We are not ourselves. We are intricately connected. We are one.
What the experience on Bunun Leisure Farm taught me about my relationship with the environment.
By Sarah Beck
Taiwan taught me so much in a short three-week study abroad program. I learned and grew more than I ever anticipated, and what I didn’t expect to come away with was passion.
Environmental awareness has always been something I considered important, but I was never truly passionate about it mainly because I had no direct experience that would show me its value. And, as a nursing major, I came on this trip with more of a direct interest in holistic health and wellbeing than of environmental conservation. But this experience in Taiwan changed my whole perspective on how important the environment really is.
Bunun Leisure Farm in Taitung, a city on the southeastern coast of Taiwan, was the place where I had the most impactful experience concerning the environment. A small but beautiful recreational farm and resort up in the Central Mountain Range of Taiwan, this secluded haven is where many tourists from all over the world visit to experience the fascinating culture of the Bunun tribe, one of the many aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. This self-sustaining farm grows its own vegetables and fruits organically, and even makes its own desserts! The resident aboriginal people give visitors a fun, engaging cultural experience through sharing performances, music, DIY crafts, and good food. During our stay, they even took us up a mountain to a beautiful place next to a river where they shared with us their wisdom.
They showed us how to make a “stove” and “grill” out of branches and stones anchored in the ground, on which we cooked our own lunch! We spent time collecting the branches, lighting a fire, washing leaves to serve on, scrubbing vegetables in the river, and all the other work it takes to make a meal from scratch. After enjoying the fruit of our work, the Bunun people shared with us some of their ritual dances and songs. We played games with handmade, wooden tops and long, ropelike leaves to spin with. We had intimate conversations about their struggles, their history, and their values — family being the most important one.
“This is our true nature: to be in constant connection with the nature around us.”
This up-close experience with the tribe gave me a perspective that I never would have expected. When we were involved in those activities on the mountain, we were interacting with the environment for everything: we washed the leaves and vegetables in the river, we used branches from the forest to create a fire. These things might feel obvious, but seeing these things firsthand made me truly understand how intimate our relationship is with our environment. Everything we do has an impact on the environment, every daily choice we make. This is our true nature: to be in constant connection with the nature around us.
But the age of industrialization and technology, I think, has made us more and more unaware of this relationship. We no longer have to harvest our food, search for tinder, or raise huge herds of livestock to survive. Our water comes from the pipes. The relationship to our environment has been forgotten, and we have now traded this positive, mutual relationship for efficiency. We keep an astonishing number of penned animals in one place for their milk or their meat while at the same time feeding them cheap, processed foods in order to meet the demands of the ever-increasing population of people. Disease spreads in these establishments, not only among animals, but among plants. We raise copious amounts of a singular crop in a way that agriculture was not designed while simultaneously coating it in toxic pesticides, stripping the earth and poisoning the crop. We dump all of our toxic, non-biodegradable waste into our “worthless” water systems such as the ocean, destroying any chance for life to grow. Modern demands have convinced humans to make harmful decisions that elevate convenience and efficiency over any efforts to treat our environment respectfully and/or ethically.
What we don’t realize is that this eventually comes back on ourselves. We are not only ourselves. We are in a close relationship with all of the environment.
The toxins on the crops, the waste in the water, the “lifeless” and abused meats and animal products. It all comes back to us. It is destroying our health. Cancer is more prevalent than it has ever been for reasons “unknown.” Allergies, mysterious food intolerances, and autoimmune disorders with seemingly no cause are affecting hundreds of people’s lives. I believe this is due in part to our poisoned relationship with nature. We need to restore this relationship, and only by understanding how important this relationship is can we be truly motivated to do something about it. Our way of living is not sustainable. We need to make some huge changes in our society so that we can heal the earth of the damage we’ve made, and in return, we will be saving ourselves.
I am thankful for that little farm, for those kind people, for reminding us of who we really are. We are all a part of this beautiful, awe-inspiring, loving universe, every little thing. We are not just ourselves. We are intricately connected. We are one.
Interestingly, I found an article featured in YES! Magazine that resonates with my thoughts on the environmental challenges we are facing today. For a deeper analytical discussion on this topic, please read this important article!
