Of and By

[I am resorting this week to revisiting and updating a 10/16/21SEP entitled “Prepositions.”]

Friends,

Amidst the pressing news this week on the presidential election, the State of the Union address, starvation in Gaza, and anticipation of the Oscars, we all need to make sure we take a leisurely amble into nature. Besides the glory of the blossoming pink plum trees that are scattered around our landscape just now, even more intriguing are all the other plants that are poking themselves out the earth complemented by all the bushes and trees that are just budding up all around them. 

To frame all this spring wonderment I have been befriending two humble, mostly overlooked little prepositions, and I think they have a lot to teach about our relationship with nature. May I introduce you to how important the two prepositions of and by can be when they are allowed to strut their teeny-tiny selves?

Much of western thought’s mindset about nature begins with the concept that we are to be in possession of the land in contrast to a mindset that emphasizes possession by the land, often expressed from an indigenous perspective and practice. (You may need to read that sentence again!) 

For most of us with European heritage, history has included an often biblically inspired, politically driven, incessant quest for domination and "possession of" - possession of confiscated land, possession even of each other, from the extreme of slavery to the often brutal exploitation of our labor. For most of us aspiring to be middle class at least we have gone about our lives with the myth that accumulating real and credentialed possessions will provide us with status, comfort and security. And we most likely are not aware of how pervasive and destructive this quest to be  "in  possession of” has been in our personal lives as well as the our political economic ambitions.

We Americans have especially internalized the myth of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. And underlying the ability to be self-reliant is the further assumption that we need to be independently in possession of our own cache of savings, our own tools, cars and houses. Cooperation and sharing are too often a default position. The result is we are inclined to idolize those who have accumulated and hoarded the most, while those who don’t have the means to maintain the mythologized model are suddenly understandably angry at having the myth betrayed as in the current political, class and economic divisions among us.

It is not surprising that as an antidote to feeling so bound up by our western tradition of “owning” the world, I and others are often drawn intuitively to indigenous spirituality, a spirituality that is grounded in acknowledging a profound connection with the land, the earth itself, the animals, the sacredness of hills and rivers, the reverence for the air and water. I often think of Chief Seattle’s wonderment about how a human being could even consider “owning” the air, the water, the land. It is and never will be really “ours." We are all possessed by a great web of interconnection and interdependence that we must, in the most profound spiritual sense, reverence, respect, and preserve as the dependent children we are. It is fair, without romanticizing or co-opting indigenous spirituality, to be inspired and directed by the reverence  and humility we observe in First Nation and other indigenous spiritual practices.

I have often felt that what will ultimately rescue us from a climate catastrophe is that we will just fall passionately in love with earth, with life here, with Gaia as our lover. When we are deeply in love, sacrifices for the beloved come willingly as we feel united as one. In the mystical and indigenous traditions the unity of life gets ritualized and reverenced, and a sense of unity creates and sustains in us a covenant of mutual protection and support. When we reverence and love, rather than wanting to control and seek "possession of," we experience the liberating joy of being so fortunate to be conscious and alive to the mystery and wonder of life and love all around us, to being "held by" the awe and wonder of life itself..

You and I may often feel distant from that level of reverence for life. So much around us is so disconcerting and threatening. But a life of fullness and joy is available to us in spite of all we fear. We are able to believe from the bottom of our hearts, and from the ancient traditions, that we are possessed and held by a universe that offers us love, acceptance and assurances even in the most dark and challenging times. May we find the discipline to release ourselves from the demands of being "in possession of" and instead honor being held and "supported by" so much mutual care and kindness we often can't see and know.

Peace,
Tom