ReMembering Ourselves: The Path To Reforging Our Kinship
What if your deepest longing was longing for you too? What if it was a shared longing to remember something inherent and inextricable? What if the ache in your heart- that you may not even have the ability to fully feel due to the busyness and complexity of our distraction prone modernity- was remedied with something simple, something always accessible?
In the quiet, authentic places within us all, there is a longing to belong, to be safe, to be valued. At a core level, there is an urgent need to return to a profound- although forgotten- collective knowing. WE ARE ALL WOVEN into the very fabric of life. The intelligent designs of natural interconnectivity, mutual reciprocity, and dynamic balance are intrinsic to all life- we are not separate from this animate tapestry.
However we have lost our way. We have disconnected ourselves from the natural world and therefore our sense of belonging. We are struggling with what author, educator, and biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer calls “species loneliness ”- “a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship.”
We deeply long to be Home.
This illusion of humanity as separate- and therefore superior- from the rest of the living world has created an internal loss of belonging and fed external beliefs of scarcity and “otherness”, propagating dangerous mindsets that the resources of the Earth are “ours to extract” for the sake of our human-centric, consumer hungry needs. This mentality has brought our species- and many others- to the brink of collapse. This belief of “otherness” is also the underpinning for all forms of oppression and has created a sense of division not only from the Earth, but also from each other.
This unprecedented moment of compounding crises reaching their apex has revealed the divisiveness in our viewpoints, the fragility of our global capitalistic systems, the inefficacy of political nation states, and the inherently flawed structures of Westernized societies to be response-able to collective crises, and to leverage them as transformative moments to learn, improve, and grow stronger together as a species.
Our greatest weakness is that we have lost our sense of community- or Common-Unity. We suffer from a lack of shared common purpose, and frankly, a shared common decency. We have all participated in systems that have eroded the connectedness that ensures our resilience. Resilience calls for our adaptive capacity to flex, change, iterate, innovate and respond thoughtfully together, on the ground, with culturally and ecologically relevant solutions that truly uplift People and Place- leveraging the sacred relationships of reciprocity and connection with our immediate neighbors and habitats that have been lost to a dependency on a global system of fragmentation.
The enormity of untangling the mess we have spun for ourselves can seem unthinkably complex and yet we must find our way to the heart of the matter and to the essence of our humanity. Connection is our most natural state when we pause, breathe, listen- offering our true presence to the world around us. Reconnection can begin with putting our bare feet into a patch of grass in a median strip, putting hands in the earth to plant a tree, listening to the song of birds, appreciating the privilege of drinking clean water, growing a roof-top garden, sharing food, walking along a river, helping a friend or stranger, breathing deeply of salty ocean air, actually looking into the sentient eyes of another creature.
Reconnection begins with our willingness to unlearn our patterned behaviors, to become curious, to participate in “being the change”, to consider the relevance of perspectives beyond our own, to be grateful for miraculous and simple everyday occurrences. Our redemption lies in being honest with ourselves about our grief, our complacency, our ignorance, our arrogance, and to devote ourselves willingly to taking the necessary steps to reweave the threads of interdependence we have unintentionally severed.
At our core we need a radical change in our fundamental mindsets. A necessary and swift consciousness shift is required to create the conditions for a change in our collective behavior. We have to rapidly transform from a paradigm of commodification, colonization, compartmentalization, inequity, competitiveness, dominance, divisiveness and “othering” to one that recognizes our radical interconnectedness, our wholeness, and our mutual responsibility.
We need to access a consciousness that recognizes that each being- human and non-human- is inherently worthy and has a birthright to thrive. One that celebrates diversity and savors the unique expression of each form of Life. One that ensures the liberation of each being to truly express their full potential.
We need to cultivate a paradigm that requires that “governance” must transform to “stewardship”, ensuring the vitality of all people, all species, all ecosystems. That diverse and contextual perspectives, voices and wisdoms are included in the retrofitting of policies, practices, structures and societal norms.
We need a consciousness that can design and implement innovative, iterative, agile, and equitable systems in order to play the “infinite game” of regeneration vs. the finite game of sustaining our current systems which are rapidly coming to a spectacular end.
We must mature ourselves into societies that incentivize cooperation, generosity, mutual wellbeing. Ones that put agency & empowerment back in the hands of People of Place to steward bio-regions and watersheds through networks of collaborative councils, leveraging tradable local currencies and local supply chains to ensure resilience of local economies and reward the care-taking of local resources.
We need to value what is truly valuable and put our efforts and resources into legacies of longevity and reciprocity- understanding that we are only passing through, we own nothing, and we owe everything to the future generations……of all species.
Restoring our relationships with the Living Earth- a community of non-human beings who all have purpose, intelligence, and know their place in the web of life- will guide us forward toward restoring our own wholeness. As we are each an essential cell within this collective organism of Earth, influencing its wellbeing, we must play our part to be a vital and functioning cell, contributing to the wholeness of the system we are nested within.
By nurturing our personal and collective relationships to the world around us, our healing journey begins and the way forward reveals itself. Life is longing for us to re-member ourselves as a benevolent and symbiotic species, nestled into an abundant, intricate, and intimate weave of relationships. To receive humbly and with gratitude what is always freely given to us, to take only what we need, and to reciprocate with our respectful care, our awareness, and our responsible stewardship to restoring what we have used or taken. Life is longing for us to remember that we inherently belong….. that we are already Home.
