There is nothing spiritual in acknowledging our relationship to nature. All living things evolved to coexist with all other living things in their ecosystem and to thrive in conditions extant on this planet. It's the balance created by the interaction of flora, fauna, terrain, and weather that we have adapted to. It's not magical, it's simple logic.

Humans however can modify our environments and alter nature to some extent. This gives us an edge in survival, but also makes us less dependant on the natural world. However we seem not to realize that it doesn't make us impervious to our environment, nor does it free us from the need to protect it. We cannot rely on magical thinking or mythical deities to save us from our own ignorance.

For me I know I am part of the Earth's biome just like there are microbes that are part of my internal biome to destroy that is kind of stupid to say the least, try and preserve it for the next generation is a honorable goal and I know once I die that what material makes up me now will make up something else at some time later. And I'm okay with that.

I stop being tolerant of these "spiritualities" when they trump science, as in the observatory in Hawaii. It's all religious nonsense just like the abrahamic god.

I really like that. Humans have always had a need to explain creation. And if this one works to help save the planet I am all about it. I also do not understand why there is so much discord with the word spiritual. But again, I grew up with no religion so I have no baggage about the word.

As you know I am very much a part of this movement and have dedicated myself for 25+ years to this cause. But, I am willing to look at uncomfortable things that many want to deny. I was once a member of a local transitions group but dropped out after a few years because their view was too narrow and the chairperson did not want to hear anything outside her pre-concieved ideas. They are having a 3 day event and I helped set-up and attended a couple of talks (a talk on plastics is scary as hell). Several asked me to return but I will not as I won't be silenced.

A recent article in the National Geographic on cats ended with: "Long after humankind has faded from this planet, cats will surely be scratching around what ever's left of it. But if we give up on seemingly unresolvable problems, the world will grow more miserable, not less so. We can do better." I agree Only by facing inconvenient truths will we be able to see a way out.

Certainly gives us food for thought. I think at times we can give off an aura of dismissiveness when we hear the word “spirit “, in fact more than that, it’s almost like a collective knee jerk reaction. We don’t have all the answers and others may have ideas that are not so ridiculous as we think, the native Americans being such a group. We certainly do have a connectivity with nature and all other creatures, however where I differ from the above is in the belief of there being a creator. That does not make everything else he says not worthy of consideration,

There's a lot of meanings given to the word 'sacred' in the dictionary. Leaving out the ones with clear religious overtones, one meaning was 'to regard something with reverence'. I think it's fair to say the word has its root in religion but meanings change and/or expand over time. I like the Native American intuition about our relation with nature. Lovelock's Gaia concept was much the same thing. The Bible says little about that relationship as far as I know but there are some allusions to the result of living sinfully on the land, such as:

And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

• Leviticus 18:28.

As an environmentalist, I am attune to, spiritually aware of, the plight of the planet. The mosquitoe is as deserving of respect as the eagle. Is it not? I have little hope in the future of humanity.

The so called primitive people have an old wisdom, probably more empirical and with much superstition attached but a lot less harmful to the planet we live in. They would take only what they need and not cause the waste we currently do. Things we completely abandoned in name of what we call progress.

Call it spirit, call it life force, call it whatever you will. The gist of this is, he's saying we're all connected to each other and connected to the earth, and we have a common need to treat ourselves, each other, and the earth with care and respect, because this is all we have and if we mess it up there's nothing else. We are all stewards on this planet and need to not see ourselves as "us" and "them" in order for this to work... IMO, arguing and debating about our differences is not going to solve our problems. It hasn't worked for theists who separate and differentiate themselves; why are any non-believers who argue their way of non-belief is better than someone else's, any different?

It's all interconnected. Everything needs everything. We can see that this hypothesis works just by looking at it with our sorely inadequate eyes. Humans use words like "spiritual" to reinforce the meaning of this connection, but it's unnecessary. The math checks out.

Alan Watts really hammered the point home for me. "The universe is you, and you are the universe."

Or just listen to this bit. Don't worry, it's short.

I agree with the gist of the Hopi philosophy, except for the spirit part. We must understand that we are from and of the earth, and that it is the earth that sustains us. And, we must learn to live with the physical laws and principles of the earth and how to use those to sustain us. Otherwise, we destroy the earth as we know it and will kill our entire species. There is nothing spiritual about that -- just learning to live in harmony with the earth and its basic principles.

Even though I am a very staunch Atheist I still do everything I possibly can to live by the simple thing I learned from my long-lost Cherokee relatives in the late 90's, " Take ONLY what you truly need, share what you have with others and give back to the earth far more than you take."
Yes, every winter I go out and collect dead and fallen trees for firewood BUT I also ensure that I replace the trees I collect with far more seedlings each time after all, is NOT the Earth the mother to all things dwelling upon and within it, should we NOT care for this our mother?

For most of mankind's existence on earth, life was rough at best, painful at worst, generally miserable at most times.

Someone steps forward and offers a beautiful and bountiful place after death where everything and everyone is happy. Where you can talk to your dead ancestors in complete peace and harmony.

I, as a 200 bc starving human, racked by disease and pain hear this ..... I'm sold. Anything, even death is better than what I am expecting. I find scores of others who tell me, come on and be happy. Who would choose pain, misery, slow death over "happiness".

That's how it started, long before western religion.

That's how it continues.

To respect and take care of the environment is a far better use of personal effort than hoping your current miserable life will be better after you die.

You don't have to take care of the "world". Your household, yard, personal space is enough as long as others do the same.

whatever "reservations"..lol..

But I respectfully disagree with the guy with the really cool neck adornment. There is an end to life.. it's called death.

‘We’ have never claimed to “have all the answers.” That appears the difference between ‘us,’ and the religious. Spiritualism is the stepchild of Religion as Agnosticism is the stepchild of Atheism.

It further promotes a dancing-around-realitism to give any more credence to the primitive beliefs of indigenous cultures over the dominant or prevalent views promoted by their oppressors.

Using or promoting the myths of a minority stoops to the level of those promoting the views of dominant religious institutions pushing their agendas. Side with Science ..and the verifiable; not always the easiest (you’ve got to do some homework) or popular path - but constantly blazing & widening the trail to reality.

Simply because Native Mythology is laden in English with the term spiritual, it does not always carry the same meaning, even as red crow speaks it. It is a very flexible term in the minds of those using it. It vacillates between "emotional, compassionate and actual spirit beliefs.

THIS "We are here on earth only a few winters, then we go to the spirit world. The spirit world is more real then most of us believe.
The spirit world is everything." Is a straight up religious notion with no basis in fact, a wish think which underlies which bleeds over to the notions Red Crow promotes.

"You should treat all things as spirit, realize that we are one family. Its never something like the end. Its like life, there is no end to life”--to me this means "everything in nature has an intrinsic value which we need to respect for our own survival."

I do not hold beliefs in "afterlife" "Grandfather God" or "a spirit world", so if I treated all things as spirit I would ignore the world.

I love nature, spent most of my life drenched in it in rural and wilderness areas. I do not for one second think nature loves me. It is eating us all as we speak. The CYCLE of life seems endless to us, birth, growth, reproduction, death, round and round.

When Red Crow says there is no end to life, HE believes he lives, as a spirit, beyond death. I see zero evidence for such a notion other than centuries of tradition.

We DO need to be more mindful of our environment. Personally, I can do without the "spirit" stuff, but I agree with the need to live in concert with nature.

It depends on the belief, Indiians in the Pacific NW believe in Sasquatch, that belief doesn't make it true. Same like saying the spirit world is everything or that watervand air are sacred, i call bullshit on that.

All religion is cockamamey! Be it Stone Age, bronze Age, or Iron Age in origin! No exceptions!

It appears to me that the main difference between the animist type religions of the native Americans and the Abrahamic religions is that the former is inclusive and the other is exclusive. Animists believe they are part of and not separate from nature whereas the others believe that humans are separate and superior to the rest of nature. God gave man all that is in the world to use as he wished etc. Unfortunately we are now finding to our cost that this approach may eventually mean the demise of mankind which for the world as a whole may not be a bad thing.

... waa going to commit in addition to my copied info, but have to get back to it later.

Pantheism (a belief system in which God is equated with the forces of the universe) or Deism (a belief system based on a nonintervening creator of the universe), as was advocated in the rationalistic philosophy of religion of western Europe from the 16th to the 18th century, is not appropriate in studies of nature worship in preliterate cultures. [britannica.com]

The problem with earth based spirituality is that it essentially leaves you earth bound, thus neglecting the much greater cosmos that expands to near infinity. A somewhat contrasting view of spirituality comes from a rather obscure book, "Star maker" by Olaf Stapleton. Although it is typically consider a staple of modern sci-fi because it puts forth a lot of concepts that are at first mind boggling, it contains an undeniable spiritual aspect and critique of society.

In this world view, spiritual is more of an idea of personal and philosophical development, akin to the ability to perceive and understand ones place in the world and criticaly understand what it all implies, acting as a compliment to science.

One of the critiques I have about the native American belief is that massive Geo engineering projects are not justified. Imho if we want the world to be a certain way we should make it a certain way deliberately. I don't think the future of humanity is tied to this rock. When you consider that survival elsewhere is even possible, the views of the native Americans fades into obscurity.

You can’t forget what you never knew in the first place.