Hello ASP friends
As we are on this wisdom journey – I thought of sharing this Toronto Globe and Mail article written by Canadian Ethnographer and Adventurer Wade Davis – https://daviswade.com/ on how indigenous cultures can help sustain our planet with their wisdom. Please see attached.
It was timely to read this as I ran a Mindfulness & Leadership training session for fourteen James Bay Cree Nation elders and leaders (all women) on 8th December in Gatineau, Quebec.
Many of the older women (some born in the bush) had gone through residential schools and were traumatized by it. Many had lost their spiritual grounding as a result of subjugation as wards of the Canadian government, but the Cree Nation is financially wealthy with the settlement of accounts. Yet they try hard to keep their traditional wisdom of oneness with nature alive.
They are a well run band which fought the Quebec government over many years from changing the direction of their rivers for large hydro power projects and won. That is a great story in itself where the then Chief Billy Diamond is now a legend.
Their focus is to ensure that they will sustain themselves for the future, yet trying to balance between the spiritual and the transactional tensions in the modern world.
Some were aware of the mindfulness and meditation practices of the east. It was fascinating to inquire about the intersection between their spiritual practices in being one with the land and nature, and their rituals of drumming and dance with the intentional inward journey of mindfulness.
Many said they ground themselves by being out in the land and welcomed this additional way to help them manage emotion with the inward focus on the breath.
I really enjoyed this day with these wise leaders and learned a lot too and thought to share this reflection.
We cannot legislate our way to protect the environment – as it has to come from the heart for us to transcend the materialistic consumerist world to find a way to better balance with nature.
That journey, I believe, starts with the individual meditating and contemplating on the breath to realize how fragile we are as human beings – as the in-breath is life and the out-breath is death. Then we may move away from the arrogance of trying to subjugate nature as we will realize that we are nature.
As the Wade Davis article alludes, indigenous wisdom may prevent us from extinction.
Sharing with love and light – Lalith
