While it might seem a distant problem to many people in the United States, all life is interconnected. We have long said that native prophesies are misunderstood. They not only are spiritual visions, but often also come from a life-science observation of the natural world. When people understand that they are not separate from the natural world, they will seek to honor and understand it. Native people traditionally have understood that the Earth and universe have a mind and a spirit, a cosmic intelligence that responds to us, to our intentions.
Earth is a living mother, an organism.
I know none of us would think of abusing our birth mother. She is a spiritual woman . When people no longer live and learn from the land, their disconnection to it leads to the abuse of Mother Earth. And much of it has been through the greed of market economies and the perversions of science and technology that have claimed or contaminated the land, particularly native lands, through deforestation, pesticides, industrial waste, radioactive poisoning and mining. There are myriad things to be done, including requiring companies to factor the environmental impact of their projects into their businesses, and demanding that all public projects invest in clean and renewable forms of energy.