Thursday, July 26, 2012

Perspective: Your Gift to the "Ecosystem"

Humans have gotten a lot wiser in the last few decades about the fact that the "ecosystem" supports our lives.

I put that word in quotation marks because it's so distancing.

We live on a living planet, surrounded by beautiful living creatures and the living, life-giving dance of the elements.

The word "ecosystem" just doesn't do the reality of our situation justice, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway... here I am and here you are. We are living, breathing, soulful participants in this dance of life.

Have you ever wondered what you, as a human, can offer to the physical dance besides recycling and feelings of guilt about your consumerism? (I say this with gentleness and a smile, please see this post about the uselessness of self-denigration when it comes to our relationship with natural/physical/biological intelligence.)

One thing that I do every so often is call forward Nature's attention in a certain direction.

If I see a chemtrail in the sky, I'll call the Earth's attention to it, point out where it is, and tell her I support her in dealing with it in any way she chooses.

If I see an earthworm crossing a sidewalk towards the road instead of the grass, I'll reroute it, calling its attention to the grass and soil, where it is more likely to meet its fundamental survival goals.

I've occasionally gotten flying insects out of my home simply by calling their attention to a doorway or open window, via hand gestures and words.

I've dealt with potentially dangerous dogs by squatting down to their level and offering them the perspective that I am not a threat to them, or on another occasion, just telling the dog that was being aggressive what a beautiful creature it was... until it realized it could see me with a different perspective.

Every being in this dance of life has its unique perspectives and just as all the Nature beings can teach us to expand our understanding, we human beings can support the other Nature beings by offering new perspectives to them.

When we immerse ourselves more deeply in this flow of giving and receiving between ourselves and the other life forms, evolutionary progress towards greater balance and harmony of life accelerates, for the simple reason that we are addressing the main anti-evolutionary force on our planet, namely human self-imposed separation from the whole of the life dance.

Looking around the web for a video about the theme of alternate perspectives, I came across the work of Sam Easterson, who put on an exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art called Nature Holds My Camera.

You can see the trailer for the exhibit here: http://www.imamuseum.org/exhibitions/natureholdsmycamera/videos.php

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