Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it.Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
—Chief Seattle
As I sit in the sun, delighting in the flutter of wings and reveling at the sight of birds as they feast; cautious, fearful, yet determined to feed, no matter how close I come. As long as I remain still they succumb to bravery and peck away at the bird feeder. There are hundreds waiting their turn at the feeder. Fluttering and chirping surrounds me. If I move too quickly, they flicker away. What is this invisible line of connection? Drawing them near, then frighten them away with my movement. I’m a giant in their world. Their language and pecking order a mystery. Yet, they too are an intricate thread within the web of life.
“Is there something wrong? I’m somewhat concerned. One of the village men came and said there were stirrings of trouble in the forest. What kind of trouble? The village man said, “creatures are being killed and dying in the forest. Insects, animals and birds are struggling for life.”
– Clive Cussler, Blue Gold, a novel from the NUMA files.
Fiction? We all recognize the ‘trouble’: It’s all around us; fear is nipping at everyones’ heals.The novel brings a glimpse of one mans movement that caused the death of a pod of whales and more. He places an enormous blister on humanities face and bringing imbalance to life and the planet.
How do we begin changing lifestyles and habits? Until each of us acknowledges what Chief Seattle so eloquently said; ‘all things connect’, the imbalance we’ve created is killing us. Is it our lack of education? Is it greed that provokes humanity to take such stupid steps? Our rampant and irresponsible development and consumption reveals our societal immaturity on an enormous scale!
Think ‘non-consumption’. Opps, that won’t work…the basis of our economy would go bust! Oh, our economy is already a bust. For me, a good start would be to shift from ‘want’ to ‘need’ as a basic foundation for curing much of what is wrong in our world. We need to tilt the scales back to when we were a ‘need based’ society. We are a society Starving for purpose, but we need to give up ‘gluttony’! Standing in line at the grocery, I heard a woman say, “I want an SUV! I’m having a mid-life crisis!”. We chase after ‘things’ to fulfill ourselves; never giving a thought about how these kinds of actions affect the world around us. Even when we are aware, we seldom go beyond the name of a thing; at the depth beneath a name and how it connects to everything.
Just as you, I yearn to have a voice, to be heard. To be understood and respected. I too have a dream:
Stewardship is practiced by everyone. Each of us is a good and loving person. Each of us can take the time to ‘go beyond a name’ and become familiar with the ‘essence of life’ and how we are all connected. We understand Biology; living organisms and vital processes. We see a beautiful living thing and know how it is connected to ourselves and its environment. We no longer lose all that we hold dear. There is a natural balance and every community thrives.
Happy non-gluttonous trails!
