I highly recommend the book ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It is beautifully written and helps readers to weave indigenous wisdom into today’s thinking and I found it to be highly insightful. This week I came across a phrase from this book which I didn’t recall but it resonated strongly with me this time around – I must finally be ready to hear it. Robin wrote “In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with of course the human being on top – the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation – and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as ‘the younger brothers of Creation’. We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn – we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.”

This makes so much sense to me, perhaps because I have been slowly coming to this realisation myself. When I think about the other species to learn from, I am naturally drawn to think of other mammals that we could look to for inspiration such as other keystone species like the wolf or the beaver, but I realise as I think more about it, the trees, who seem to hold such steady wisdom and are bestowed with a gift of communication with numerous other species would be good teachers for us. Certainly oak trees in particular have helped me with acceptance of what is and what will be and, I am sure there will be far deeper lessons if I spent more time with them. The hornbeam tree has taught me self acceptance and how to be deeply grounded. The humble bramble is another plant that has fascinated me (whilst trying to restore them to, what I consider, a more manageable state of balance) at how resilient they are. Their ability to put out tap roots along their stems allows for greater access to nutrients as well as improving its survival chances reminds me not to, metaphorically, have all my eggs in one basket, Then, providing not only its nectar for pollinators and fruit for numerous insects, birds and mammals, the bramble’s ability to spread its seeds with so many voracious appetites, explains why they are so ubiquitous: the more broadly you share, the more your seeds of expression will spread – another good lesson. Then there is the fungal network and all possible lessons from mycelium. The constant, steady hum of activity that goes on, mostly, underground in what feels to be a happy thrum of sharing, the importance of a healthy ground network ensures that this health can spread. I am going to continue exploring this idea of learning from other species and see what I discover and what surprises I may uncover along the way.

I am reminded of Lynn Margulis, who was a pioneering scientist who championed the idea that it was different species working together as a symbiosis that allowed them to evolve. She was highly critical of the neo-Darwin view that favoured the concept of competition between organisms rather than what she believed to be mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships. Whilst ridiculed by the scientific community at the time, her ideas have now been shown to be accurate. One of Lynn’s ideas was that bacteria have been around the longest and that they have much to teach us about survival and how we should behave and interact with each other in order for us to thrive. It seems obvious in many ways that other species have greater wisdom than we humans. The question is how do we actually learn from them and undo the biases we have unknowingly absorbed that prevent us from perceiving and then learning from these other species?

I think it must begin with reigniting our connection with awe and wonder as this will help us to fall in love with the natural world of which we are an integral part. Immersing ourselves in birdsong; to be captivated by the beauty of dappled sunlight finding its various ways through the canopy of an ancient woodland; delighting in the bursts of glorious colour coming from the first emerging spring bulbs that joyfully lift the surrounding greens and browns; or the breathtaking magnitude of rolling hills and mountains as they extend in every direction from your viewpoint, to name just a few; there are countless others if we zoom in or out with our choice of focal length. They all calm our nervous system, releasing hormones like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin, all making us feel good and helping us to reconnect to something we used to feel was very much part of us, but in more recent times, has begun to feel separate. Most of us have been brought up in a society that tells us we are superior, and we are now all suffering as a result of this feeling of separation from being a part of something so much greater than ourselves.

This sense of awe is wired into our DNA, it’s just that most of us have forgotten how to ignite it. Too busy to notice how glorious our world is, or too preoccupied by the media telling us how awful everything is, so we have forgotten to look with child’s eyes. Young children are permanently captivated by awe and wonder, they are frequently mesmerised by everything around them asking endless questions and revelling in delight, yet we adults seem to forget how to keep our own inner, awe-inspired child alive. Reigniting this sense of awe with our world allows us to remember how small and insignificant we are and, relatively, how briefly we are on this planet in this lifetime. With the humility that then follows, we are moved, able to feel love and respect for the world, and it helps us to see that we are simply a part of this intricate, complicated web, and we do not sit above it, but within it. Science has done wonders for delving deep into the naming or explaining of intricate small parts, but has done little to explain the interaction and interconnectedness of the whole; how little we actually know about the animism that exists in all things: rocks, rivers, mountains, plants, animals. Reverence and respect from knowing and understanding this allows us to grow in love with the natural world. With love in our heart, we want to protect the earth and everything that is a part of that breathtaking, exceptional beauty of which we are lucky enough to be a part. This expanded sense of love allows us to see beyond the confines of us as an individual and we can sense the bigger picture, and ourselves as part of the magical and intricate web. We need the earth and the earth needs us.

Without the veils of conditioning that tell us that we humans are the most important thing, we can meet the earth with all her staggering, irreplaceable, beauty. Reverence, love and awe shift our ethical orientation, encouraging care, sensitivity and mindful action to what we value. I believe this holds the key to profound systemic transformation and we can learn it from all the beings that exist around us, then we can follow their example and hopefully then, we can figure things out too.