Nature

In many indigenous wisdom traditions (including European, Native American, African and Pacific Islands) there is an intimate relationship with the natural world as an expression of the Divine Mystery. The plants and animals offer both teachings and nourishment to the relationship with humans. Most of my elders and teachers were constantly reminding me that I am a detail of a larger landscape inhabited by all living things which includes mountains and oceans as well as the unseen world.

My experience does not include any knowledge of China or Japan but I recently came across this quote from a book of Chinese Fairy Tales that points back relational thinking and living.

“Heaven and earth and the ten thousand things in between are born as one with us, alike in kind to us. There is no high and low among the kinds. It is merely that one kind dominates another by virtue of size or strength or wit. And so one devours the other and is devoured in turn. But heaven did not create things for each other. Man eats whatever he can, but did heaven breed what man eats specifically for man? The mosquito and the gnat bite man’s skin, the tiger and the wolf feed on flesh. Has heaven created man for the mosquito, or flesh for the tiger and the wolf?” _"Chinese Fairy Tales & Fantasies" translated and edited by Moss Roberts