The Coexistence Doctrine (curated video collection)
"The Universe is a Circle of Circles." (Navajo)
The Coexistence Doctrine
Thoughts on “The Native American Perspective”
(blog & video library)
About a week ago I dove into YouTube to study up on this month’s AllCreation theme. I learned a lot. Here are some of the common themes relative to AllCreation’s pursuit of creating a living archive of faith and spiritual perspectives on biodiversity and today's environmental challenges.
Based on very limited research I would say perhaps the most common fundamental in the Native American worldview is the idea of humility towards nature, always expressed from a higher intelligence. These values may in fact be common to all Native peoples, but i have no idea. Indigenous identities are a vastly diverse. I’ve posted a thumbnail gallery of Indigenous peoples here, to help show the depth and diversity of today's remaining Indigenous cultures.
To me, this quote summarizes the basis of the North American Indigenous worldview:
This is the probably most important part (about how the Native American thinks).
Some people, or some body, realized that everything out there would thrive and survive without them,
but they could not exist without it.
And so they would humble themselves before that Natural World.
(See 1st video below for content).
In other words, the Native American perspective is fundamentally egalitarian towards nature and all other forms of life because humans are the least significant part of this living system we call Nature. We could disappear and all of the rest of the living things on Earth would continue. Nothing relies on us. Current scientific theory confirms the idea that humans are a very recent addition to the speciation of life on Earth.
Current mapping of the history of life on Earth. Start in the middle and fan outward.
Humans are recent addition to the biodiversity productivity that sustains us. Fifty percent of all oxygen is made by plankton, the rest by trees and vegetation. Earth's biggest heat sinks are the oceans and tropical forests. Oceans and forests also act as water wicks, exchanging water vapors and directing precipitation cycles across continents and around the world. These are just a few examples. Our planet’s oxygen, temperature, precipitation cycles, and therefore food supply are all heavily determined not by us, but by other living things: Earth’s soils, plants, insects and animals. We can make jeans and computers, but we can’t manufacture crops.
Climate scientists are largely afraid global warming will cause drastic reductions in our planet's overall biodiversity productivity. As things heat up, loss of biodiversity productivity will occur ever more intensely: more and more forests will dry up, more and more ocean species will run out of sustenance, our best land-based heat sinks, the forests, will disappear... There are an infinite number of negatives to fear from biodiversity collapse, but these can be rapidly reversed by focusing on three global priorities:
I. Protect and Restore the Earth’s Most Biodiverse Ecosystems
II. Solve Our Food, Development, Restoration, and Poverty Problems with Permaculture
III. Install Biodiversity Resilience Buffers In and Around the Places People Live
Visit my project BioIntegrity.net to learn more about the most affordable, critical solutions you can support today. Below is this month’s curated collection of videos, The Coexistence Doctrine of Native Americans. There is a lot to be gained from spending time with these five brief videos.
###
How Indians Think & the Essence of Thanksgiving (Iroquois)
"Probably the most important part is that some people or somebody realized that everything outside would thrive and survive without them, but they could not exist without it."
The Universe = the Circle of Circles (Navajo)
An intelligent conversation exploring why Native American wisdom is so relevant to today’s scientific and technological, global world. Everything is interconnected. "One of the goals we try and attain in life is being one with the universe, being at peace with each other and all the animals."
This Is What I Want for My People (Lakota)
Elders speak in their native tongue. "Every moment, every breath is precious." 'So peaceful are these people that i swear there is not in the world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves.' - Christopher Colombus
The Water is Sacred. The Air is Sacred. (Hopi)
"We have a common destiny with the tree. You should learn how to plant something. You should treat all things as spirit. We are all from the Earth. And when the Earth, the water, the atmosphere is corrupted, then it’ll create its own reaction. Realize we are all one family."
One Must Be Responsible Because All of Creation Is Related. (Lakota)
Recommendation: be patient with graphic quality. "At the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and this center is really everywhere and within each of us. That is the nature of inspired coexistence. Connection among spirituality, ethics, and their world view of coexistence, which is becoming more and more common today. Heaven is spirituality. Earth is physicality."
####
Post Note: How does this apply to today? I think probably the most important takeaway from these presentations is to acknowledge not only the wisdom herein, but that our present is predicated on violence and destruction and that our future must be built on egalitarian collaboration, restoration, and regeneration.
