Nature :: Spirit — Kinship in a living world

When the failing avocado tree in our yard suddenly puts out perfect creamy fruit, and I find out it was because the compost I made healed the tree, I feel a kind of joy that has something a lot bigger to say about thriving. What the avocado tree teaches about right relations—between people or between countries—and how to build the kind of world where everybody can flourish.

Do we have everything within us to make good decisions? When Abraham Maslow lived among the Blackfoot people, he learned their answer was yes. Today we hear from Indigenous voices on knowing from within, or “sovereignty of mind.” And we look at the long habit in Western history of defining knowledge instead as the ideas handed down from outside authorities—a habit feeding the rise of authoritarianism and fascism today. Plus a moment from my own life when I took a step toward reuniting with my own heart.

That time a tree came to talk with me and I started to really learn. How spirits are different from ghosts. And how a Yurok man’s thoughts about talking with the spirits of trees provides the foundation for living in balance with our more-than-human kin.

As a child I recited the Christmas story of the baby born in a manger, but the story comes to life in deeper ways when you read it in light of Mary's Song, a freedom song that she sang while pregnant with her son. She celebrated the upending of the social order, when the hungry are filled and the rich sent away empty. In her birth story, poor people get the positions of honor: the poor young single mother, the lowly animals, the rough shepherds. Together, they show that this birth is about divine justice, where human inequalities are overturned and peace is defined by sharing and equity.

A lesson from fifth grade lasts a lifetime—and makes me wish I'd learned about honeybees instead! What honeybees know about fair and democratic decision making. And how the story of human origins held in this society—that we are selfish and violent by nature—keeps us from imagining better ways of relating with nature and each other.

Have you ever been grabbed by a poem so hard it wouldn’t let go? I recently found “Closing Time; Iskandariya,” by Brigit Pegeen Kelly and couldn’t put it down. Living with it over days revealed layer after layer of wonder and meaning—a thrill for someone trained in close reading of texts. At least one of those layers outlines a pathway for making peace with Earth. Cello music with the poem today is by The Wong Janice.

Young people in Hawaiʻi just won a huge victory in a climate lawsuit that will end carbon emissions in the state’s transportation. But why are the children doing this work? Today we listen to Indigenous voices from communities around the world that are losing their homelands because of climate change, and we reflect on land and kinship and identity. We ask, Am I doing everything I can to work for the climate? With suggestions for resources to help in lowering our own carbon footprint and finding heart-based pathways toward change.

A path of listening, learned first in the yoga class of a beloved teacher in Boulder. For five years I attended her class, five years of book writing and coming to terms with my older brother's death. Wendy taught us how to move by listening—listening first to the body and breath, which is listening to the Earth. Here is a story of listening in Wendy's class.

Why is there a price on land? When land is the living source of all our food—and of us—why do we think we can own it? We take a look at how private landownership got put into law in England in the 1600s to justify the landlords’ seizing of common lands. And how we might imagine our way to a different system. With inspiration for our imaginations from Dr. Lyla June Johnston (Diné) and Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis. And a first imaginary glimpse into an economy where land is free.

On rivers, the secret river, and what one very early project from 1400 BCE to drain a lake can tell us about both. Plus, what losing spiritual connection to the irrepressible flow of life looks like: reaching for power and control over ourselves and others. How can we stay open to the life-giving currents, even those we don't understand?