Not all academic conferences go away an everlasting impression, nonetheless one in Would possibly 2014 modified my life eternally. I travelled from Rochester, New York, to Ottawa, Canada, to attend Nonviolence: A Weapon of the Strong at Saint Paul School.
The conference sought to find nonviolence all through disciplines: gender, ecology, animals, coaching, music, religion and reconciliation. Over three transformative days, my perspective on life, work and accountability to the planet shifted irrevocably.
That interval was one amongst intense inside upheaval. The two years following the conference turned my life the opposite manner up and launched me to the brink.
In the mean time, my life is manner further balanced, nonetheless I owe a whole lot of who I am to those three days in Ottawa. They impressed a cascade of selections: I left my dream job on the M.Okay. Gandhi Institute, based mostly Gandhi Earth Keepers Worldwide, embraced vegetarianism, grew to turn out to be a father and joined protests in Ferguson, Missouri alongside the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Each step was a little bit of the journey within the path of alignment with my values.
A trajectory of destruction
The urgency of the conference’s themes resonates far more loudly right now. Our world operates on methods of destruction—extraction and exploitation of every the Earth and the intricate webs of life that keep it. Civilization, for all its achievements, rests precariously on an unsustainable foundation.
The proof is stark: 90 % of world fish populations are depleted, 80 % of old-growth forests are gone and native climate instability is accelerating. That’s the legacy of a species enthralled by domination over nature.
Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that our connection to the Earth isn’t abstract nonetheless speedy and profound. To love and take care of the Earth is to love and take care of ourselves. However, monetary methods relentlessly prioritize progress over steadiness, consumption over care and income over preservation. These selections erode the life methods on which all of us rely. What endgame could justify this trajectory of destruction?
The roots of this imbalance stretch once more millennia, to the dawn of agriculture and humanity’s shift from dwelling in harmony with nature to dominating it. The outcomes are painfully clear: ecosystems decimated, species pushed to extinction and the fragility of Earth’s methods laid bare.
The violence isn’t solely bodily nonetheless ideological—a worldview that reduces the pure world to “sources” to be harvested, ignoring its inherent sacredness and the interdependence of all life.
This separation of humanity from nature is a grave error. We’re not apart from the Earth; we’re a part of it. Our relentless drive for vitality and wealth has positioned us in direct opposition to the ecosystems that keep us. The ego seeks domination; the eco seeks steadiness. In prioritizing the earlier, we commit profound injustice to all dwelling beings and, ultimately, to ourselves.
Our methods—monetary, political and social—aren’t broken by likelihood; they’ve been designed to extract and exploit. These buildings perpetuate inequality, ecological collapse and environmental degradation. Incremental reform can’t restore what’s principally pathological. To take care of these crises, we must always reimagine the very foundations of vitality, ecology and therapeutic.
A model new imaginative and prescient of vitality
True vitality doesn’t reside in domination nonetheless in interconnection, reciprocity and respect. Gandhi’s principle of non-co-operation with one thing humiliating offers a imaginative and prescient of vitality rooted in harmony. That’s vitality as a collective strain—shared, cultivated and used responsibly for the well-being of all. It rejects hierarchies that exploit and as an alternative fosters relationships that nurture.
The dominant view of ecology treats nature as a commodity: sources to extract, and capital to deal with. This angle has launched us to the brink of collapse. A model new ecological imaginative and prescient ought to emerge—one which sees the Earth not as a helpful useful resource to manage nonetheless as a bunch of life to honour and keep. This worldview acknowledges that human flourishing is inseparable from the nicely being of ecosystems. It requires a shift from exploitation to stewardship, from extraction to restoration.
On this imaginative and prescient, sustainability is simply not a buzzword nonetheless a dedication to repairing the cycles that keep life. It requires shielding biodiversity, restoring degraded lands and respecting the sacred steadiness of pure methods. Therapeutic the Earth requires us to embrace regeneration—not merely of ecosystems nonetheless of our relationship with the planet.
Therapeutic by collective movement
Therapeutic the planet is inseparable from therapeutic ourselves and our societies. The methods we’ve inherited must be dismantled and adjusted with ones that honour life, justice and sustainability. That’s no small course of; it’s a radical reimagining of how we reside, work and relate to 1 one different and the Earth.
The journey I began in Ottawa a decade previously continues. The teachings of nonviolence, ecology and therapeutic aren’t static; they evolve as we do. To reimagine vitality is to determine to an ongoing technique of transformation—one which prioritizes interconnection over isolation, reciprocity over extraction and collective well-being over explicit particular person purchase. In doing so, we may however uncover a choice to reside in harmony with the Earth and each other.
«RELATED READ» A SACRED EARTH COVENANT: Honouring our inexperienced oasis in 4 distinct strategies»
images: George Payne