1.3 Toward a participatory mind to come full circle

According to TEK, ecology and sustainability is not about understanding how the dynamics between humans, land and non-humans work but about considering that humans and non-humans are all part of the same community and are all related, and are in reciprocal or circular types of connection.

According to Shilling (2018) there are recurring key-notions that many indigenous and traditional beliefs share, which have been adapted into six ‘R’s:

  • Reciprocity and respect – Outline the bond and boundaries between all humans and non-humans.
  • Reverence toward nature plays a critical role in traditional knowledge and is reflected in rituals, the arts and crafts, agricultural techniques and day-to-day activities.
  • Relationship – That every person’s relationship to the land is shaped by something other than economic profit.
  • Restraints – We are all dependent on Earth’s limited resources so owning land is anathema, not unlike owning another person, akin to slavery.
  • Responsibility – Each generation has to leave a healthy world to future generations.
(adapted from Shilling, 2018, p. 12)

All the points listed above require not only ecological awareness but a participatory mind, which is a ‘way of thinking, understanding and participating with the natural world, that holds the best and most life-sustaining solutions to the current disconnection of science to the ground of its own being’ (Cajete, 2018, p. 96).

This participatory mind as discussed in Unit 3 seems to be natural to many indigenous and traditional societies, whilst considered lost in the modern world. Shifting toward a participatory mind, through embracing an approach to the natural world promoted by traditional knowledge, would help us move forward by looking back, or better, through coming full circle.

As Abram (1996, p. 170) states:

It is surely not a matter of ‘going back’, but rather coming full circle, uniting our capacity for cool reason (science) with the more sensorial and mimetic ways of knowing, letting the vision of the common world root itself in one direct, participatory engagement with the local and the particular.

  Reflection

Consider the six ‘R’s above:

  • Reciprocity
  • Respect
  • Reverence
  • Responsibility
  • Restraints
  • Relationship

How much do these ideas play out in your thinking about how you live in the world?

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1.2 Knowledge and wisdom

1.4 What can be learned from TEK for a sustainable pedagogy?