Life is life is life. It doesn?t matter whether it?s in the form of a beetle, a plant, a fish, a dog, or a human. Life is a gift to all things, given by Nature. It is the thing that each creature has in whatever form that is sacred and allows us all to interact. Each individual life is made to contribute to the whole life of the Earth.
There is no creature of the status in existence that they can determine the worth of any life. It is not our place to judge or rule, and to do so is to spit in the face of the Creator. In fact it would be silly to consider any life to be of any less worth than our own, as it is all these "lesser" forms that keep our lives and our world functioning. Nature would still function without the presence of humans. In our dream-world, we consider ourselves superior, but in the real world, we are potentially insignificant.
Our species used to exist in a relative harmony with Nature, taking what was needed and then contributing to the perpetuation of the predetermined cycles. This wasn?t a philosophy or belief system in a superficial way; it was simply insurance for survival of future generations of all things.
Unfortunately, our species began to lose sight of that process as we developed a sense of want, above and beyond need. Instead of gratefully accepting what we were given for survival from Nature, we began expecting more in order to pit ourselves against the environment; we sought to conquer, and we took more because we taught ourselves that more was better, and it made you a better person to have more.
We have taught ourselves that our purpose is to go to grade-school, then high-school and get a part-time job, then to college, then have a career, then get married, have a house, have children and cars, then have things?lot?s of things, and then retire and die. This is our fundamental paradigm. This is our own rut. It is a schedule of life. And now we need vacations, distractions, things to keep our minds occupied. We are no longer free, and we should be outraged. When we lived closely with Nature, our minds were occupied by the overwhelming life of Nature and our senses were stimulated by the reality of our place in that world. Now, our senses have numbed as we create a closed-off world that shields us from the reality of the environment. Now we are bombarded by unnatural sights, sounds, smells, and thought processes that are not found in the real world. And so our minds have become burdened with stresses, worries, greed, and loneliness to the point that we must provide those distractions, like television, video games, drugs, alcohol, and other perversions. We don?t do these things because we?re bad; we do them because we?re lost.
Our attitude toward Nature and each other has become disjointed, at best. We have stereotypes and segregation, political regimes, and religious factions. All these things are created and based upon evolutionarily watered-down interpretations, and they remove us from the very real connection that all things share no matter what your geography, biology, skin color, or doctrine?the reality of Nature, the reality of life, and fundamental spirit.
That is our true beast. It is the real tether, that we are no longer living in a predetermined world in which we function for the betterment of all things, as an integral part of the cycle. Now we are more self-serving and we fear being outcast, ridiculed, and hurt. We fear one of the most amazing events in our entire lives?another common reality--death. We fear death to the point that we fight it and curb it and thus we threaten our own species? survival because we have created a world in which we perpetuate our deficiencies and cater to our weaknesses and constantly stress and deplete our gift of resources.
And we?ve insinuated ourselves into places we cannot fit, any more than a fish can suddenly emerge from a lake and live on land. We have eliminated species and have transferred species without truly understanding their roles. And we have tried to ?take the places? of some, like the wolves for the deer, but we are not made to fill that role, and we are creating more damage.
As we?ve moved away from our closeness with Nature, we?ve begun treating other life as a commodity; we have made a devastating impact, and we continue to do so. This is not something unknown as much as it is ignored.
And it all stems from fear because we are lost. But our children do not need to be lost, too. They can find that reverence and sense of place again if they are taught. They do not have to be of sick spirit and contribute to the destruction of things, because they are born wild by right, and they should have the option to revere their birthright of Nature, as we were not provided. So, it is not our fault as children. But it becomes our fault when we have the option to learn but ignore it for our own selfish desires.
-M
