Hope Beneath Our Feet_ Restoring Our Place in the Natural World - Martin Keogh [77]
According to an ancient Indian text, the Isho Upanishad:
The universe is the creation of the Supreme Power meant for the benefits of [all] creation. Each individual life form must, therefore, learn to enjoy its benefits by forming a part of the system in close relation with other species. Let not any one species encroach upon other rights.
Whenever we engage in consumption or production patterns that take more than we need, we are engaging in violence. Non-sustainable consumption and non-sustainable production constitute a violent economic order. In the Isho Upanishad it is also said:
A selfish man over-utilizing the resources of nature to satisfy his own ever-increasing needs is nothing but a thief, because using resources beyond one’s needs would result in the utilization of resources over which others have a right.
On Earth Day 2010, the President of Bolivia, Juan Evo Morales Ayma, organized a conference on the rights of Mother Earth. The intent of the conference was to start a process for adopting a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, similar to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The idea came out of the failure of the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, where Morales had said, “If the earth is recognized as Mother Earth, it’s something that can’t be sold. It is something that can’t be violated. It is something that is sacred. This is … why I’ve come here: to defend the rights of Mother Earth, to defend the right to life, and to defend humanity.”
Without Earth rights, there can be no human rights; Earth rights are the basis of equity, justice, and sustainability.
Earth rights are human rights.
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned scientist and environmental activist, well-known for her work in the fields of biodiversity, genetic engineering, and water rights. A member of the World Future Council, she is also the author of several books, including Biopiracy, Stolen Harvest, Water Wars, Soil Not Oil, and Earth Democracy, from which portions of this essay were adapted. Her Web site is www.vandanashiva.org.
Indigenous Mind
KAYLYNN SULLIVAN TWOTREES
As I sit overlooking the valley where I live, it takes a moment for me to still myself enough to allow my breath to settle deep in my belly. My gaze drifts over the valley and I can see the road I traveled to reach this viewpoint.
Details of my day, my life, my worries, my longings are like the single fruit trees I see from my perch on this ridge. The longer I sit the more the edges of my thoughts and the specifics of the landscape blur until I can feel myself cradled in the lap of the Topa Topa Mountains that caress the edge of the valley. In the midst of those blurred edges I can hear the ravens and hawks more clearly above me and the bees in the rosemary bushes. I can feel the power of the mountains and the almost imperceptible movement of the earth below the mountains as well as the sweat on my upper lip heated by sunlight. The wind comes to me through the movement of the trees and my body responding with my breath.
I am a detail of this small valley and I am linked to the earth through the movement under the mountains. I can sense a deeper presence than I can imagine, softening the boundary between known and unknown that is made hard-edged through reason. Each creature in my locale speaks to me—bees, birds, ants, dogs, trees, flowers, humans and their machines, as well as the beings I can’t identify. Through these messages I can sense the web of connection through my body and my breath. I awaken to the subtle layers of messages from this specific place to the planet and into the unknown.
No matter how much I long for an imagined future for myself and the planet, or drag myself back to a perceived idyllic past, I am still breathing into the “right now.” Longing, worry, agitation, and frustration can’t change the fact that this moment is the one before me. It is the one I