Introducing Walking with the Land
At the heart of this blog is the exploration of our relationship with the Earth. This exploration is about both our relationship with the Earth as individuals and how we relate as a broader society. The blog also explores the impact of this relationship on our daily lives and how this relationship could potentially change. This central theme is the DNA of the blog and will guide the content, the questions we explore and how we try to write.
Why our relationship with the Earth?
The blog has been created by a small collective based in the UK. We have each experienced being disconnected from the Earth by living as part of a Western post-industrial society. This manifests itself in different ways for each of us. We each have major questions about how this is impacting our own lives, and how it is impacting our society and culture as a whole. The more we have explored, the more we find that our relationship with the Earth impacts our wellbeing, the wellbeing of our society, and through these, the potential survival of our species and many others.
Each of us concluded that our relationship with the Earth is an area for urgent attention. Yet in our experience, this central concept is lost in the noise of conventional environmental and social discussions.
A bigger issue than you might think
The breakdown of our relationship with the Earth is a major loss in its own right, for individuals and society as a whole. There is increasing evidence that disconnection from nature is a significant factor in mental and physical illness. Indeed, the health benefits linked to access and connection to nature were recognised afresh by all of us during the Covid pandemic.
Yet it is also our view that this disconnection lies at the heart of many of the crises facing humanity today. For example, by being disconnected from the Earth we are able to pollute the atmosphere as we see it only as a sink for our waste - and this is spiralling us into climate chaos and chronic illness from air pollution. Exploring the links between our disconnection and the crises humanity faces will form an important part of the blog.
From destruction of the Earth’s ecosystems to ever widening inequalities and social fragmentation, humans have created crises by acting from a place of disconnection and ignorance. Often, we also try to solve crises from this same place of disconnection, which only creates more problems. As the philosopher Bayo Akomolafe asks:
“What if our response to the crisis is the crisis?”
Our disconnected response means we continue to foster more problems, even when we are trying to do good. Just one example is the impact on air pollution of the widespread rollout of diesel cars in Europe which was intended to reduce CO2 emissions.
By addressing the root cause of these crises - our disconnection from the Earth - we stand a chance of having a meaningful impact and stopping the cycle of crises. It may be counterintuitive to be thinking about relationship(s) when the symptoms are gas concentrations in the atmosphere or the dying of forest ecosystems, but root causes and symptoms are often very distinct. We have tried and failed to solve our problems at the symptom level. It’s time to work at the root cause.
Learning from others
An awareness of our relationship with the Earth was once at the heart of how all human cultures viewed the world. There are many indigenous people who have never forgotten this. Many and varied cultures which still embody this dynamic, some thriving, others barely hanging onto existence. Some seek to share this wisdom as they feel that the world needs it, but those of us in the globalised world rarely want to listen. Yet this wisdom is a vital guiding hand. Only we can restore our relationship with the Earth, but accepting help from others to navigate through periods of challenge will help us avoid some of the worst obstacles.
To receive such wisdom we have to come to this interaction openly and with awareness of potential dangers - such as those of cultural appropriation. To avoid this we have to only receive what is freely offered. We must work from within the culture we inhabit, and not seek to replace it with the cultures of others. We also need to recognise that our cultures have sought to change and silence the peoples who hold this wisdom. We cannot change this history, but we must learn about it if we are to act with the grace and sensitivity that is required.
Accepting gifts of wisdom from others requires a conviction that other cultures can hold wisdom and knowledge that our cultures do not. This is strongly counter to the dominant narrative of the relative value of cultures. It is also a complete reversal of the development dynamic whereby we have so often forced change on others.
Learning from others is not a simple act, but it is a hugely powerful one. It can enrich ourselves and also those who give the gifts of wisdom. It also upends the power dynamics that have done so much to damage in this world. It is always worth the effort, so long as the effort is made with humility.
Photo by Eyasu Etsub on Unsplash
Lessons from Science
There are other lenses which we can use to question our relationship with the Earth. A particularly powerful one is science. Science is our society’s most acknowledged way of knowing. Where many people might question the value in learning from other peoples, relatively few would dismiss scientific discovery out of hand. This is a powerful attribute.
Science is a magnificent tool which is producing ever more evidence about the world and how we are part of a dynamic living system. For example, science is now revealing that trees communicate with each other, that the majority of relationships in our ecosystems are collaborative, and how humans were only one of a number of hominids. Each of these findings has immense relevance to how we live with the Earth. They call into question long held assumptions and ask us to look afresh. This is only scratching the surface of recent discoveries - every day new learnings are shared that, if properly attended to, can help us move beyond our disconnection.
Science cannot be the only reference point here, however. Science has limitations which are often ignored. For example, the scientific method is based on the assumption that observation does not change what is being observed, which we strongly question. We as humans both impact on what is being observed, and can never see without a human perspective. Pure objectivity cannot be achieved. But this is not a problem - it just means we need to recognise that science tells part of a story, not the whole story.
Science is a very powerful way of knowing, but we need to draw on other ways of knowing to complement it.
Beyond thinking
To this end, we also seek to incorporate other ways of knowing. Science draws most on our rational, thinking capacity. But we can also sense (touch, see, hear etc.), feel and intuit. All of these are valid ways of exploring our world and our relationship with it. These ways of knowing have been largely side-lined over recent centuries, the period when we have most dramatically become disconnected from the Earth. This suggests that we could have much to learn from using these ways of knowing to explore our relationship when combined with the insights of scientific thinking.
This is a challenge for any of us brought up in a culture that has so completely focussed on thinking, such as we have. However, a balance of ways of knowing is often practiced by indigenous peoples and we can learn much from those who wish to share their understanding.
Humility and Hope
We hope that this blog can be a place to share ideas about what a healthy relationship with the Earth can look like in our society, both in broad terms and in our daily lives. We acknowledge that we individually do not hold any of the answers and have a lot of learning to do ourselves, so we want to include a broad range of perspectives. We will seek out the voices of those who are most negatively affected by the current system we live in, as these are the voices that need to be centred if we are to address our crises in a deep and just way. We especially want to create space for the perspectives of those who live in healthy relationship with the Earth and are so often marginalised.
By listening to different voices, exploring varied ways of knowing and reflecting honestly on our own experiences, we can reimagine our relationship with the Earth. We invite you along this journey with humility and always remain open to your wisdom and perspectives. Through this shared exploration, we can build new ways of being in the world and find ways to act with wisdom and hope, so that we may turn the tide on the immense crises facing our global community.
