Our happiness is linked to the well-being of others, both humans and nature. Get out where you can, or imagine nature from your current location and meditate with us to be a better steward of nature.
Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/y3yfjsxa
Summary of the episode
A meditation on how we can give back to the Earth, led by Indigenous activist, artist and scientist Dr. Lyla June Johnston.
How to do this exercise
- Sit and take four deep breaths to honor the four sacred directions.
- Stop for a moment, go outside and see what life produces.
- Pay attention to the little things – a birdbath that provides birds with a safe place to drink and bathe.
- Think about how you can give life a small gift. Perhaps you could plant fruit or nut trees that will feed you, your neighbors and the wildlife around you.
- After this meditation, think about how you can make this happen. You could order a bird bath from your local feed store.
- Think of the birdbath metaphor. A birdbath is a human creation. And it is a gift to the birds. It does us no good at all. It is really just a gift to a species outside of our own.
- Consider that this is man’s true mission: he is born to be giver, steward and guardian of the earth.
Guest moderator: Dr. Lyla June Johnston is an Indigenous activist, artist, and scholar from the Naaneesht’ezhi Taach’iinii clan of the Diné Nation.
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Transcript:
ROOF KELTNER Welcome to Happiness Break, I’m Dacher Keltner.
In the scientific literature on happiness and on our show, we talk so much about our individual well-being. And of course that’s valid, but the truth is that our own happiness is linked to the well-being of others, not just people but also our natural environment.
We know from research that time spent outdoors, particularly in biodiverse areas, has a restorative effect on us, reducing stress and rejuvenating both our minds and bodies.
In today’s happy break we consider how We can also serve nature better. We are led by indigenous activist, artist and scientist Dr. Lyla June Johnston (lie-la).
So, if you can, go outside somewhere. You may have to pause for a moment to get there. Or if you can’t go outside right now, you can just imagine a place that is dear to you and do this meditation in your mind’s eye.
…If you’re ready, here’s Lyla June.
LYLA JUNE Greetings, my relatives and my people. Before we begin this meditation, I invite you to sit and take four deep breaths to honor the four sacred directions.
My name is Lyla June. I am from the Naaneesht’ezhi Taach’iinii clan of the Diné Nation. We are also incorrectly known as Navajo, and I wanted to lead you through a little walking meditation today. Around your home, around your apartment, around your farm, around your dorm room, anywhere you are sitting today.
Most of our daily lives and infrastructure around us are designed by humans for humans. But in my research on indigenous peoples’ regenerative ecosystem design, I’ve noticed that many indigenous nations are specifically designed to support other forms of life. For example, people have created beautiful, massive mussel gardens by building rock tidal walls along the coasts of the Pacific Northwest. Extraordinary food systems can also be seen in Bolivian flood plains, where they create earthen embankments and bunds that capture floodwaters in reservoirs, pools, canals and ditches, and where they create raised fields, fruit trees and fish ponds, ensuring a year-round food supply, not just for humans but for the entire ecosystem.
And those are kind of the ways we can think about it: “Hmm, maybe we’re not the center of the universe. Maybe everything isn’t about Homo sapiens. Maybe Homo sapiens is just about creating life and creating a home for life.”
Take a moment and pick up your phone or whatever you’re using to listen to this podcast, or maybe you’re sitting in your car right now, maybe stop, go outside and look at the different things that make life worth living.
Maybe it’s the flowers that provide pollen for bees. Maybe there are trees that provide shade for squirrels or a home for woodpeckers.
And just start thinking about how you can give life a little gift.
Maybe it’s a birdbath that provides a safe place for birds to drink and bathe. Maybe it’s a birdhouse that provides birds with a small oasis of food before they continue their migration.
And just think about how you could capture the water that flows around you. If you live on a slope, maybe instead of letting all that water run off into nowhere, you could create a little pond, a little reservoir where you could plant different plants like cattails that would filter the water, or you could even plant gardens there, with corn, beans, pumpkins, which would then feed not only you but the animals around you. It might sound crazy to create a garden for animals, but that’s exactly what indigenous peoples did for tens of thousands of years.
Maybe all you can do right now is a birdbath, but I would suggest at least doing that.
And after you’ve done this meditation, think about how you can actually make this happen. You could order a birdbath from your local feed store. You could build a birdbath yourself. One from the materials you have on hand. But what is a birdbath? Think of the birdbath metaphor.
A birdbath is a human creation. And it’s a gift to the birds. It doesn’t do us any good at all. Maybe a little bird watching, but it’s really just a gift to a species outside of our own. And I think that’s really what we humans were born to do. We were born to give. We were born to manage. We were born to go beyond our own species and take care of the Earth.
We as humans are put on this land, on certain lands, you know, to take care of this particular land. And no matter where you are, from a native’s perspective, you are there to take care of the land around you. That is your divine duty.
I am a firm believer that when we give our hearts to the birds, the microbes, the megafauna, or even horses, buffalo, sheep, goats or whatever, when we give our hearts to a species that is not our own, because we are doing what would be the right thing for a homo sapiens, our spirits go up. We are not engaging in exploitation and we are conscious of the fact that we are not alone on this earth. We are conscious of the fact that we are not living in a vacuum. We are living in a community of life. And although the city is so good at creating this artificial reality where it seems like there is nothing but human life and that is all that matters, ultimately that is not true. Even the city exists within a community of life and when it forgets that, the city becomes less sustainable and more fragile and more precarious. So it is incredibly important to embed yourself in life and also become a gift to life.
