title: everything is interconnected -interbeing-
This is strongly connected to biosphere stewardship and the fact that believing that we are separate from Nature causes us to abuse it, destroy it
- Our health is connected to the health of the Earth (and soil)
the division of things into parts tends to be a matter of convenience - Gregory Bateson (talking about how to describe the sort of “hexagon boot” he drew)
Human Alienation and Religion
If you put God outside and set him vis-à-vis his creation and if you have the idea that you are created in his image, you will logically and naturally see yourself as outside and against the things around you. And as you arrogate all mind to yourself, you will see the world around you as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical consideration. The environment will seem to be yours to exploit. Gregory Bateson
We think we have to conquer Nature because we don’t realize that we are Nature’s children Alan Watts
Me as a separate thing is a misnomer
”What am I without the Sun? Without the electromagnetic field? Without the Higgs boson? Without plants, algae, biosphere, or ozone layer? I don’t exist. Me as a separate thing is actually a misnomer. It doesn’t even exist.” — Daniel Schmachtenberger
Interconnectedness Quotes
Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. … The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self … Albert Einstein
The real system is interconnected. No part of the human race is separate either from other human beings or from the global ecosystem. It will not be possible in this integrated world for your heart to succeed if your lungs fail, or for your company to succeed if your workers fail, or for the rich in Los Angeles to succeed if the poor in Los Angeles fail, or for Europe to succeed if Africa fails, or for the global economy to succeed if the global environment fails. Book - Thinking in Systems - Donella Meadows
The individual body is in certain ways separate from others – although not totally, because it merges with air and light and food. There is no place where the body really ends – its boundary is relative. We can’t say that when an oxygen molecule comes into the body, it suddenly becomes alive, and that when it leaves as carbon dioxide it’s dead. We must say that there is really no sharp end to the body Book - On Dialogue - David Bohm
“Interbeing: If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be. A cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.
If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.
Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.
Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh