We are Spirit in Different Forms
Ancient cultures and traditions always knew that spirit is not separated from nature–that spirit is woven into the very fabric of our existence. It is the formless that gives life to form, and that within each form there is a formless infinite source. In that recognition of the animacy of our existence, every river, mountain, insect and animal is to be honoured and respected, with the right to live. From that worldview, humans, like other beings, are just part of the circle of life, equals. And the ripple effects of that recognition bring greater harmony, unity, and a sense of belonging to life.
Religion — The Tearing away of our Essence, The Cause of the Effect of Separation
For too long now, religion has separated spirit from nature, as if it were something to seek outside of ourselves and to be pursued. This forgetting of our essential nature and our own aliveness has stripped us of the recognition of it. We came from kinship to consumption. Where we consume our relationships and seek outside of us what we already are. Where we treat the sacred as a means to an end.
This predominant inanimate worldview has justified the exploitation and extraction of the Earth, the women and the children, and now we see the repercussions around the world. Wars over resources, divisions between our nations, borders, genocides, and the displacement of people, all justified by the belief in a certain superiority and anthropocentrism. The love of power has overcome the power of love. The fragmentation of spirituality from its ecology has justified the destruction of what sustains us — our environment, and our connection to it.
Remembering our Biocultural Heritage
Biocultural heritage speaks of a different story. A story of remembrance where our very sacred bond with nature is honoured and celebrated. Where recognition for the land and its people who have tended to it is reconciled. Where unity lies in our diversity and the preservation of what has maintained this spiritual connection with nature. Where kinship is recognized and woven into the fabric of our systems. The recognition of the great tapestry of time, where generations before, and the ones to come, are recognized as the continuity of our presence and actions.
This cry of Mother Earth, we can all hear it through our mental illnesses and physical diseases, and through the destruction of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity and the burning of our planet. When humans reunite with their cultural heritage - rooted in context with their environment - a sense of reverence and gratitude naturally emerges. From here, our value systems change. Shifting from competition to collaboration, we begin to weave together and honour the diversity of our cultures.
Extraction and appropriation of others' lands and indigenous wisdom has dissected the memory of our history with the land. It has transformed medicine into poison and sacred plants into a commodity for an industry.
Biocultural heritage preservation is the process of remembering our interconnectivity, interrelatedness and belonging.
New Age Spirituality — The Shadow of a Promised Saviour
The derooting of this bond brought about a new age spirituality — a movement of people wanting to reconnect with a healthy spirituality and remove themselves from religion, yet still operating under colonial programming and intergenerational trauma of separation and division. We are looking for new ways to connect, yet we are just rebranding the exploitation of sacred medicines in the name of the sacred.
To live in kinship is to be in right-relationship. Globalization has brought the gift of the reunification of our nations — now indigenous wisdom that reminds us of our inextricable connection to the Earth is widely shared. Yet, the very programming of an extractive relationship modern societies have with the Earth is seen in new-age spiritual culture, where the sacred is commodified in the name of healing and awakening, reflecting an escapist ideology rather than demonstrating an effort toward reparation, reconciliation and cultivating right-relationship rooted in reciprocity and the recognition of kinship.
The real awakening doesn’t separate us from our kin. It elevates everything in the process, not only our individual well-being but the collective awakening. If we want to move forward in this world, we have to rebuild our relationality with life. To know that plants, their seeds, their ecosystems & those who tend to them need to be honoured and revered for a true sense of liberation to emerge. A liberation not from the world as it is, but from outdated worldviews and from unsustainable ways of relating. A liberation into our true identity and a world full of relatives.
For all my relatives, I pray. For this new dawn to rise within the consciousness of our human kin. For the identities that fractured us from our universality to dissolve and to transmute into the great reunification of human, animal, plant and rock nations. We bow in humility for the harm caused in our forgetting. We ask forgiveness. We affirm our readiness to move forward in this path of great awakening. Where nobody is left behind. We open our hearts to unlearn, to remember and to return to kinship, relatedness, and harmony.
To all my relatives.
-Written by Charlotte Nieuwenhuis
Special thanks to Shayne Zal-Arora for his contribution and edition.