Wisdom

Ecospirituality encourages us to expand and deepen our relationship with the natural world. It helps us to shed our narrow anthropocentric perspective, in order to recognize that all beings have intrinsic value in the complex web of life in this universe. In that vein, it especially enables us to see all beings as our family, our relations. It reminds us that we have a responsibility to care for and protect those relations.

I am profoundly moved when I see how my Indigenous American friends have made a commitment to continuously follow that path of relationship and responsibility. As I follow their lives, I see that they are dedicating them to engaging in prayers and ceremonies on behalf of the earth. ?They are singing, drumming, and dancing to restore the wellbeing of our Mother. They are continually speaking out, giving voice to their ancestral truths, in the hope that those of us whose indigenous roots were lost many generations ago, can still awaken to message of the ancient stories and songs. Can our feet still feel the rhythms of our Earth Mother, can we reawaken to hear the calls of the beings who are suffering all over the planet?

Indigenous people all over the planet are acting as the messengers. Will we listen to those voices, bringing the wisdom of these cultures into our lives and using them to transform our modern world? We will allow ourselves to restore the symbiotic relationship between humanity and “all our relations”, while turning away from the pernicious messages that drive consumerism by keeping us fearful and disconnected from one another and our planet?

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