Artwork like Angela’s icon series can evoke a biocentric awareness beyond the anthropocentric, or human-centered, views that are so prevelant in Western cultures. Cultivating an awareness of species beyond our own may help us to take steps towards mending the broken relationships that exist between our species and the rest of the the Earth community.

This month, as we celebrate Women’s History Month and explore the theme of Indigenous Ecological Wisdom, I have been returning frequently to readings from Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Her book weaves together perspectives from the Potawatomi Nation’s teachings, Kimmerer’s training as a botanist, and a deep, personal, poetic relationship with place, plants, and the more-than-human world more generally.

Within the wetlands, inland lake shorelines, and shallow rivers of northern Minnesota grows an aquatic grass which produces a nutrient-dense seed. Wild rice, or what the Ojibwe call manoomin, is an important food in the region and has become the focus of the Rights of Nature movement. It has sustained communities over thousands of years. It also happens to be one of my favorite foods. In this post, I reflect on my relationship to manoomin and how the Rights of Nature movement seeks to protect it.

Stories have always been at the center of my life. As a child, I read constantly—stories of animal intelligence (Koko the Gorilla), generosity (The Quiltmakers Gift), and creation (Old Turtle). I told my own stories through imaginative play, often outdoors. In my faith community, I heard stories of stewardship as a call to care for the earth. Stories and storytelling are deeply ingrained as part of our human experience, even from the youngest of ages, and these help expand our imaginations and understandings of the other-than-human world.

Something about the deep cycle of foods eaten, songs sung, healings evoked, and spirit-kinship renewed knits the human into the larger spiritual web of the living Earth community. That weave, that knitting, those nourishing connections manifest along the chain of life and are also very old.

January is a month of new beginnings. New year on the Gregorian calendar. New resolutions toward personal aspirations and goals. New hours of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere after passing through the winter solstice. New lengths of nighttime south of the equator. New possibilities to deepen relationships and flourish in a healthy community. New blog on the Living Earth Community website.