From an intriguing book I just picked up: Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered, by Machaelle Small Wright, 1983 (1997):

Overlighting Deva: “By survival, we mean the act of maintaining the fusion and balance between spirit and matter on the physical planet Earth…. The very physical existence of [humans] on Earth has depended upon all kingdoms of nature…. [The dynamic] must shift from being one of distant benevolence, as it has been in the best of past times, to being one of conscious co-creativity…. Humans do not, on the whole, understand the dynamic relationships between spirit and matter. Nature does. It is a dynamic that is inherent within the life force of nature….

But in order for the dynamic to be fully useful to all the other levels of reality within this universe, [this dynamic] must be unlocked from its custodianship within nature and linked with the human tool of intelligence. Only then can it be applied in principle within all realms of life.

If humans continue in their reluctance to join [nature] … then surely out of human ignorance and arrogance, we will all continue to experience difficult challenges to our survival and, eventually, we will be faced with the full separation of spirit from matter on this planet” (xvi–xvii).

Wright says, “ The nature intelligence I speak of contains within it the truth—a truth that has been present and available to us since the beginning of time. It is not available exclusively to the gifted. It is a vast universal truth that is present around us everywhere. Our doorway to this truth is through nature itself” (xiv).