Our current economy, based on unbridled consumption and the value of convenience, is unsustainable. It is unsustainable as an economic system, and it is unsustainable to our planet. -Michael Tino (CLF)
How does capitalism interfere with our sense of interdependence?
In the Toi language of the Akan people of West Africa, sankofa expresses the concept of understanding the past so that we can move forward together. It asks us to understand the need to examine our past because our future is dependent on us learning how we came to be who we are.
What is something from your past you have examined and learned from?
The interdependent web of existence is not just nature.
It is not just frogs in Central America or rain in South Asia.
The interdependent web of existence is you, and me;
It is everyone we know and everyone we don’t yet know, and everyone we will never know.
We pause in a moment of silence to feel those connections that tug on us. that pull at us,
The connections that restore us to life. -Michael Tino (CLF)
Pause a moment in silence and notice the connections that tug on you.
“Love our Earth.
Take action to consume less,
use less energy, respect water;
And be cooperative, collaborative
and creative community –
like the moss and the mushrooms.
Our children’s lives depend on us.” -Denise Cawley, “Cooperation for Human Creativity”
Be creative today.
“We’re part of an interdependent web of existence; sometimes that interdependence is physical. In 2015, my dad almost died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (medical for ‘your lungs are turning into scar tissue and we don’t know why’). In August, he told me what hymns he wanted at his funeral. We watched him slip away, getting weaker and weaker. But one night in December, a stranger died—and my family and several others on organ waiting lists got a call. The day after the Winter Solstice, my dad received a life-saving transplant.” -Elizabeth “EB” Bukey Saunter, from the reflection “The Body of Love”
How have you witnessed our interdependence being embodied and physical?
