Why our spiritual growth may be the solution to climate change
For years, climate activists and scientists have been warning us about the state of planet Earth. Lately, the alarm bells are really going off louder and more frequently. A recent report announced code red for human-driven global heating. Whether you ‘believe’ in global warming or not, everyone, regardless of where you are in the world, can see and feel things are changing. More rains, heavy rains, floods, confused seasons, droughts, people needing to migrate because of it and so on.
It’s an interesting situation we find ourselves in, especially in the West. Like, rationally, we all know something needs to change but we have created lives and lifestyles for ourselves where it feels difficult to really take action to change something. It gives us the feeling we need to stop doing things or give up things we don’t want to give up or stop. I don’t want to focus too much on individual responsibility because there are especially many structural things that need to change. Weather manipulation happens and there are numerous companies, governments in this world that pollute and destroy way more than individuals do. But after so many years trying to influence the powers that be, not much is changing. And it is still in the way we consume and the choices we make in our lives, that companies and governments who pollute, will get their money or not. The more people make different decisions, the more influence this will have.
But why is it still so difficult for the majority to make different decisions?
What I have been observing is that a lot of times when we talk about climate change or climate crisis, we talk about something that is happening as if it is an external event that isn’t about us. When concerns are expressed, it is still about how climate change is affecting us. ‘The climate’ has become this very distant term we can’t identify with. It stays very rational, too. It is something outside of us. Something separate from us. Something happening to us, but not about us. This is so far from the truth. The climate, really, is about nature.
And it is we, who have lost connection with nature. Therefore we have lost connection with our nature. The ones who destroyed indigenous cultures and civilizations and peoples for the sake of money, expansion, power & ‘modern’ civilization are the ones who started this. Little by little, we literally distanced ourselves from nature. Even the little things that made our lives more convenient, comfortable and easy, made us drive further away from the straight and direct connection with nature and the natural world. And now, we have forgotten what it means to be part of nature. Nature is even alienating for some. We don’t understand it anymore. We have forgotten the depth and beauty of it all, the knowledge that is available to us when we do connect. Everything happening now in the world — especially around the subject of climate change — has to do with that we have forgotten that we are part of it all.
If you zoom out of the Earth, float around planet Earth, hanging up there, somewhere close to the moon, you see how all the different beings and nature elements are actually just like a system working together to keep it going. The Earth looks more like one single being. Yes, it contains numerous natural elements with different functions and purposes, but all one system, depending on one another and serving one another. We as human beings are part of that. “Rivers don’t drink their own water, trees don’t eat their own fruits” is a quote I have come across often. Another good quote I once read went something like this: “is a species really intelligent if it destroys the very thing it depends on to survive?”
As long as we can’t see that we are part of nature, too, we will not make choices that eventually benefit humanity and planet Earth. We will see nature as something separate from us and therefore something we can ‘own’, something we can ‘take’ or ‘destroy’ or ‘exploit’. We will keep on living in the illusion that we are separate from nature. We will think nature won’t hurt us personally, as we don’t see ourselves as part of it. Not understanding that if we don’t feel the hurt internally, we will feel it externally. This is what is happening now with ‘climate change’.
It is only when we truly understand that nature is alive, when we understand that everything we say or do affects other living beings, that change will happen. Otherwise we will find some temporary solutions but eventually we’ll fall into the same trap. The water that runs through the Earth, the streams, the rivers, the waterfalls, the oceans, they are living beings. The indigenous people understood this and still understand this. It is by showing respect to the waters, by keeping them clean, by acknowledging and thanking them, even offering something to them, that they feel seen. By understanding that we can’t only take, but also need to give back, we create balance.
It is by taking plants and trees as part of ourselves, that we can feel the pain when we cut them in excess. As long as we see plants and trees as objects, as something different from ourselves, it will be easy to continue what we are doing. We won’t understand that there is a spirit in that tree we need to respect and with whom we can interact. As long as we don’t understand that the rocks and stones on this earth are like our own bones, filled with sacred knowledge and wisdom, we will keep on taking, we will keep on mining in the same destructive way. As long as we don’t understand that the spirit of the wind brings messages and wants to be acknowledged, we will keep on misunderstanding.
The natural world will continue to be out of balance. We will feel this too externally -through climate change, for example. Because we are not feeling it within ourselves. Because we are disconnected and therefore take different actions than the ones we would take if we were connected. It is possible to live in balance, to live in harmony with all the different elements.
It is not the other beings in nature that need to change something. It doesn’t make sense to be angry at the Earth for an earthquake, angry at the waters for a tsunami or angry at the wind for a tornado. These are all messages. It is us, as human beings, who need to understand our place again. We need to understand we are not superior to other beings in the natural world and that we have no right to continue our destructive actions for our own benefit. I mean, we can. We can continue being these superior-feeling, egoistical, disconnected people. That’s a choice we have. But then the climate crisis won’t be reversed.
If we want to reverse it, it is time for us to tap into the spiritual dimension of it all. True change lies within ourselves, looking where we lost connection. Observing where we also have beliefs that we are not part of nature and how that reflects in what we do and decide in this world. True change lies in thinking about how we can connect with nature again. How we can see nature as alive, as part of ourselves again. Then, how we can act upon it. And how we can do this collectively.
Written by Nia.