Commoning Food Sovereignty Workbook

We have a different creation story than Westerners. You have two stories. In the first one, God created the Earth and gave his chosen male people dominion over women, all other life, and Earth. In your second story, creation happened within a microsecond some 14 billion years ago, the Big Bang. Everything that came after that moment merely unfolded the potential of those initial conditions according to the laws of cause and effect, a process that will continue until the end of time. Both stories strongly influence the Western worldview.

We hold creation as an ever-changing, dynamic flux of reality that lies within all beings, Earth, all forces, and processes. We have a relationship with this flux of creation, the Great Spirit, that which makes us one within the sacred Earth Interbeing.

Within this ongoing creation, the Earth Interbeing balances chaos and order through interrelationships, a constant give and take of energy, information, resources, and caring. These interactive interrelationships have greater importance than material forms.

From a single virus to the whole Earth Interbeing, life survives and thrives because it adapts to ever changing conditions. We find ways to preserve and renew the dynamic harmony and balance of life within the creative flux. The Earth Interbeing dances to the rhythm of the spirit.

Without this precious balance between chaos and order, life ceases. Imbalances may cause conditions to change too fast for life to adapt; or large relational networks and systems of the Earth Interbeing may suffer devastating damage; or a disease within interrelationships may disrupt flows of energy, information, resources, and caring. Without this balance between chaos and the order of life, interrelationships, and forms of being dissipate and dissolve back into the flux.

At the root of adapting to this constantly changing balance, we find caring, both an attitude and a direction. The Earth Interbeing harmoniously cares for the Earth Interbeing, creating a synergistic outcome for the planet, beings, and forces, held together by a vast array of interrelationships, networks, information flows, and interdependencies. The ongoing survival of the Earth Interbeing within the creative flux depends upon this caring within all relationships.

We consider reciprocity as the fundamental law of Earth Interbeing. Every being receives a constant flow of gifts: sunlight, water, air, soil, place, food, seed, warmth, healing, shelter, food, companionship, relationships, love, and the spirit, to mention a few. Every gift we receive comes from a sacred being, a being with its own love of life, its own knowledge, its own intentions, its own sacred offerings that it gifts others.

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The I Ching teaches us what is important in life. It gives us insights into the fundamental issues of our lives and instructs us on how we can nourish the virtues necessary to connect with the spirit and to manifest its ways within our lives and in the world. People who consult the I Ching have a complex relationship with it. Many approach the I Ching as a spiritual teacher. However, the I Ching shares more than wisdom; through its readings, it offers a conversation.

Louise for the past several years has worked on her own I Ching commentaries, a collection of hexagram essays, which she calls The I Ching of Interbeing, a project, she says, remains very much a work in progress. You can access her I Ching commentary at wayofhumanity.net

We asked the I Ching what it wanted to share in its third Meat, Complicity and Thou reading. We received from the I Ching Hexagram 1 with a moving line in the 3rd place. This appears below, using Louise’s I Ching hexagram essay.

Hexagram 1 – Creative

Unceasing power.
Boundless.
Entire.

The hexagram represents the Creative and its powers. No fixed condition within the universe bounds the Creative. As the all-encompassing Creative power, we call it sacred. As the sacred within life, we call it spirit.

The Creative has no form. It makes itself known through its all-powerful creativity. Its great laws subject the sacred Earth Interbeing to its sacred ways

We experience the Creative as the mystery, the unknowable yet known. We have no way to apprehend the Creative except through the power of its laws, its deep love and beauty, and our sacred relationship. It has no form nor measurement. We have no language to speak of the Creative, yet it speaks to us within our hearts.

The Creative extends and transforms, causing all things to flourish. We experience the never ceasing flux of the creation as change. Change does not impede but serves as the means to make the potential actual. The stages of change unfold in a clear sequence: first the manifestation of the Creative and then the conservation of Creation. The Creative powers the cyclic forces of change on which life on Earth depends.

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by louise

[Note: In this essay, the words we, us, and our refer to white Americans (U.S. residents) who benefit from colonial privileges derived from the enslavement of Africans, the theft of land from Native peoples, and their ongoing discrimination. Imperium denotes the global corporate-state empire of Western Europe and North America and its continuing colonialism.]

The spiritual path to overcome our complicity with what harms has three main practices. Last time we looked at avoiding complicity with the harmful consequences of living beyond planetary ecological boundaries by reducing consumerism. Now we turn to the second practice: undoing our exceptionalism by overcoming our arrogance.  (See the box below for examples of arrogant behavior).

Feelings motivate behavior, and our behavior manifests feelings. Deep caring for the Earth Interbeing depends upon feelings of love and gratitude for our interrelationships with the Earth and other beings. However, the Imperial ways of living separate us from the sacred and disconnect us from others, all life, and the Earth through its culturally-embedded beliefs in white exceptionalism and the arrogant and hostile feelings it generates.

The plague of great inequality and divisiveness inflicts the world. Privileged people do not face and resolve critical problems that threaten their privileges, leaving problems to fester and worsen. Once separation has reached the extreme, the task of reuniting presents itself. (For more on how our privileges advantage us and disadvantage people of color, see here).

The obstructions of arrogance, hostility, and selfishness block our unity with the spirit and Earth Interbeing.  Life motivates us to bite through these obstructions by imposing ever greater levels of suffering until we finally exert ourselves to put an end to our problem behaviors and return to the ways of the spirit. If we persistently ignore a life lesson, we suffer increasingly severe consequences for our wrong-doing.

Only those free of arrogance and the willingness to harm others for self-benefit, who persevere in taking care of the sacred Earth Interbeing, can create the conditions necessary to overcome exceptionalism and the corporate-state dynasty of the Imperium. Unexceptional people know how to bring to life the ways of the spirit by constantly yielding to what benefits all and the Earth.

We have the responsibility to care for the Earth Interbeing, which necessitates us to heal ourselves of our exceptionalism and complicity with what harms. We cannot struggle against our exceptionalism and complicity directly as that will entangle us more deeply in them: we cannot solve a problem by using the hostility and arrogance that caused it. Only through the spiritual path of love and Earth Interbeing can we heal ourselves from the disease of exceptionalism.

As soon as we sense within ourselves arrogant beliefs and feelings, we must recover our harmony by reconnecting with the Earth Interbeing and spirit. Healing begins when we know that caring for the Earth Interbeing has a much greater importance to us than our exceptionalism and privileges. Through love, we have the courage to live in harmony with others, with the Earth Interbeing.

Until it becomes a way of life for us, we need to persistently turn away from the ways of the Imperium toward caring for the Earth Interbeing. Whenever we see ourselves feeling and acting like a privileged white person, we can step back and see the dangers of living that way.  We can choose a different path and a different way of responding to whatever situation had elicited our arrogant reaction. Our choice depends upon how deeply we know the dangers of living the ways of the Imperium and our courage to change ourselves.

It will take times for our abstract understanding of the interbeing of Earth and all life to deepen into love, into a feeling of family. And so this practice actually begins with our family, however we may define it. We practice living the harmonious ways of kindness, respect, wisdom, humility, and justice within our daily interactions with family. I now have greater awareness of the many ways I have acted out my arrogance in my family. Yet, once I prioritized caring for its harmony and balance, I could apply those behaviors to ever wider circles of relationships.  See here for more on how to do this practice.

It takes a persistent effort to set aside hostility and arrogance. Only through holding a sacred love within our hearts for Earth Interbeing can we find the strength to face and move through exceptionalism and complicity with what harms. Knowing that others share this path, however, encourages us to live this way. Some Aboriginal peoples have never stopped living this way, and we can find support from their wisdom. The reality that we have to start relating to others in humble and caring ways to make it through the omnicidal plague of the Imperium has my full attention.

The practice of overcoming our arrogance and hostility for others eventually opens the door to enacting within our community ways of living that ground themselves in the equality of all beings, the sacred Earth Interbeing. Before we can go through that door, however, we have to first lose our sense of privilege, our arrogance, our exceptionalism.

By resting within the spirit’s love, we always have a refuge to which we can retreat when we feel overwhelmed by the burdens of life. We preserve the connection between the mystery and Earth, between interbeing and ourselves, healing our separation through the mystery by connecting lovingly and humbly with everyone.

I’m back, Bessie the cow, the Earth Interbeing’s messenger.

This time I get to tell you about place. Here we enter a way of living most of you will have a difficult time getting your head around. Way back in European history, say 3,000 years ago, your ancestors would have a lived experience of place, a way of living extinguished by the early Imperium – the Roman Empire and later the Holy Roman Empire. Be that as it may, let’s do place.

To remind us, all beings share a single purpose: to care for the Earth Interbeing and all its ways of being. The wholeness of Earth Interbeing, its harmony and balance, depends upon the efforts of all beings to preserve, recover, and renew it.

A place inhabits us; we do not own it. We live within a place with all the other beings who also live there. Think about all the people who live in a place with you. Add all the pets, wildlife, farmed animals, plants, trees, and all the other life forms I have not mentioned who also live in the place.

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The way of Earth Interbeing.
Benefit from obeying and yielding to the spirit.

The I Ching has a deep history. Its roots go deep into the oracle bone divination of the Chinese Bronze Age, and its philosophical commentaries dating to the third century BCE secured its place as a central text for Chinese thought. It eventually found its way to the West.

The I Ching teaches us what is important in life. It gives us insights into the fundamental issues of our lives and instructs us on how we can nourish the virtues necessary to connect with the spirit and to manifest its ways within our lives and in the world. It guides us to know our common need to live in harmony with the spirit and builds our capacities to respond to life in ways that benefit all.

People who consult the I Ching have a complex relationship with it. Many approach the I Ching as a spiritual teacher. However, the I Ching shares more than wisdom; through its readings, it offers a conversation.

Louise for the past several years has worked on her own I Ching commentaries, a collection of hexagram essays, which she calls The I Ching of Earth Interbeing, a project, she says, remains very much a work in progress. You can access her I Ching commentary at wayofhumanity.net

We asked the I Ching what it wanted to share in its second Meat, Complicity and Thou reading. We received from the I Ching Hexagram 37 with a moving line in the 1^st place. This appears below, using Louise’s I Ching hexagram essay.

For the words balance, complicity, cosmos, exceptionalism, harmony, interbeing, virtue,  ways of the spirit, world, and worldly concerns, please visit the Glossary, which provides a brief definition of their meaning as used in this essay.

Hexagram 37 Way of Earth Interbeing

The Great Spirit weaves the ways and love for Earth Interbeing into the sacred tapestry of Creation. We know ourselves as Earth and a natural process that has led to our moment of being. The Earth Interbeing has the fundamental responsibility to maintain its dynamic balance and harmony to sustain its ongoing Creation and survival. All beings have the fundamental purpose of life to care for the Earth and all life. The well-being of all depends on that of the whole.

The relationship between the Interbeing and the Great Spirit serves as the model for all life, from family to community to place, to Earth Interbeing, to cosmos. Balance and harmony emerge from the morality of restraint and reciprocity. Kindness, calm, and sharing express the love of the Great Spirit that flows through Interbeing and brings about harmonious relationships. We learn the ways of the Great Spirit and pass this knowledge to rising generations.

The powerfully seductive path of exceptionalism denies the Great Spirit and promotes the delusion that we as isolated individuals have dominion over Earth Interbeing and the whole. Those who follow this dangerous path willingly harm other beings and the Earth for self-benefit and then ignore the devastating imbalance and discord they cause. When people act in ways that separate them from Interbeing and the Great Spirit, arrogance and fear take over the direction of their lives.

The wise choose to serve Earth Interbeing. The harmony and balance they promote come from knowing the sacred within all life and the Earth. By faithfully following the spiritual path, being and actions harmonize with the way of the Great Spirit and restore the balance of the whole.

We value the wholeness of the sage. It takes wholeness to fulfill our responsibilities of caring for Earth Interbeing and restoring its balance and harmony when disrupted. The sage persistently and firmly turns away from beliefs in its exceptionalism and complicity with what harms Creation.

Universal reciprocity subjects all to its rule for it sustains balance and harmony. All life takes from the Earth Interbeing to survive, and all life returns these gifts in some way back to the whole so that it may recover from the taking, a rebalancing and restoration of harmony and balance. Earth Interbeing embodies this complicated web of giving and taking: a bee takes the flower’s nectar and gives back by pollinating it.

People, like all other life forms, have the responsibility to care for Earth Interbeing, a relationship of reciprocity, which goes beyond a transactional exchange as it involves generosity, caring for others, and the sharing of all the blessings we have received. All of nature gives to people. Caring for life and the Earth keeps the community whole. Giving and receiving turns the wheel of harmony and balance. When beings only take, they do great harm.

Balance and harmony depend upon the flow of good feelings within interactions: love, patience, respect, and gratitude. The culture of Earth Interbeing sets these positive interactions as its norm, and beings thrive on these feelings. Children learn the ways of good feelings from how adults interact with them and each other and from the encouragement they receive when they relate to others in the same ways. Before misunderstandings solidify into conflict or isolation, others help to resolve the difficulties in ways that support kindness and gratitude. The culture further supports these values through celebrations, feasts, and cooperative efforts, which bring the community together to enjoy each other while doing needed collective work.

Sages respect the wholeness, strength, and knowledge of others. Thus, they refrain from imposing their will upon others as that would diminish the others’ wholeness, strength, and knowledge. Every being of the incredibly diverse Earth Interbeing has its own ways of understanding a situation that differs from our own. The sage has the wisdom to learn from the points of view of others. From this collective wisdom, the Interbeing discerns how to respond to challenging situations in ways that all benefit. In a society of equals, we need to have a proper perception of others.

Diversity only makes the Interbeing stronger. A community of equals recognizes and values differences in individual skills, knowledge, and abilities. The talents and gifts of individuals do not make them special nor give them power over others. The willingness to understand and learn from others comes from valuing others and the knowing that everyone belongs and has a voice.

Actions have consequences for the actor and the cosmos. We have responsibility for our choices and take it upon ourselves to make amends for any harm we inflict upon others.

Natural and moral limits constrain all beings. Exceeding them degrades the Earth and life relationships; thus, living within these boundaries protects us from danger. The wise community disciplines itself by limiting its needs and remaining ever grateful for all its blessings. It lives contentedly within the natural and moral bounds that it voluntarily accepts, knowing that its well-being depends upon the well-being of all life and the Earth.

The community guards against behaviors that disrupt the balance and harmony of Earth Interbeing. They vigilantly discourage the accumulation of wealth or asserting power over others. The community upholds equality as a moral principle to hold everyone to the same rules and to avoid hierarchical relations and authoritative leadership.

The purpose of life centers on the well-being of whole within all its spheres. The family centers on the well-being of the community. The community centers on the well-being of its place. The place centers on the well-being of Earth Interbeing. Imagine Earth Interbeing as circles overlapping circles within circles and including other circles, each with their own centers and all wanting this mystery of creation to continue, all having the responsibility to keep it going. Within our lives, all these ways of being intersect within our center, the place we live. This place becomes our temple, refuge, responsibility, and family.

Line 1:  A community needs clear rules and standards for behaviors to protect the integrity of the community and of all those living within the community to avoid regret.

To free ourselves of complicity with the Imperium, we must stop living the ways of a colonizer.

The spiritual path to healing ourselves of complicity and turning toward caring for the Earth and all life begins with the moral discipline of reducing the harms we inflict on ourselves and others and increasingly acting in ways that benefit all. A spiritual healing path naturally assumes a spiritual quest, the active seeking for the meaning and purpose of life, a relationship with the sacred, greater awareness and wisdom. A spiritual path of healing presupposes a loving connection with a transcendent dimension of reality, the unknowable but known.

People enter the spiritual path because they want to move closer to the spirit. We do this by removing what separates us from the spirit: our willingness to harm others for self-benefit and then ignore the suffering we cause.

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by Bessie the Cow

Hi! Welcome back to the Interbeing. As I said earlier, I have the job to reacquaint you with the sacred Interbeing. Yet before I do that, we would best start with an understanding of what I mean when I use the word sacred.

Lao Tzu got it right when he said that the words we use to name the sacred do not define the sacred. Our understanding of the sacred goes beyond words, but we still have a sense of the sacred – the unknowable yet known. While words may not capture knowing the sacred, we have a relationship with the sacred, a relationship that goes beyond perception.

We know the Creator’s creations – the Earth and all life, the Sun, the sacred universe.

The setting of the orange-red August moon,
The feasting on Earth’s bounty,

The delight of children discovering snow,
The careful dance with other hungry beings,

The frolicking stream freshened by melting ice,
The trumpeting of the high-flying returning geese,

The long days of growing and putting aside,
The reflection of the moon in the breathless pond,

We turn to Thee.

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Keeping a Glad Mind

Oppressive situation.
Blessings.
Proving the sage.
Be trustworthy
Words untrustworthy.

The I Ching has a deep history. Its roots lie reach down into the oracle bone divination of the Chinese Bronze Age, and its philosophical commentaries dating to the third century BCE secured its place as a central text for Chinese thought. The I Ching eventually arrived in Europe by the way of the Jesuits. The German philosopher Leibniz and psychoanalyst Carl Jung brought to it an ever-widening circle of attention and respect.

People who consult the I Ching have a complex relationship with it. Some approach the I Ching as a spiritual teacher. However, the I Ching shares more than wisdom; through its readings, it offers a conversation.

Louise for the past several years has worked on her own I Ching commentaries, a collection of hexagram essays, which she calls the The I Ching of Interbeing, a project, she says, remains very much a work in progress. You can access her I Ching here.

We asked the I Ching what it would like to share with you in its first Meat, Complicity and Thou reading. We received from the I Ching Hexagram 47 with a moving line in the 4^th place, which appears below, using Louise’s I Ching hexagram essay.

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It began with perceiving our differences as special, a delusion that ultimately festered into the disease of exceptionalism. We came to believe that the Earth and all life have the sole purpose to meet our demands of them and that we can freely do what we want to them without moral or natural constraints. Welcome to the 21st century.

It continued with exalting the specialness of our differences into the deluded belief that the Creator gave us dominion over Creation. We came to believe that our special differences made us the image of god and his promised people with the power to use violence to impose our beliefs and our ways upon others. Eventually, we came to believe that we no longer needed a god as Western science and technology gave us the keys to unlock all the secrets and riches of nature. We relegated the Western god to Sunday morning and eventually secularized all his spaces and meaning.

The spiritual disease of the Imperium spread to all corners of the Earth, enslaving people, taking the land from those who lived upon it, and desanctifying what they held sacred. The racist settler colonies plowed under the cultures in their path, replacing indigenous ways with the exceptional culture of Western white Christians, the Imperial culture. The ongoing corporate colonial project further disconnects us from our responsibilities to one another and to the land. Welcome to the 21^st century.

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by Bessie the Cow

The Interbeing chose me to speak to you because I know people-talk and people like cows. I rolled my eyes and said, “Yeah, they like us so much they eat us.” But they insisted and wore me down. How do you say no to a mountain?

So let me introduce myself:  Bessie, the messenger of the Interbeing. You might wonder about for whom I speak, this Interbeing.

The rising sun brings the light
of a new day to our place,
a new opportunity to love and care for all.
All sacred.

Here on our beloved Earth,
we breathe its air and
drink its water.
The spirit within us all.
All sacred.

Green leaves turn toward the sun
to make food for all.
Great trees rise above us
sheltering all below.
All sacred.

The soaring, joyful birds
lift us upwards and
beyond the moon and stars
to bring us back to where we stand.
All sacred.

I send you the Interbeing’s greetings and our wish for you to have a good life wherever the Great Spirit has placed you.

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