This week my TEDWeekend inbox brought me 20 incredible photos and the moving words of Camille Seaman, storm chaser.  Storm cloud images like abstract paintings. Wise words about our interconnectedness. With gratitude, I share some of her words and images. Be sure also to check out her TEDTalk.

What does it mean to be a good ancestor? What does it mean to be a citizen of Earth?. . .  I have come to know that we are all connected no matter how many lines, borders, languages, divisions we try to create. In the end we are all on this planet together. Our bodies are made of the material of this place.

“If you came to know that you cannot do harm to any other being or thing without doing harm to yourself, you might make different choices.”

For several thousand years we have allowed a story that gives man dominion over all the Earth’s creatures to lead us to this place in which we as humans are destroying not only our own habitat, water supplies, air quality etc., but are taking out millions of our brother and sister species in the process. The underlying goal of my work is to help trigger an emotional connection, one that I hope will spark a relationship between the viewer and this planet. It is so easy to do harm to something or someone when you make it separate from yourself . . . If you came to know that you cannot do harm to any other being or thing without doing harm to yourself, you might make different choices.

. . .  the story of my tribe and so many other indigenous peoples of this planet  acknowledges that the Earth does not belong to us, that we belong to it. Imagine recognizing that we all live in service to each other and saw that as not only including humans but every living creature, every environment, every resource. What would that world look like?