essence of relating

Now I assume humans are of this earth, and in the last short while, say 12 000 years*, we have been experiencing a severe disruption. Now there are many words that represent many understandings of the significance of these disruptions. Most common to me these days working with the IDS students is the idea of the disruption of a peoples political economy, or our ability to decide how we meet our needs.
               (I won't argue this point, though I would love to!)
Now is an economy simply how we meet our needs? is it necessarily material? I think the major ramification of a global division of labour is that we have such a small interface with the earth. when we're disassociated with our food/clothes/water/heat/music/... some of us may gain material security/well being, but at what cost? We're only here until we die, so what do we value?
With a political economy, where we do decide, and the group is informed through living in the very place that they subsist and thrive, decisions will represent both human and ecological goals. Or in other words, as we live in relationship to the geographies we live our priorities for ourselves and 'everything else' become indistinguishable. Our decisions may reflect how we are the health of the soil, the cleanliness of the water, abundance of wild game, prevalence of food crops, ...

In this way our activities are less defining of who we are. For example people who are 'organic farmers' can be understood as people aware of their immediate, intimate, ultimately sacred relationship with all that is. There is no division, no identity. "Sustainble builders' are another example often of people who understand relationship to place, and that we are also a manifestation of this place (earth, or more local/specific) and that our choices, to build with mud and straw, is not actually a choice but the actualization of our relationship with ourselves as part of this earth. Plastic siding and tar shingles are cheating ourselves, hurting ourselves. Pesticides are irrelevant, as they poison the insects, we poison ourselves.

I am excited to live as fully as possible. I understand that this experience is the time between my birth and death and that my experience of life is a result of all previous experiences of life, and all life to come will be a result of our lives. What is our legacy, how are we living? creating life, restricting life?

Growing up in the church was a rich intellectual experience for me. Christianity shaped the ways in which I witnessed the world, looking for sacredness, or god, or meaning. This last 10 years or so has been journey's of exploration from ideas to life, to the immediacy of the sacred. Of this breath. Of this meal. Of intimacy. Silence. Sunshine. Wind. Swimming. Pleasure. I have been exploring the lived ideas of what/where/how god could be. In ways far beyond language ('god' language doesn't necessarily resonate with me, however I do value it as a starting point to explore our relationships).

Everyday I learn more. Sometimes from people, but more often that not, through my many relationships with life.

* Diamuruid O'Murchu, Religion in Exile