Wise Earth Teachings

Who better to understand the wisdom of our earth than indigenous people who live closest to the earth?  Native attitudes are interconnected and the sacred treatment of things, places and things.  Through keen observations and experience with natural phenomena, these indigenous being learned from letting go and allowing the process of observing the natural world.  Since our very beginning these wise teachers would share a story about earth relationships and landscapes.
 
These native teachings are about an “affiliation,” of being interrelated with all organisms, in a deep, personal and committed way. Kinship and receiving from experiences in nature are common themes.  Constantly reciprocity is a primary reoccurring virtuous them; you come from the earth you return to it. All things are done in a circle and observe how this symbol acts in all matters.  

Natives insightfully observed how all things care connected together and there was no true separation. Their outer world was aligned to their inner world. Native Americans viewed land as something to be shared communally, and respected it with that idea in mind. The concept of "owning" property was completely foreign to them, and this included land.  Europeans saw just the opposite to be true.

Two basic teachings arise from their wise earth teachings.  All things are related and connected where non-human things are recognized as being apart and not separated.  Thus all things are treated with respected. The American Indians believed that the lands were entrusted to them. They believed they had to maintain that trust by only taking what they needed.  Also the viewed the without the Western view of ownership; people are stewards of the land, thus land is usually not owned, traded, or sold.  

While there were bountiful diverse perspectives and observances Native people seem to agree upon certain values and ways of seeing and experiencing. They tend to have communal property, subsistence production, barter systems, and other practices.  Also these people operated under consensual processes, where they observed a “participatory” democracy, and laws embedded in oral traditions. From a social view point natives acted in terms of matrilineality versus patriarchy, extended versus nuclear families, and low versus high population density. Also native peoples almost universally view the earth as a feminine figure illustrating a relationship of the earth, as their Mother, is a sacred bond with the creation.

Native peoples viewed the earth by understanding the world from the natural order’s rhythms and cycles of life, and include animals and plants as well as other natural features in their conceptions of spirituality. Indians have lived communally with participatory democracy, a spiritual life based on nature as living and sacred. While this may exaggerated and idealistic, however, this appeals to many people, including most Native Americans today.  Native peoples viewed many of the products of the natural environment as gifts from the Creator. Humans, in the Native American conception of the world, were not created to “dominate” over other beings, but rather to cooperate and share the bounty of the earth with the other elements of the creation.

Various Indian leaders such as Chief Seattle and Black Elk support such views of Indian relationships with nature. This image persists as valid and meaningful to Native people even today. For instance, the famous speech by Chief Seattle is often cited. The image of nature as “Mother Earth,” has numerous positive influences with their, “a powerful respect for place, in the sense of an actual”

These wise earth teaching are all about living well.  Being in good relation to the earth, and all things in a good way is something that must be remembered and practiced once more.  The future of this planet requires a profound and compassionate realization of this sacred alignment and state of mind.  Living in close harmony with the land these stewards have the closest connection to it.  Thus native peoples cultivate the best possible relations with all things for they act in concert with not against it and show the highest respect to the source of their very well being.