Richness of seeking our cultural identity
Sometimes we might find ourselves soul searching and trying to identify who we are based on our race, nationality, or the current country in which we reside or our lineage originated. This can be such a wonderful port of entrance into self understanding and a way to wash ourselves in richness that expands beyond our limited knowledge accumulated over a lifespan versus a lineage that may span centuries. What we come to find can be of such telling depth that it fulfills a great well of need.
There is this opportunity for example, to say "my grandmother knew to garden so perhaps that is where I gained a fondness of plants in my home". We can also investigate and explore a long standing tradition that originated with our ancestors in order to understand their world and to know whether it suits us to bring those practices into our lives as well. The hope is that we weed out what make our lives better in the process and helps us to know ourselves more adequately.
Our natural identity
All of this searching can be very gratifying, but there are even broader ways of feeling that we belong, A way of seeing that we are a part of the narrative of the broader world. Yet, we sometimes forget this way of connecting as we push onward from one place or obligation to another. Thankfully when we do come to decide to explore this bond, the opportunity is there awaiting our discovery. This way of belonging and this mutual point of connection comes to light when we grow our bonds to the natural earth which is always around us. It is forever holding us to it, encircling us in the breath of wind that also moves through the trees, reminding us through the presence of every plants and even the birds that we hear and see.
We are also a part of this natural place. To this earth we have been born, and our bodies are composed of the very essential qualities the planet and the cosmos has to offer. Our nurturing mother is as much the stuff of the soil as is the ebbing and flowing sea and everything in between as we. Yet, from a human perspective we are often caught in in the things that make us unique and that make our interpersonal world operate. In this way we sometimes inadvertently respond to nature as a place of harvest or we see the natural world as the provider of set of things in which we find utility.
Although there is some truth in thinking that fruit from the vine is ours to eat, the wood of the tree is ours to chop down and use for building, some would say that this separation from nature versus communing with nature as an extension of ourselves can be damaging. Conversely, coming to realize that we are bonded to nature can be very healing. We can find that can understand ourselves by the ways of the water, because we are made of the same essentials. We can also see the livelihood of the trees in the sun and breeze and note that we too are affected in some of the same ways by these mightier forces. Yet, we too are nurtured much the same by the vitamins from the sun, the energy lent from the soil and our thirst quenched and bodies cleansed by the water from the sea.
Claiming that cultural of natural belonging
We don't have to put big efforts in to yield wonderful results when we decide to explore nature as one of our cultures of origin. We can simply appreciate the splendor of a blossoming tree or enjoy seeing squirrels spiral around the base of a tree. Taking those simple steps to just spend time in nature getting to know the beauty, mystery and wonder in a local park can serve to heal our need for belonging a great deal. If we begin to see ourselves as a part of this natural world, we can start to sense a unification that we all seem to so desperately need. Nature remembers us as a part of this mutual home, but are we ready to claim our birthright as an earth born being mutually? It is our choice as to whether we are ready to embrace this whole new journey of self-knowing!
