Skeena Rathor was a founder-member of the campaign group Extinction Rebellion, which changed the conversation on climate change in 2019. The group called for carbon neutrality in Britain by 2025. So the growing global emissions and worsening climate has been generating some reflection amongst activists. I invited Skeena to share her experiences and why she is now focusing on the importance of water. In the following essay, she shows how we can experience nature and climate as part of us, and vice versa, so we meet the challenges of social and ecological breakdown in a more holistic way. We publish on World Water Day to encourage attention to a wonderful new documentary on this theme: Water Is Love. Over to Skeena…
Water is more than just H2O. For times immemorial, many Indigenous and other wisdom traditions have regarded water as a living, spiritual entity, as a medium connecting the physical world with the spiritual, and as an essential force that sustains all life. For example, the Akan people of West Africa see it as a divine energy, the Māori view rivers and lakes as living entities with spiritual significance and the Lakota tradition reveres water as “the first consciousness bestowed upon Mother Earth” (Tiokasin Ghosthorse).
Continue reading ““Water is Love”: restoring an ecological approach to climate change and beyond.”