The Lakota people have a prayer “Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ”, meaning all are related or for all my relations. This is a prayer of oneness and shows a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of all life, human, animal, plants, minerals, water, earth, spirit, the elements.
Understanding that we are one in the circle of life and not independent is hard for our mind to grasp. If we try, we start looking at our relationship to everything. How is my relationship to others? To myself? To food? To work? To rest? To nature? To water?
In the west we grow up with a feeling of separateness, each family separate to the community, we build walls and fences. We grow up believing that humans are at the top of some pyramid and not another piece of the whole. We are raised to compete, to excel, to be better even at the expense of others. Even religions separate us, whereas true spirituality connects.
I had no idea what it meant to really pray until I sat with an Arhuaco Mamo* in Colombia. To truly understand how everything is connected and how much we need the earth. How there is a sacred balance that needs to be kept. We can’t keep taking and give nothing back. We can’t expect that everything will be taken care for us and we don’t need to do anything. They live so connected, their life is a prayer, they walk their prayers with a deep understanding of the interdependence of all life.
The reason why I am saying all this is because I have been thinking about my life, humans in
general, and the choices we make. What if we were able to see the sacred in everything, what choices would we make? What if we were able to see ourselves as sacred? What would we feed ourselves? What would we watch? Read? Eat? Drink? Consume? What company would we keep? Where would we live? What would we say to ourselves? What would we think about ourselves?
Would we still think it was normal to work minimum 8 hours in a job we don’t really enjoy, to afford to live in a house that disconnects us from others and nature, to afford food that has been stripped of nutrients, to then go on holiday twice a year for a week? Would we still spend hours scrolling on our phones? Watching whatever pops up?
What if we were able to really feel that our body was the altar of our soul, how would we care for it?
*Arhuaco are a native tribe from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in Colombia, descendants of the Tairona. And a Mamo is a spiritual leader of their community.
1st image by Brad Jensen
2nd image unknown source (please let me know if you know and i can link their page to it)