What is Natural Wisdom?
“All so that it will be a stronger world. A stronger, loving world to die in.”
— Sanctus by John Cale
An exploration of “Wisdom” and its restorative mission for the modern age — as informed by my journey through Ayni Foundation’s programme in shamanism & self-mastery

WE
Natural Wisdom is to live and practice life from a conscious daily relationship to We.
At some point on a path of Natural Wisdom there comes the realisation that we are all the same thing, a collective universal Life-force, encapsulated into an identity that is both all things in their infinite singular diversity and at the same time united as “We”. All things are We as the fundamental principle of love, relatedness and interdependence of all forms of life, and thus all things can be considered kin of the same universal family. We is the essential teaching of all “spirituality” regardless of the cultural vehicle it is clothed and channelled through. All “religions” are true to the extent they facilitate a communities direct connection to We (Perennialism.)
Knowing We, the natural desire of Natural Wisdom is to drop into your heart as the source of your connection to all that is, breathe deep, affirm and say yes to the entirety of life:
i. To surrender and expand the circle of what you are to participate in something larger and more universal: from friendship, to community, to nature, to planet, to cosmos, to all.
ii. To open into all trauma, all suffering, all pain, all resistance, all sickness, all self-attack, that causes you to contract, make yourself small, and disconnect from what you are, and say yes!
Knowing We, the course of practicing Natural Wisdom is towards fully loving, opening to and embracing everything as the fullest and true mirror of what you are. For if we are all We, learning to fully love yourself is the same as learning to love everything else. If you love yourself but are cruel to others then you do not love. If you love others but are cruel to yourself then you do not love. And in either circumstance such a person becomes out of harmony and stuck in an act of aggression with what they truly are — We — and as a result are no longer whole and create disconnection within themselves.
ME
Disconnection from We can thus be thought of as the root form of unhappiness — what could be defined from a perspective of Natural Wisdom as “sickness”. Sickness occurs wherever something becomes out of harmony with the global We. The greater your disconnection, the greater your sickness. The more disconnected people there are — from themselves, each other, and everything else — and the more alienated the cultural organism is from any connection to We, the greater the sickness of a society.
The pollution of a lake is an act of aggression against its life, the relationships of its inhabitants, the relationship between the polluters and the lake, and consequently spreads sickness. The disenfranchisement of a species, gender, race or class is an act of aggression against them, their relationship to themselves and others, the relationship between the aggressor and the disenfranchised, and consequently spreads sickness.
Jack D. Forbes, and more recently Paul Levy, have named this sickness “Wetiko disease” as derived from indigenous Native American mythology. Forbes defines it similarly as a disease of aggression or cannibalism of other forms of life. Like the above, this disease could be understood as where “I” disconnects from “We.” “I’ness” is in the degree to which something conceives of itself as separate from other things in its identity, self-absorbed by the interests of its own personal universe. It is only when something conceives itself as separate to other things that there becomes a potential for: self-importance, pride, theft, aggression, greed, dominance, destruction, et al. As these are all actions made out of the prioritisation of self-interest — of “I” — over and at the expense of other life, of “We.”
As Forbes writes the history of modern civilisation can be seen as the history of the wide-scale spread and propagation of this epidemic and of the scatterings of resistance movements against it. The whole governance, organisation and culture of modern civilisation has developed to become a mirror of the disease: organised around “I” as principle on all levels and expressive of all the connotations of what only that can express. And the natural result is a society alienated from the global We that generally knows only how to take from a finite planet and the escalating ecocide and mass genocide — “cannibalism” — of all forms of life that intends. The final solution of sickness untreated and allowed to spread is termination.
RESTORATION
Natural Wisdom is the path of restoring what is sick and disconnected back into We — the middle way of being a gardener to Life’s harmony and bringing things into balance. It is both a path of restoring internal relationship to yourself (as within) and external relationship to your broader universal family among people and the natural world (as without).
On the individual level, it is working towards this daily through taking responsibility for your every action to ‘not do’ sickness and to instead do, inspire and co-create We’ness in the world you live in. On the broader societal scale, it is all practitioners of Natural Wisdom working towards the common path of reforming, restoring and re-organising society around the fundamental principle of We.
Thankfully the natural world is already intrinsically harmonious in its relationships and is a living mirror of We. By its nature being in relationship to the natural world is a source of direct connection to the global We and can serve as an exact teacher of what living as We looks like. It is simply that people from modern civilisation, inundated by sickness into a belief that we are meant to rule rather than serve the world, are too disconnected to hear it.
Just as thankfully there have always existed cultures — such as the Q’ero, Wirrarika, and other indigenous peoples — that have already sustained this kind of We’ness within their own communities to serve as a source and inspiration for the way forwards. My understanding is that these cultures were able to sustain a much stronger degree of We’ness and spiritual connection, and have organised everything — culture, language, behaviour — around sustaining that connection and keeping out influences that would diminish it. This connection is facilitated by a close communion and service to nature as the perfect teacher, and by the use of plant medicines which facilitates a communities’ shared access to We, heals sickness in the community, and serves as a teacher of right relationship.
As a result all language, culture, behaviour of such cultures is in some form inspired by and comes from a direct connection to the source of We. Language, songs, prayer, customs, tradition, all serve to strengthen connection to each other and to all of life. The shared cultural organism itself sustains all of its members connection to We and acts as an immune system to Wetiko.
This is what it is for a culture to practice Natural Wisdom. Not as something “invented” by people’s minds in a state of separation but channelled through and by a sustained and “inspired” connection and co-creation with We. And for as long as that connection is sustained undisturbed that is how things will be for as long as the planet turns, in balance and equilibrium with the pace of evolution like a shadow of the eternity beyond history.
It is the main difference to secular practices like the natural sciences, or ideologies like socialism, that can say many things which are very much in alignment with Natural Wisdom and can enable it but are not the same as it. For they don’t by necessity come from a cultural organism that in of itself is organised around facilitating a sustained and direct connection to We and so can just as easily be subsumed into a sick purpose. Marx’s teachings become the red death of Stalinism and those who revolt against predation in one generation become the predators to the next. Such is the parable of the history of Wetiko that it can all too easily transform any resistance into another expression of itself.
My greatest curiosity for 2019 and beyond is through what cultural vehicle Natural Wisdom will propagate in the modern world? Is the cultural vehicle of the Q’ero the best to take root and restore London, Istanbul, Madrid, Reykjavik, Bonn, Leipzig, Leningrad, Shanghai, Pnonm Penh? Or is the restorative work of those practicing Natural Wisdom in this age to be taught by and draw inspiration from living cultures such as these in order to gradually re-organise modern society around a new ‘cultural organism’ adapted to the climate of these lands? Or in an age of Aquarius, perhaps all of them under one Universalist Spirit? My suspicion is that this will become the restorative mission of what it is to practice Natural Wisdom on a societal scale.
RECIPROCITY
Botanist Robin Kimmerer describes what it is to practice Natural Wisdom as a way of life beautifully through the word reciprocity. When something is connected to “We” any sense of “I” becomes a point on the perimeter of the circle of life rather than its centre. Any sense of “I” thus naturally stands in proper relationship and service to “We” as the fullest expression of what it is. In place of the self-importance of “I” comes the humble recognition that you are no more important than and are dependent upon all other forms of life for every moment. Without the fruits of the roots, the light, the water, no breath and no step is possible.
From such a place it is natural to act, as Robin Kimmerer writes, from a place of love, gratitude and reciprocity. To take only what is needed, to always offer thanks for what is given, to ask permission before taking a life and to honour and celebrate that life if that is granted. To maintain what is, i.e. to be reciprocal — what the Q’ero call ‘Ayni’ — as a fundamental mode of being: recognising that all others needs are as important as yours and that as you are interdependent upon all things it is your responsibility to look after them as they look after you.
Humility, reciprocity and gratitude can surely be the only basis for a truly democratic society as the equality, freedom, and authenticity of not just all peoples but “all my relations” in the natural world (which modern definitions of democracy often excludes).
To be truly reciprocal is to feel in your heart that when the community feeds in some real sense you are also being fed. When your brother or sister heals you heal. When your brother or sister is happy your happiness increases. When your homeless sister is hungry and cold, you are also hungry and cold. So to practice Natural Wisdom is to distribute the clothes you do not need as an offering to her, and tell her you love her. To restore the polluted lakes. To forgive those who act with aggression against you and restore where relationship is broken. To bring everything into harmony with We.
Knowing Natural Wisdom one only wants to envelop more and more into it, bring more and more into it, towards the limitless extent of one, bright, bright, light. Plant. Grow. Maintain. Sew. Spread and propagate the Hive Mind of universal life to all corners and dark places of the Earth like the uncontrollable exuberance of Spring. Sing and know that Spring is coming! For the more that is brought back into We the greater your happiness and the greater the celebration of all. This is Natural Wisdom. We are all born to actualise love.
The Forest Sings:
“Hurry up hurry up and walk your path. Hurry up hurry up and step up into Natural Wisdom.”
The Fire Sings:
“Welcome to your new life. It was like watching you blossom.”
HAUX HAUX!
(Let the healing commence!)
