Relationships Are Key

by Mirabai Bush




Perhaps it goes without saying in 1995 that for a "culture" to be sustained, it must include and be relevant for everyone. At this point the dominant cultures on the planet have not only excluded but have oppressed many people, who must now be listened to with truly open minds.

My experience in development projects in Central America has led me to understand how most of the environmentally damaging practices that have led to erosion, water pollution, loss of forests, and resulting changes in weather patterns have not come, at least among the Mayan and most other indigenous people, from lack of respect or understanding of the needs of the Earth, and not from a selfish overconsuming materialism, but rather from the pressures of poverty (in particular, the distribution of land). In short, feeding ones family this month becomes more immediate and more important than maintaining the forest or using labor-intensive organic farming methods to restore the soil.

I have seen that changing these behaviors in the South is linked to changing the behaviors of consumption in the North, and that until we meet together in openness and develop trust, neither is likely to happen.

It is possible. I have seen engaged partnerships between institutions and between individuals develop, and I have seen them become the basis for deep, innovative, and long-lasting change.

Therefore, I am concerned--

  1. That we build a diverse international network of trusting relationships from which we learn how our different and apparently conflicting needs and understandings can become a constructive dialog from which we learn methods and strategies for living together on and with the planet.

  2. That we are willing to explore the deepest levels of our personal as well as community wisdom; that we are willing to acknowledge how much we do not know and encourage each other to sit in that unfamiliar seat of not knowing, opening ourselves to the immediate reality from which new possibilities may emerge.

  3. That we recognize that a sustainable culture on the planet involves cultivating a new kind of power--power with, rather than power over; power to express and experience freedoms that have already been agreed to in constitutions and international agreements but not realized in local situations; power that arises from deep understanding rather than what is superficially learned or taken from others.


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