All Our Relations
By: Michelle Berry Lane
Tags: Spirituality, Anthropocene, Climate Change, Interconnectedness, Spiritual Secrets

All Our Relations

At a fundamental level, science and spiritual wisdom agree that all life is interconnected, an elegantly beautiful reality. Global Climate Change and mass extinction are consequences of failing to understand this. . . how might we respond from the heart? Michelle Berry Lane Follow Nov 2, 2020 · 11 min read

“The Wisdom of the Universe” Photo of a painting by artist, Christi Belcourt, 2014

found at The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (photo by author, all rights reserved)

“To dream of the universe is to know that we are small and brief as insects, born in a flash of rain and gone a moment later. We are delicate and our world is fragile.” ~Linda Hogan

In June of 2019, I went with my family to New York City. (Remember when we could travel to other cities and visit museums?) While there, I spent a couple of hours in the American Museum of Natural History and found myself lingering in the Hall of Biodiversity which presents the abundance of life on earth and the factors that threaten it. An exhibit within that hall, called “The Spectrum of Life”, contains a collection of over 1500 preserved organisms and models that are artfully mounted in a dense, floor-to-ceiling display that stretches for 100 feet.

I wandered the length of the exhibit, stopping for long moments to take it in. The microorganisms, plants, fungi and animals in this display are only a tiny fraction of the total number of species on earth, which is estimated to be anywhere from 8.7 million to 2 billion, though scientists have only identified and cataloged 1.5 million, so far. The display is arranged to show the evolution, taxonomy and astounding variety of life.

For a moment, just ponder the fact that in this entire, inconceivably vast universe, our tiny earth is the only planet we know for certain has life upon it. The abundance and diversity of life here may seem even more precious when viewed through that reality.

The Spectrum of Life”, Hall of Biodiversity, American Museum of Natural History

June 2019 (photo by author, all rights reserved)

Life’s extraordinary diversity and specialization is a wonder that amplifies if you consider that every place on earth has an interconnected community of living things and each of these ecosystems is seamlessly woven into a whole dynamic tapestry of connection.

This biosphere of all life — and life’s coherence with the atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere as all organisms go through their unique patterns of living, reproducing, dying and decomposing — has been described as one, whole self-regulating system. When that whole system is in balance, it maintains the very conditions that are necessary for life as it is to continue on earth.

This idea, called the “Gaia Principle” after the ancient Greek earth goddess, was introduced in the mid-1970s by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis. Over the past forty years the theory has gained credibility as more and more research on the atmosphere, oceans, climate patterns, ecosystems and the effects of ecological imbalance have provided increasingly more support for it.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” ~ John Muir

Contemplate these words by John Muir for a moment. Imagine our beautiful blue planet as a living, breathing organism made up of numerous specialized parts much like your own body. In your body, if one part begins to fail, the rest of it is challenged. The body can adapt to some losses and learn to function and even thrive, but too much damage, whether all at once or over many years, or the loss of a significant organ can lead to death or a serious compromise in the quality and duration of life.

“The Blue Marble”

a famous photograph of the Earth taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of Apollo 17 (Public Domain)

There is not one organism, including us, that can exist without multiple connections with other species. The myriad of ways we have all co-evolved on a massive scale over the 3.8 billion years that life has been doing its thing here, points to endless creativity and a quality that could be described as a kind of “intelligence”.

We may see this in the adaptive ability that is possible in molecules of DNA as life mingles, reproduces and interacts with the environment. Though we often seem bent on separating ourselves from the rest of life, humans are creatures and we are deeply connected with all life forms.

Mystics and poets have understood this wholeness for thousands of years and scientists have steadily uncovered more and more evidence that points to this reality. The more we discover about the origin and growth of the complexity of life on earth, the more clearly we see and understand the depth and breadth of common connection that we all share.

The genetic code within our DNA, the molecular “blueprint” that makes us what we are, has more in common with just about any other form of life than it has unique differences. We are all related to some degree at the molecular level.

Consider the 40,000 different species of vertebrates that make up all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish: each of these at the early stages of embryonic development, leading up to and including the formation of the vertebral column, are nearly indistinguishable from each of the others. At some point in your own development, you looked very much like a trout or a corn snake or a goat or a sparrow or a toad.

“Aho Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ” Lakota invocation

With humble caution as a white woman in this place of colonization and genocide, and with a deep bow of respect and recognition to the culture of the Lakota people of the North American Plains, I offer their sacred phrase that is both a greeting and a benediction, “Aho Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ”, which translates to “we are all related” or “all my relations”.

The wisdom in these words expresses a fundamental truth of both science, at the most elemental level, and spirituality: that we are all one, made from essentially the same stuff, arising in unique ways as integral parts of one immense, dynamic body. This is an elegantly beautiful reality and perhaps if more people understood this and felt that sense of kinship, we would love and care for the whole of existence more attentively.

“The Birth” Column on the face of The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City

June, 2019 (photo by author, all rights reserved)

Life on our planet is in need of some love and care as we are living in a time of great challenge to the integrity of earth’s ecology as we know it. On May 6, 2019, after 3 years of meta-analysis of research that has been conducted all over the world, the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released its “Report on Biodiversity”, which affirms that we are in the midst of the 6th mass extinction that our planet has experienced in its 4.5 billion years of existence.

The new era that humans have ushered into geologic time is called the Anthropocene, “The Age of Man”. Unlike the other mass extinctions in earth history that were mostly caused by climate and sea level change related to unavoidable cataclysmic natural disasters, this one is due to the unbridled activities of humanity and therefore based on avoidable choices that have continued because of greed and ignorance, despite decades of warnings from the scientific community.

Over the past 150 years, as we have taken what we have wanted from the natural world, extracted resources with abandon, and indelibly changed nearly every ecosystem that exists on our planet, we have brought death and destruction to many organisms.

Show up for elections and support leaders who understand science and history and poetry and love, and who care about all of the life in this world.

Global climate change is rapidly accelerating because of our incessant burning of fossil fuels and simultaneous deforestation of the planet, expansion of corporate agricultural mono-cropping and population sprawl. The UN report warns that “around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.”

The scope of this loss is hard to process. Do an internet search on the phrase “climate grief” and you will find numerous articles describing and addressing how people are feeling a lack of empowerment and hopelessness. When a major world power like the United States singularly refuses to officially acknowledge the reality that human actions are the major contributor to this impending crisis, people feel angry and grief-stricken.

Grief is a natural response to such loss. How can we process this and remain engaged? Some suggest we could take a “deep time” perspective. Deep time is a term for time measured in millions and billions of years rather than hundreds and thousands of years, which is more of a “human time” measure. We have only walked this planet for a mere 200,000 years.

Geological time graphic from USGS https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/time.html

Earth’s climate, atmosphere and geology have changed significantly in the distant past. There have been other mass extinctions and even though we humans have made massive changes to the earth in a very short time, we are merely a blip in earth time.

It is possible that in our hubris we are bringing about our own demise. This is a deeply sad and sobering thought. Even if humanity survives its own actions, there is no question that there will be significant life-threatening changes and challenges to our existence. But does this mean that all life will cease to exist?

A deep time look at the future suggests that life will not likely cease to exist on the earth. Life will adapt and evolve and move on without us. Some may take comfort in this, but it is a rather bleak existential picture for humanity.

Becoming conscious of mortality can lead to an openness toward joy even as you might feel grief and sorrow over loss.

Forms of matter are impermanent. No thing lasts forever in its present state and the enlivened matter that we call “life” — whether it arises from seed, spore or egg — seems to be doubly vulnerable as the living spark within it will also depart in addition to the inevitable degradation and reformation of its body. What happens to that life energy, the animas of being, is ultimately mystery and the subject of much contemplation among humans.

To be alive and conscious of one’s earthly terminus is sobering, to say the least, but I can also be beautiful. It can lead to reflection on how days and years might unfold within the fullness of the whole. What gives that time meaning? What might be left behind when your own life spark leaves the matter it has animated?

“Memento Mori” Column on the face of The Cathedral of St. John the Divine,

New York City, June 2019 (photo by author, all rights reserved)

During medieval times, many Christian monks engaged in a spiritual practice known “Memento Mori” which is Latin for “remember that you will die.” This may seem dark and depressing, but Douglas Christie, the author of The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology (Oxford U. Press, 2013), suggests that memento mori “is not a morbid preoccupation with death, but a recognition of its inescapable presence, and of the way awareness of its presence can shape experience and sometimes contributes to a greater attention to life.”

Becoming conscious of mortality may lead to an openness toward joy even as you might feel grief and sorrow over loss. An appreciation for what you have in the present moment, for the beauty of existence, can be cultivated. This awareness can also bring about a sense of humility as one comes to terms with the limitations and fragility of this life and desires to make the most of it.

Perhaps this kind of contemplation could spark the desire to do whatever we can to amend our selfish and destructive ways.

The UN Report on Biodiversity, tells us it isn’t too late to make changes

Image Source: UN IPBES Report on Biodiversity, May 2019 (Cover image)

There is some hope. The UN “Report on Biodiversity” also tells us that it isn’t too late to make changes that could stop and even reverse some of the effects of climate breakdown. Those changes need to be made through cooperation on a global scale and they need to be made right now, not in 30 years.

This will involve deep commitments to change commerce, resource usage, energy and behavior. It is also an invitation to our dominant western culture to open minds and hearts and expand the notion of what is valued and to come to terms with the reality that our survival and quality of life is dependent on the hospitality on this planet and our relationship with all of life.

Our present world seems so divisive and myopic that a sudden global unity and shared vision toward a common goal seems like an unrealistic dream. This is a harsh reality to process.

There is Hope. We are creative and resilient creatures.

A good place for us to start is to forge connections. If this current situation is a product of separation from the reality of our interdependent existence, then finding ways to connect, to find beauty, and to love one another and yourself is an antidote.

We don’t all travel the same path in the same way. Find a path that works for you. Make art. Take a friend for a walk in the woods. Build community. Read. Listen. Think. Observe. Open your senses.

Cultivate awareness of how things connect. Follow the loose ends of threads to find what they are hitched to. Have real conversations with others. Show up for elections and support leaders who understand science and history and poetry and love, and who care about all of the life in this world.

Become a leader to foster the kind of world you would like to see, even at a very small level. Pay attention to how policies and choices ripple outward and what the intended and the unintended consequences of them are.

Seek a spiritual practice that resonates with your soul and helps you to feel a sense of wholeness so that you can continue to act with love in the world. Cultivate gratitude. Find something that brings you to life and enables you to live into your own fullness.

“Those Who Have Ears” Column on the face of The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, June 2019 (photo by author, all rights reserved)

When I left that museum hall full of the abundance and gorgeousness of living things, I prayed that in a few short decades this collection would not take on a whole different focus as an expanded record of extinction in the wake of more and more threads of connection unraveling from our collective tapestry of life.

As I am here, in the middle of my life, contemplating all of my earthly relatives at the brink of the Anthropocene, I send out my fervent hope that we may learn in greater number how to live together in love and with all of our relations on this good earth. We are creatures and, eventually, we are dust. It is up to each of us to make the best of our lives here. What kind of legacy do we want to create?

The epigraph quote is from: Hogan, Linda. (1995) A Spiritual History of the Living World. W.W. Norton & Co, New York. p 126 in the essay, “The Voyagers”. (This is a beautiful collection of essays!)

Thank you for reading!

If you would like to read more: https://berrywoman08.medium.com/pilgrimage-of-the-monarchs-130c18040221