Readers’ Remarks

NATURE: Facing Our Prejudice

NATURE: Facing Our Prejudice

We seem to accept that humans are intelligent and able to communicate with each other, and able to feel emotions of grief, despair, fear, anger, compassion, and love. However, we often scoff at the idea of communicating with Trees, Plants, Water, Earth, Stars, and other Living Species, or the idea that they are communicating with us. Some people feel that other species have little or no intelligence, no soul, no ability to grieve, care, or love, and no purpose other than to serve humans.

As a collective species, we humans live with a deep-seated prejudice against Nature. Even the most conscientious of us humans, or those of us who often interact or commune with Nature might not fully grasp how deeply this prejudice runs.

Many of us walk around blindly accepting that we stand far above all other life. We do not really feel in our entire being how deeply this belief runs. We unconsciously accept that there are humans…and then just mere nature, ‘out there for our use.’ At best we experience it as beautiful scenery, something to enjoy on a nice nature walk, bike ride, canoe trip, and so on.

We unconsciously go about our days believing, feeling, and thinking that we humans--one species among millions--are the world. Collectively we do not question this assumption; it is fully accepted on a global scale.

To understand the gravity of our violent prejudice and indignity to Other Species and Earth, we need to try to imagine a scenario where all of humanity blindly believes that we (you and I), personally, have no intelligence, no feelings of grief, compassion, or love, as well as no soul, and no purpose other than to serve humans, or a human ‘master.’ At best, we (you and I) mean no more to anyone than a mere backdrop, like painted scenery in a play, or a roll of toilet paper in its holder, or a rag used to wipe up spills on a floor.

Then, imagine that you know you have to find a way to convince these blind, ignorant humans of your intelligence, your sovereign purpose, and your ability to love, and to feel pain, joy, grief, and to have hope and dreams. Imagine that you have to convince them of your right to an EQUAL place here on Earth, and your right to respected, treated with dignity, and to have the ability to thrive. Imagine that you feel the daily stain, the squeezing in on your vanishing land and home…your family threatened at every turn…and nowhere to escape. Imagine feeling in your body…that if you cannot find a way to awaken these ignorant humans.…you are facing the very real despair of extinction. Vanishing from the face of beloved Mother Earth…forever.

Extinguished.

This, my friends, is how Intelligent Species the world over feel about humans. Many groups of people throughout history have felt exactly the same way—and STILL feel the same way—when subjected to the same cruel ignorance, arrogance, abuse, and domination by their fellow humans.

The time has arrived to look at our prejudices. All over the face of Earth, highly Intelligent Species scream out for us to awaken and end our brutality, our crass human behavior. We can each look at our lives and explore these unconscious, blind assumptions that we carry, generations of accepted prejudices. I know that I have to look at this. As close to Nature as I live every day, I still can carry unconscious prejudices. Generations of pervasive prejudices were imprinted into me from birth…and before, areas of my collective psyche that have never seen the true Light of day. These pervasive perceptions and ways of being are SO prevalent they run like undiagnosed disease throughout humanity, a fog that we have walked through for so long, we do not even see that we are completely blind to Truth. We automatically think ‘fog’ is our normal state of vision.

We can calm the screams occurring all over the planet, by deeply digging into our unquestioned, accepted beliefs, our inherited fog of blindness. We can open our hearts and minds, and snap out of our chosen somnolence and emotional laziness. We can choose to leave our arrogance in the toilet where it belongs. We can actively educate ourselves. We can walk into Nature with fresh eyes, questions, and open hearts. We can sit under a tree and think about all of this while feeling into our hearts and bodies. We can ask, "Do I have prejudices?"

More importantly, we can move into relationship with Nature and Other Species with the understanding that we go to meet the Highest Intelligence going. We can ponder the idea that this Intelligence is part of us, a part we cannot live without. It actually IS us…and is necessary for a fully functioning brain, heart, and nervous system. It is necessary for our healing, awakening, and our very survival, both within this lifetime and generations to come.

We can look at Other Species with compassionate consideration for their feelings, families, homes, and sovereign purpose. Who are they? What might they need? What are they teaching us? Could they REALLY be as intelligent…or even more intelligent than we are?

We can explore the possibility that--no matter how good a person we are--we actually might be carrying prejudices that are so culturally pervasive that we do not see them.

We can choose to learn new ways that respect and protect. We must move with the full understanding that these Other Species are very aware of us. Many of them are weary from our noise, our pollution, and our torturous ways. They are weary from fighting for their lives, fighting for a scrap of territory to raise their families and live out their lives in peace.

Next time you go to meet Nature, try looking at everything around you, the rock, the tree, the chipmunk, the deer, the water…as if you are looking at a human, a human that is aware of you, a human that is able to talk with you, hear you, teach you, and even love you. I can guarantee you that you are in the Presence of an Intelligence that will astound you. You are in the presence of an Intelligence that you cannot live without, an Intelligence that you have forgotten…is part of you…an Intelligence that you have been yearning for all your life. And, if you let it in, you will never be the same.

The bottom line is whether or not WE are intelligent enough to see the Intelligence that lies in all of Creation.

To live without respectful awareness of Other Species, and the Earth, Air, Water, vast Cosmos, and each other, is to live without Soul. And, that is a very dangerous and deadly way to live…for everyone involved…including ourselves.

— © Robin Easton