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…