When did we lose our connection?

“When we lose our connection we also lose ourselves, each other & the only place we have to call home.”

Sometimes I wonder when I say these things if people think I’m naively alluding to the idea that we should all hold hands in a circle and sing kumbaya.

I’m not!

Slight digression here but ‘kumbaya’… actually originates from Gullah culture and translates to mean “come by here”, an appeal to God to come to the aid of those in need during times of great suffering, oppression and hardship. So let’s not appropriate that one any further.

What I am, in fact, referring to is our interconnectedness to & interdependence on every living thing.

The fact that each facet of the vast web that we’re a part of, including humans, both relies on and brings value to all other parts in some way.

My question here is this…

If we all truly felt and embodied that interconnectedness, would we be seeing the level of brutality & destruction that we’re currently witnessing across the globe?

Or the apathy that also seems to surround it.

Can you really feel yourself as a part of the web of everything and also seek or passively witness the destruction of it?

I don’t believe so.

And if we’re not interconnected then we are, by and large, fragmented right?

I would say that seems to be reflected in the world around us presently.

The broader question is… When did we lose that connection? And how do we get it back?

To understand this we must look at what it actually means to be human…

The word human takes its root from the Latin humus meaning earth (or several similar variations).

Earth beings! Stewards of the environment that we’re a part of. Not above it. Not below it. Part of it.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying that “we’re all just products of our environment”. This is true and yet we’re also the cultivators of it.

But even this statement holds hidden connotations.

Humans as products?!

Products of a production based culture… under which we’re all so busy being extracted from ourselves that we’ve lost touch with the very essence of what makes us human in the first place.

Caring for each other & the earth.

This brings us nicely back around to holding hands in a circle.

And no, caring for each other absolutely does not have to mean this!

Stepping back into our humanity simply means having or showing compassion or benevolence.

In other words… meeting each other in our suffering with care & without expectation.

To remove the expectation of perfection based on our own perceived notions of what that even is…

And to treat each other and the earth according to our humanity rather than the ‘conditions’ which we feel must first be met in order to deserve our care or support.

(I could honestly go on for weeks!)

Personally…

I can’t think of anything more innately human or worthwhile than reclaiming that kind of connection and defending it until our very last breath.

On slowing down & survival…

Once we move into September I usually begin talking about the somatics of slowing down (by my calendar… Autumn actually starts in August!).

So this year is no exception. Emails & socials tend to revolve around an Autumnal theme and yesterday I posed a question that I often ask in 1:1 sessions…

“What would happen if you slowed down?”

The simple answer is that you would notice more, but that’s not really what I’m here to talk about today.

In response to my musings on slowing down and noticing more came a very valid question back at me…

“How do we slow down & still earn enough to survive?”

VALID.

And this question sort of points to the systemic issue that we're entangled in right.

Because if we unpick this a bit... the idea that slowing down might mean that we don't survive alludes to something quite harmful actually doesn't it?! 

When elements of slow are a necessity to the human body (and to nature as an extension of the body), a culture that requires us not to in order to merely survive is clearly quite problematic.

And the irony is that it's also the thing that's killing us, and the planet. 

When I speak about support as opposed to extraction, this is what I mean. The way we're living and working for the most part is under an extractive model. And to feel like slowing the pace might lead to actual potential death??

VIOLIENT. OPPRESSIVE. 

So this is where slowing down in alignment with cycles of nature becomes like an act of resistance under this level of extraction. 

Of course, we could say that having the capacity to slow down is a privilege. And in some ways I guess it is. 

But if we have that privilege to lean into cyclicality, to take moments to tune into the body & honour those needs in any way, I really feel that we should be, for the sake of dismantling the aforementioned systems of harm.

It doesn't have to be all at once. It can be as simple as taking a moment with the breath or to sit outside and simply notice.

But yes! Cyclicality, rewilding… it does call a lot of things into question. And that is sort of the point.

Because the current way?

Not sustainable.

For any of us.