Learning from nature
Hi <<First Name>>,
Today is Easter Sunday. Perhaps you celebrate the day. Perhaps you don't. I personally find myself rejoicing at the new life that I see sprouting up around me. For instance the sweet little bird in the image above. I believe it's a Bewick's Wren from its markings. Every day I see a mom and dad foraging on the ground for twigs and then hopping along the fence line to then fly up beneath the eaves to complete the nest currently under construction. They are hard at work!
There's something enormously nourishing to see how nature knows so fully how to be itself .. how the seasons cycle around and things continue as they instinctively know how to do. This little bird knows its way .. it knows how to build home, nurture and instruct its young, and live in beautiful harmony with its surroundings. I find nature to be my most beautiful, faithful and holy teacher.
No matter your particular beliefs or persuasion, I wish you a beautiful day. I pray there are beautiful and holy sights wherever you look.
photo by Ian Baldwin
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A Balanced Understanding of NEEDS
If your default view of the world and what constitutes a ‘good life' is through a human-centric lens, you will inevitably understand ‘needs' through that same lens. You will devise strategies to meet your needs and the needs of those you care for while paying little heed to the needs of the non-human life upon which your human life is one hundred percent dependent. In a sane and healthy culture, it’s understood that it is far more important to instruct people on how to develop a deep relationship with the natural world than to have them focus on their personal needs. We can best serve life when we understand our role to be one of custodianship rather than resorting to being customers and vendors. Being in ‘right’ relationship with life IS ESSENTIAL to all life. We have an obligation to first attend to the needs of life. Without that we are all in peril.
In my 20 years of teaching NVC, I have become increasingly aware at how the human-centric lens that western consumer culture promotes actually compromises the capacity for NVC to contribute to enriching life in a genuinely deep and sustained way. Too often the very real needs of life beyond the human have no place to appear in our human-centric conversations about social justice, resolving conflict, getting our children or employees to cooperate, etc.
It was never made apparent to me as a child or later as an adult that my own well-being derived from the health of all that sustained me and that it was therefore my/our responsibility to make the needs of life a priority. Mostly what has been sold to me is the ‘right’ I have to pursue the lifestyle that I choose irrespective of the needs of life. I have been taught that when things aren’t going well for me, it’s mostly because I’m not attending to my needs and implementing effective strategies to fulfill them.
It’s so easy to come to NVC in search of ways to attend to one's own needs. And yet caring for our needs, while not to be entirely dismissed or somehow considered wrong, simply does not encompass the realities of life on planet earth and the very real and symbiotic nature of our relationship with the natural world. Marshall Rosenberg wrote that, "Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are in fact one and the same.” I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of ALL OF LIFE are in fact one and the same.
When we fall out of right relationships with the very life that sustains our lives, we can expect to suffer as a result of the disconnection. Traumas, syndromes, mental illnesses, addictions, deep loneliness .. things that appear to be a symptom of our personal needs not being met (only part of the story) .. can more accurately be understood as being symptomatic of the normalized and habituated violences and ruptures in which our lives are embedded.
That antidote at this point appears to be this: we must prioritize the needs of life and adjust our lifestyles, habits and wishes accordingly. We must develop a life-centric lens and become the custodians we were meant to be.
© Rachelle Lamb
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An important reminder in this 14 minute video that there are ways of being in deep communion that predate Christianity. Click on image to view.
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A Poem
I spend my days alone
Talking to no one
I swear it’s true ..
I’ve become a recluse
Perhaps even a tad bitter
And now holy redemption
My love for life resurrected
Because I’ve finally met her
Pigeon plum tree
Coccoloba diversifolia
But her true name is
Spring’s Heavenly Queen
Unabashed joyful seductress
She who delights in
Teasing the large swath of sky
See me naked she says!
Waving her frothing arms
Bending softly into God’s exhale
What a generous lover she is!
Holding nothing back
Her vivid imagination bursting
Into an avalanche of white petals
She is the quintessential bride
And me, her faithful admirer
She turns to me with
Her thousand fragrant eyes
Admonishing me ..
You spend your days alone?
Really??
© Rachelle Lamb
photo: Rachelle Lamb
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Important dates:
15% DISCOUNT on accommodations at Hollyhock for upcoming May 17-22 trainings ends on May 1st (come conditions apply). Consider joining me and others wanting to immerse themselves in NVC in one of the most beautiful natural places on the west coast of Canada.
Nonviolent Communication at Hollyhock May 17-22.
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Thank you for reading. Until the next time, may you and your kin be well ..
For information about what an in-house training can do for you and your group, simply email me.
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