We don't own, we are of.

We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." Native American Proverb

I stumbled upon that tag line on a post this morning. It is so uplifting, should be on a greeting card, recited at tree hugger meetings and it is bullshit. It has such a wrong headed idea at the heart, but it is how we got here, at the edge of resources on a wounded planet. Don't get me wrong, I put the tree huggers way before the capitalists as people I want to break bread with, but this line has the core of our hubris, the essence of our arrogance. It implies that the land is something to us, a possession, whether inherited or borrowed. It implies ownership or at least stewardship.

We are not stewards to this planet. We are part of it, born to it, and if anything the planet is a steward to us. We are misbehaving wild children who are doing serious damage. We are less owners, more vandals, to our own home.

Every person born into this world is a part of it. The world provides our canvas and we paint our lives in it, in three dimensions we create, our work is part of it, it in three dimensions is us. We are not separate from it. We do not own it. We are of it. How angry, hurt and disappointed we must feel, how alienated we must be to vandalize our home, ourselves.

.