Biocentric

Sometimes we Humans cling to outmoded ideas. Clinging to those ideas can get us into trouble. Big trouble.

I come from a culture that is "Anthropocentric". What that means is that my culture views Humans as Center. With this view, all that is non-Human drops away, becomes invisible, is viewed as of little consequence. It is as if the Human is the beginning and the end.

All decisions and actions are made to benefit the Human. And of course those decisions leave out a wide range of Humans too: those unlike self, the poor, those disenfranchised by power, those unborn, to name only a few.

An Anthropocentric view puts Earth living systems in jeopardy. Those with this view see no relationship between the natural world and themselves. In fact they do not see themselves as part of natural world. It is merely there for their use. I remember those maps we saw when I was in elementary school, where places of great beauty and objects of Creation were carved up into something called "resources". I remember crying out as in pain.

Another approach is the "Biocentric" view which considers the interconnectedness of all of Life. In this view, Humans do not see themselves as separate to any of this. Instead, we are interwoven into the thread of life. To honor and protect life is to seek to live for the long haul rather than the shortterm.

We 3 C's seek to live in a way which is Biocentric. We seek to honor that Gift of Life, that Gift of Creation of which we are only a very small part. It isn't easy. To complicate matters, we often find ourselves swimming upstream. But for us, putting Life at Center feels right and good.