maintaining a balance until the Master returns to claim in. Of causing it to grow as much as one is able, but at the very least, to never let it falter.
We exist as part of nature, not lords of it. I use wood, stone, plants, etc in my every day life. But I am respectful in my use. I will not take the last bit of life from something, I will endeavor to replace what is taken with someone of equal use… not value. Value is nothing to nature, nature is not idle, it is a delicate system of balance, so when disturbed in anyway I attempt to restore balance.
The concept, everything in moderation is hardly a new one, it predates the Bible. Anything to an excess causes the balance to shift. It’s why although I’m not obsessed with the idea of karma but it’s an idea always present in the back of my mind. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people for absolutely no reason… and real wankers sometimes win. It happens, and there’s no explanation for it. In those cases I choose to believe that in this form I am unable to understand the mind of God and I accept them. To do otherwise is to drive myself into depression.
And that, is what is on my mind today.
A Seeker's Journey 
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