Interdependence is a reality to which we may awaken. Without the micro-organisms in the soil, the earth becomes infertile. Without bees many of our plantings will not bear fruit. Without the sun and rain (in proper proportions) we all die.
But it often feels like an intellectual construct--something rather like a piece of dogma that we will ourselves to believe. Another way to express it that might seem at first more artificial is expressed in the made-up word "interbeing." (Even my spell-checker refuses to recognize it!) To say that humans interare with everything else, is to turn a concept (interdependence is a noun) into a living reality (interbe is a verb).
The Center for Peaceful Living calls itself "a non-sectarian center (not affiliated with or limited to any particular religion) where we offer a loving and supportive environment for us all to learn and live from a higher level of peace." Might they represent a "post-religious" practice appropriate to a "post-modern" world? On today's theme, there's a nice article on "Peace with the Earth."
Yesterday in meditation, I thought (I suppose that's a confession) about Gary Snyder's poem "I pledge allegiance" which is dedicated to the earth, called "Turtle Island" in Native American creation mythology. It's a happy expression of interbeing:
I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.
-Gary Snyder
from No Nature: New and Selected Poems (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992).
