Reconnecting to Earth & Each Other

“The modern mindset must integrate an understanding of Indigenous peoples’ traditional relationship with the land in order to achieve long-term sustainability, not only for Native communities but for everyone everywhere […] Implied here is the essence of the conflict between worldviews: non-anthropocentric (Indigenous) versus anthropocentric (Western industrial). The former is grounded on the interconnectedness of humans with the land and natural forces in general, as well as with all other living creatures. In contrast, the latter tends to separate living creatures and nonorganic matter into hierarchies with humans at the center or pinnacle of all.” ~ Gregory Cajete

In Module 1, we explore the side-effects of the Western modernity worldview that prioritizes scientific rationality and its mechanistic focus on quantitative analysis. The most impactful side-effect is the “Cartesian split.” This dualistic view of who we are as humans creates a fragmented perception of reality, in which we experience self and world, mind and body, humanity and nature as fundamentally separated and mutually exclusive. The blind spot of this dominant worldview is that it ignores the deep participatory connections between nature and humanity, our deep interdependence with the wider web of life. Leonardo da Vinci had once said, “If you do not rest upon the good foundations of nature, you will labour with little honour and less profit. Those who take for their standard anyone but nature—the mistress of all masters—weary themselves in vain.” Unfortunately, our Western-minded forebearers did not take da Vinci’s advice to be humble apprentices of nature. Instead, for over five hundred years, Western modernist science has endeavoured to predict, manipulate, and control natural processes for short-term benefits, at the expense of long-term detriment to future generations and life on Earth.

Transitioning to a more sustainable human existence on Earth, we must learn to listen to nature, learn from nature, and reconnect ourselves to the wider web of life that our future co-existence depends upon. This transition requires an encompassing rethinking on all levels—technical, social, economic, and spiritual—to redesign everything we do. The GEDS curriculum seeks to offer an introduction to the complex, interrelated issues on this journey of redesigning our collective futures with creativity and deep insights inspired by nature. Sean M. Kelly called this journey a “coming home”—one that is based on the synthesis of traditional Indigenous wisdom and the best of modern science and worldviews. In the book Coming home: The birth and transformation of the planetary era (2010), Kelly calls for a “planetary wisdom” that is able to recognize both positive contributions and negative disasters that the old dominating Western modernist science paradigm has brought to us as a civilization.

Indigenous Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer shows us that healing ecological crises requires both the analytical strengths of Western science and the relational, ceremonial, and ethical orientations of Indigenous knowledges, brought together in the everyday practice of gratitude, responsibility, and care for place. In Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), Kimmerer tells the story of her student designing a rigorous scientific study of sweetgrass growth, guided by Indigenous harvesting protocols, to illustrate that traditional practices can be tested and validated scientifically, and also exceed what Western science alone would think to ask.

Watch this 8-minute video “The Arachne Project” where Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks about the beneficial influences of human participation in ecological conservation for the longevity and biodiversity for the land to thrive:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSYQh-BCJCs

Although concepts such as “ecology” and “design” are part of Western terminology, it is evident that Indigenous peoples have been practicing their traditions of ecologically conscious designs. Indigenous Tewa scholar Gregory Cajete explains how the relationship between humanity and nature was not one of separation but of participation, that human culture is a human expression of the local environment. As Gregory Cajete write in the 1999 book Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence:

“The environment was not separate or divorced from Native peoples’ lives, but rather was the context or set of relationships that tied everything together. They understood ecology not as something apart from themselves or outside their intellectual reality, but rather as the very center and generator of self-understanding. As a center, that environmental understanding became the guiding mechanism for the ways in which they expressed themselves and their sense of sacredness.” (p.6)

There are many examples all over the world showing us how humans have met the needs of the locally adapted, place-based communities based on the gifts–and within the limits–of their local ecology. Many Indigenous knowledge traditions, guided by their worldviews that understand human existence as inseparable from nature, have demonstrated that it is possible. We can see traditional sustainable land management techniques in Asia, Africa, America, Europe and Oceania. The land caretakers hold the knowledges specific to the conditions of the land from generation to generation; their knowledges reflect changes in the environmental variables of a particular place, and local adaptations to those changes. This wealth of knowledges reminds us that reconnecting to nature and cultivating a deep sense of place have a direct impact on our individual and collective well-being. In the 1996 book Ecological Design, Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan write,

“In a sense, ecological design is really just the unfolding of place through the hearts and minds of its inhabitants. It embraces the realization that needs can be met in the potentialities of the landscape and the skills already present in the community. Sustainability is embedded in processes that occur over very long periods of time and are not always visually obvious […] Without local knowledge, places erode.” (p.65)

Acquiring local knowledge depends upon long-term, place-based relationships with the land and ecosystem where we call home. Only by knowing nature and our place within it intimately can we learn to be active, responsible participants in the wider web of life. As Brazilian Indigenous scholar Ailton Krenak reminds us, by adopting a utilitarian and dissociated view of nature, “we have become strangers on Earth.” He advocates for the need of “re-enchanting” the world—to recover our sense of belonging and kinship with all forms of life. In Ideas to Postpone the End of the World (2019), Krenak calls us to remember that humans are neither “above” nor “outside” the Earth, but part of it, sharing with rivers, mountains, and forests the same living and sacred existence. Just as Cajete describes Indigenous thought as a “participation” in the web of life, Krenak also insists that the future is only possible if we restore this relationship of reciprocity and respect, recognizing that “the Earth is not a resource [but] a living organism of which we are part.”

In the first part of this module, we will explore the work of scholars and their new ways of doing Western modern science in the last decades, which could help us reconnect with nature by re-membering the interdependence of self and world. Then we will explore practices that can help us listen more deeply to the Earth, to ourselves and to each other in the second part of the module. By developing our capacities to learn from Gaia and to tell new stories of who we are as participants and co-creators in the unfolding of the universe, we will then look at methods to co-design with nature in the final part of this module. Our hope is that at the end of this module, you will feel empowered to innovate solutions inspired by nature, co-creating a more responsible human participation in the world.