{"id":298,"date":"2021-10-12T16:21:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T23:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/?p=298"},"modified":"2021-10-21T07:28:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T14:28:36","slug":"the-connectedness-of-all-beings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/the-connectedness-of-all-beings\/","title":{"rendered":"The connectedness of all beings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"My
My sit spot<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On my third visit to my sit spot, the river is finally calming down, settling into a peaceful stillness that balances her ever-flowing energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shoreline is re-emerging, I smell algae drying out on the driftwood, enjoy the pattern of vibrant fall leaves nestled and protected in a natural cavity, bathed in sunlight, hear the waves gently lapping and feel the whispering breeze on my cheeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first two visits, I felt a pressure to \u2018see\u2019 the creatures of this space \u2013 I know the community of creatures up around my house well, but I wanted to meet this community, find out who they are and find out more about them. This time, realizing that I wasn\u2019t truly relaxing into this space or this process, I let go of that goal and expectation to \u2018see something\u2019 and instead surrendered to what the land has to share with me, what is calling me in this place. I closed my eyes and listened to the wind, the lapping waves, felt the breeze on my cheeks, heard the rapids in the distance and submitted to the land\u2019s wisdom.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel at one with the sparkling warm sun. The wind, river, sun, breeze and the land \u2013 the plants, rocks and driftwood \u2013 feel like elders with a quiet wisdom. The animals and insects feel like friends, sharing this space with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all, it\u2019s the wind that brings me back to my center \u2013 the sound and the feel of it unravels me and reconnects me with myself and the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the spiritual tradition I was raised with, I was never taught who I was connecting to or with (as an international multi-faith organization, it was open to each practitioner\u2019s interpretation). But for me, it always felt like a connection to all things, to everything on the planet and in the cosmos. A combined energy or collective wisdom, greater than, interconnected with all, eternal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in a society and culture that, to quote Bartlett, Marshall and Marshall, has spent \u201cdecades of diligent efforts \u2026 scrub(bing) spirituality and religion out of ways of knowing\u201d (2012, p. 332), coming into this program and course with its strong grounding in indigenous ways of knowing that are inextricably intertwined with spirituality, and being asked to share from my own background and place of knowing, has been an interesting challenge. I\u2019ve trained myself over decades to avoid this subject and to talk about my experiences without referencing spirituality. But with this sit spot and a call to engage with place and nature, as well as to speak with my authentic voice, it\u2019s impossible not to share about my spiritual connection and experiences. Iseke shares the Elders\u2019 perspective that there is \u201cresistance to spiritual practices and distancing from these practices\u201d and that our \u201cout-of-balance lives are due to our lack of relationships to environment, community, and spiritual practices\u201d (p. 572). While I understand their words were likely intended for indigenous peoples as they also called attention to the devastating influences of religion on indigenous communities, these words ring very true to my own life as well. I agree with the Elders that our lack of community, spirituality and relationship with the environment is a very deep cause of sorrow, loneliness, disconnect and sickness on all levels \u2013 emotional, physical, mental \u2013 in my settler society. Spiritual connection, which for me is a connection to nature and the world around me, is an endless source of inspiration, wisdom and fulfillment for me. It fills me up and makes me feel thankful at every moment. As Kimmerer says, \u201cnaming and appreciation of the gifts that surround us creates a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of \u2018enoughness\u2019\u201d (2014, p. 20) and Young describes the benefits this connection-building experience with the world around us as bringing us more: \u201clove, aliveness, presence, vision(), empathy, focus, vitality and happiness\u201d (2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kimmerer crucially asks of us \u201cWhat is our gift?\u201d (2014, p. 23) How can we enjoy the wonderful benefits of the Earth while also giving her back gifts of our own, living in the abundance of reciprocity? So what is my gift? To this space that I am beyond lucky to call home, that I am in reverence of, one of the gifts that I am compelled to pass on is the wisdom of Kimmerer and Young, the words of the Elders who shared in Iseke\u2019s research and the many other gifts of learning that I\u2019ve received in this program so far. Connor et al describe messaging focused on environmental degradation and negative health effects for humans as being the more conventionally accepted messages at the moment, while other messages, including positively-framed ones, are less normalized and therefore less \u2018shareable\u2019 on social media (2016). As concluded by Connor et al., there is a need for climate leaders and communicators to normalize these less conventional messages so that they can be adopted by the mainstream (p. 473). The questions that remain for me are how to make a change in this space \u2013 at a time when spirituality is often the focus of horrific news, skepticism and rejection, I am challenged by the idea of how to share my own authentic experiences as well as elevating Kimmerer\u2019s calls to gratitude, to paying attention and to the spirituality in all things. These messages are so important to share and to tell, to invite others into these practices that are so healing and transformative. To quote Kimmerer once again: \u201cWhile we race around asking how we might change technology or tax structures, the change that might save us goes unspoken: what we need to change is ourselves\u201d (2014, p. 22).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Tiny Ecology post 1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/u><\/strong> <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bartlett, C., Marshall, M., & Marshall, A. (2012). Two-Eyed Seeing and other lessons learned within a co-learning journey of bringing together indigenous and mainstream knowledges and ways of knowing. Journal of Environmental Studies and Science 2<\/em>, 331-340. DOI:10.1007\/s13412-012-0086-8 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iseke, J. (2013). Indigenous storytelling as research. International review of qualitative research 6<\/em>(4), 559-577. DOI:10.1525\/irqr.2013.6.4.559<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kimmerer, R. W. (2014). \u201cReturning the Gift.\u201d Center for Humans and Nature<\/em>.  https:\/\/www.humansandnature.org\/returning-the-gift-article-177.php<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young, J. (2020). Repairing emotional isolation by reawakening deep nature connection. TEDxTalks<\/em>. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QMWSvUp0CYk&t=476s<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On my third visit to my sit spot, the river is finally calming down, settling into a peaceful stillness that balances her ever-flowing energy. The shoreline is re-emerging, I smell algae drying out on the driftwood, enjoy the pattern of vibrant fall leaves nestled and protected in a natural cavity, bathed in sunlight, hear the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/mponette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}