Inter-Being

This year, I’ve felt more intimately a part of the natural world as it is expressed in our home garden than in the past. I feel embraced while standing among the pollinators visiting our patch of bee-loving flowers and the birds flitting about, enjoying our water and seed offerings. I truly feel like I have a place among them. No longer outside visitors, Tarn and I have crafted an agreeable spot for many non-human beings with whom we share a kinship. The garden is now a habitat, not just something we maintain to satisfy our own sense of beauty.

Of course, we still savor our time hiking in the less human-impacted environment; we wander the deserts and mountains, along rivers, and across diverse landscapes—embracing the flora and fauna wherever we happen to be. However, this small patch of earth we call our residence invites another kind of constant, diligent stewardship. We have a responsibility to erase the contrived boundary of ownership and merge our land with the greater natural community of which we are a part. No patch exists in isolation.

As the Haida indigenous people say, Gina waa dluxan gud ad kwaagid – “Everything depends on everything else.”  We are all inter-beings in the way Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh expressed. We are interconnected. Our garden is continuous with the great chain of existence and we hold a sacred responsibility to ensure the harmonious co-existence of our home with all natural phenomena—according to our capability. In return, when we peer through our windows or walk out the door, nature’s gift is bestowed.

We also do not ‘own’ anything separate from our human neighbors. We collectively co-create a neighborhood with the intention to live in harmony. This is not always easy as many folks feel they are entitled to build walls and fences to keep the outside world ‘outside’. Nevertheless, we include them in our prayers and beneficial intentions—they are equally inter-being with us. We really love the human connections that have flourished in our little corner of the world.

May all beings remember to be good neighbors to those close to us, and also the whole planet. It is more important now than ever as divisiveness drives a wedge between people and people—and the natural world.