Dear Spirit to Spirit friend,
A friend shared this beautiful writing- a pointing to the nature of our interconectedness with all life. Bowing in gratitude to the woman authors who penned this moving expression of who we are, what everything is to everything else.
"Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow’s edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun."
-Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
“The mysterious and beautiful work of nature has been a great teacher for me this past year. The time that I have spent at home during the pandemic has blessed me with a chance to slow down: go on more hikes, work in my backyard, and relish the beauty and wonder of the natural world.
The wise words and stories of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass have also given me scientific language and perspective that is beautifully intertwined with the indigenous ways that my own Native American ancestors shared.
This way of life stives to live in harmony with nature through the practice of generosity, reciprocity, and only taking what we need.
Just as an example, I have been deeply impacted in a new way by the scientific wonder of how plants utilize carbon dioxide to produce food for themselves and how they reciprocate through their gift of oxygen for the benefit of other creatures. As Kimmerer so poetically puts it, “My breath is your breath, your breath is mine. It’s the great poem of give and take, or reciprocity that animates the world.”
This biological dance of interdependency and exchange of life, giving breath that occurs in and under our very noses, has helped me to truly revel in the interconnectedness that I share with all creation.
In this current moment, when the world is facing unique and growing challenges, nature’s many examples of “dancing while standing still” are inviting me to further explore the interconnectedness which is rooted and manifested in my own relationships with my loved ones, my communities, and communities outside of my own who are all uniquely and simultaneously living through the many trials of our times.”
-Barbara C. Lotero-Lopez
In Gratitude & Love, Joanna