When we start to see ourselves as part of the web of life rather than outside or above it, it changes our relationship with the world around us. Here's why it's important to thank nature daily and how to get to know the nature around you. 🌳
When was the last time you had a change moment—an"aha" realization that set you down a new path? This April, in honor of Earth Month, mindbodygreen is hoping to inspire these moments through thoughtful storytelling about our planet. Welcome to , where you'll find personal stories, expert-backed tips, and thoughtful primers that will change the way you think about what sustainability really means and how to put it into practice.
This placement of ourselves at the center, elevating our own needs and wants, is a form of anthropocentrism so common it often goes uncommented upon, as it's been deeply normalized by modern culture. Yet not all cultures have revolved around the needs of individual humans. Many ancestral cultures, in fact, prioritize the needs of the Earth out of an appropriate recognition that we are small, and she is feeding us. , which means"feeding place" or"that which feeds us.
If you go out in nature and recognize an individual bird, in that moment of recognition, a tiny, energetic thread forms between you. Each time you go out into nature and recognize that animal, this thread grows a little bit stronger until it becomes a cord, and then a rope. When I first encountered this awareness, it opened my mind. It had never occurred to me that it was possible to recognize an individual bird.
We both noticed that one particular hummingbird kept coming back to the same branch, about the width of a pencil, on a small crepe myrtle tree. We moved closer to the tree until we were 6 feet away. The birds were too fast to track through the air, but reliably, the bird returned to this same branch three, four, and five times. On perhaps the sixth return, my daughter and I realized that the bird was missing several feathers on its facial ruff. It was like he had a bald patch in his beard.