This is the first blog post in a series based on the book Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth by Wahinkpe Topa and Darcia Narvaez.* If you wish to read an introduction to this project, please click here.
Anthropocentrism is the belief that Humans have more value than the other Creatures around us.
Much of our world works in this mindset, even if we don't directly or consciously participate in it. We need lumber, so Humans clear cut Forests, without regard to the Ecosystems and Animals that are supported by those Forests, let alone the Trees themselves.
We need paper, so other Humans manufacture it in factories that pollute the Sky and the Water without regard to the Animals and Plants affected by the toxic waste.
Part of this is because we are under the illusion that the pain and misfortune of others doesn't affect us. It's based on the assumption of separation. But we all live in community and are affected both directly and indirectly by the health of the Water, Air, and Ecosystems around us.
This is heavy stuff!! Notice if any grief, guilt, apathy, or overwhelm arises in you about the state of our society. If anything has come up for you, give any emotions a little space and compassion if you are able before reading on. Remember that you did not create this problem and are not responsible for solving it on your own.
Sadhguru, yoga teacher and author of Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy, offers a practice to help ourselves feel kinship toward trees.**
Sit next to a tree or a plant. Remember what your learned long ago in biology class... that the air you breath out contains carbon dioxide that the tree needs to create oxygen that you need. On every inhale consider, "I breathe the tree in." On every exhale consider, "the Tree breathes me in." Sadhguru recommends to "repeat this several times a day. After a few days, you will start connecting with everything around you differently. You won't limit yourself to a tree."
This practice, when done by people at the Isha Yoga Center in southern India, lead to the planting of 30 million Trees! Imagine how it may transform you!
*Topa (Four Arrows), Wahinkpe, and Darcia Narvaez. Restoring the Kinship Worldview Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth. North Atlantic Books, 2022.
**Sadhguru, Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy, Haryana, India Penguin Ananda, 2016. pp 94.
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