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The phrase Mitakuye Oyasin translates generally as "All are my relations". It is a declaration that we are not only all connected, but related. We are all family. And all means all, -- people, animals and all of nature. The earth is starting to make this brutally obvious to us. We have managed to do enough damage to create a new consciousness. The fact is -- a polar bear is standing on a melting ice floe that used to be part of a vast ice field. It is dawning on many people that this is not because of the polar bear, or the Arctic. The news is -- what is done in one part of the world can and does effect the entire globe, and al those living on it.
This general principle of Mitakuye Oyasin is not unique to Lakota people, but has its echoes in all major religions -- this clear sense that we are somehow all linked. Yet something so fundamental seems so easy to not live into. It is at once obvious and separate from most western actions. It was almost too remote for us to understand it when we were told about a hole in the ozone layer. But now that we can see a polar bear on an ice floe, the truth is harder to resist. We are all connected. Now, how to convince the world that we people are all related, too, all part of the same thing, all responsible, each for the fate of the other.
The intricacy of the web of relatedness is at once simple and almost impenetrably complex. Trying to draw a line from the head of lettuce that I used today that would show along its length all the people/places/animals/agricultures that this purchase touched would be almost impossible. Yet somewhere on this grand spiderweb of global interrelatedness is my little head of lettuce. It is connected and sending out ripples of impact across the web of life.
Understanding the spirit of this connection is massive. Let's take it down a step and look at our own bodies - even in this area we stumble over the notion that the pieces of us are somehow connected to and impacting the whole. Eat butter, add to the body's fat. Add to the body's fat, risk the ailments associated with that. And that ailment affects all who love you. It affects work you may never get to do, dreams you do not get to fulfill, help you do not get to give -- all those ripples you may have sent out.
Then let's lift the notion to the human community -- the woman raped in Iraq is my sister, your sister. The man who raped her is our brother. This isn't just a national issue. It is a family tragedy.
If such a thing happened in our own blood family, we would understand it differently, take action differently. Why? Because we "get" that these people with our name "belong" to us in some way. We believe that they deserve our care. Our attention. Our correction and our compassion.
Illegal immigrants? What if they had our last name?
The starving baby in the Sudan. What if she had our last name?
Children who cannot read, do not love themselves, raise themselves on the streets, get sold into sex slavery -- what if they were the ones vanishing from our holiday gatherings without a trace?
What would we do then?
They do have our name. So does the polar bear. So does the rainforest. So does the dog in the pen at the shelter. So do the ocean and the icebergs.Mitakuye Oyasin.
I know this feels heavy, ponderous, impossible. But remember the idea in reverse. The good we do ripples out as well. Every act of kindness, of compassion, of understanding --- every extra moment when we "get it" about the world and live with mindfulness and goodness changes the world.
We may never be able to unravel the complexity of inter-relatedness of the universe. But if we just acknowledge it and send what goodness we can into the world, we help heal the wounds.
Try this exercise -- I use it to remind myself of the connectedness that
