REVERENCING THE EARTH

By Donald Sutherland

Many First Nations people in North America are deeply rooted in a similar story of creation. According to Basil Johnston in Ojibway Heritage, “Kitche Manitou (Great Spirit) created the physical world of sun, stars, moon and earth. To the earth he gave growth and healing; to waters purity and renewal; to the wind music and the breath of life itself.” He breathed the breath of life into all animals, plants, rock, water, fire and wind — each with its own power and spirit. “To each he gave a spirit of life, growth, healing, and beauty.”

People were created last because we are dependent on all of creation. Although weakest of all the creations, people were given the gift of dreaming and visions. To Great Plains First Nation people, visions and dreams have long been an essential link to the sacred, to finding life purpose, to connection with soul-spirits such as the swift fox.

In contrast, the dominant culture in North America holds very little to be sacred, to be revered and held gently. Relentless advertising has convinced us that our dream, our mission is insatiable consumption.

Mainstream media keeps score for us with pictures and stories about new construction, new suburbs, new houses and new cars. Native grasslands, wetlands, forests and pristine mountain streams are seen as “waste” spaces that must be “developed” to create yet more symbols of growth and “prosperity.”

At an Endangered Species Conference in Winnipeg in late February, I had the privilege to hear Paulette Fox, a member of the Blood Tribe in Alberta, speak about past and present conservation work on her reserve.

The basis of their belief system is that everything comes from the land and that all creatures are sacred and holy. “We are not separate from what surrounds us. We are the lakes, rivers and streams,” she says.
Fox talked with deep emotion about the recent re-introduction of the swift fox on Blackfoot lands. “The Swift Fox Society goes back countless generations. The swift fox gave us food, songs and a sacred relationship used in prayer. We and the fox are one, each with a foot in the spirit world. We were entrusted with stewardship of all creatures and we are to proceed with reverence. We are guided by visions in dreams.”

Until 1750, the swift fox was plentiful on the great plains of North America. The little fox was a foundational soul-spirit and the subject of sacred teachings and songs. The onslaught of European settlement wiped out the swift fox, as it did the buffalo. (Imagine the trauma of watching your sacred creatures relentlessly slaughtered.)

In place of happy, peaceful dreams, Mother Earth is writhing with nightmares, among which are a warming climate, disappearing song birds, polluted oceans and escalating species loss.

We must reject economic measurements of progress such as GNP and embrace quality of life indicators of environmental health or illness.

Sutherland is a professional agrologist who divides his time between Saskatoon and Winnipeg, and farms in west central Saskatchewan.