“I’m afraid to even breathe.”

This, uttered in hushed tones, by a typically boisterous Australian fellow seated next to me in an open skiff, bobbing offshore from where a young female Grizzly Bear dines on a stick of breakfast mussels. 

Her name is Amber. She’s three years old, newly on her own after initial years living with her mother, Bella, and brother, Frank. At this point, Amber’s mom has new cubs of her own to teach and nurture so Amber is making her own way in the worId. I feel for her. I can relate to the life passage of leaving home and making my way in the world. And my skiff-mate is lost in awe.

The capacity to relate to the life conditions of other beings, by recognizing those conditions in our own experience, is distinctly human.

When I first heard the aphorism “Know thyself”, in my early 20s, it seemed such a meager goal. I thought: How hard can that be? and “What good is that in social activism?” Ha! I now realize that knowing ourselves is the only way we can know anyone else; human or otherwise. In fact, I suspect that coming to know ourselves is the true task of humanity, for which we are gifted the tool of self-reflective consciousness.

There’s no quick solution to the great unravelling that we’re witnessing right now. One thing is for sure: we humans are better than how we’re showing up at present and a new paradigm of relationship is being called forth. Let’s remember that our salty tears are reminders of our earliest ocean home and that our lungs, eyes and vertebrae were practiced over millions of years, by ancient beings long since passed, before those body parts evolved to human form. We’ve grown up through, and with, a mutlitude of species, to whom we owe gratitude. We humans are so much more magnificent than we are behaving!

Without exception, every degradation that we face today stems from a crisis of relationship; beginning with the relationship to ourselves and extending to all whom we deem “other”. If we resist tending the soil of our inner landscapes, we risk pushing external actions in the wrong direction, in spite of good intentions, and making matters worse. We cannot afford to do that.

This is how we become good humans – by honestly opening ourselves to a paradigm of relationship that affirms we belong together.

NB. I’m happy to say that Amber went on to successfully raise cubs of her own and continues to live in the same general territory as her mom.

Ethics are how we behave when we decide we belong together.

~ Brother David Steindl-Rast ~