Humanity Rising by John Omaha

Humanity Rising

by

John Omaha

The goal of the spiritual program Humanity Rising is recovery from abuse of
Our Mother The Earth. Abuse of the earth arises from a mind-set that objectifies
Nature and views human beings as separate from Nature. Objectification is the core
wound of the destructive consciousness that has resulted in the global catastrophe
we now face. Objectification of Nature results in extractive activities like mining and oil
and natural gas drilling and most lately in fracking. To the objectifying mind, Earth is
treated like a separate entity from which materials can be taken. The same with the
oceans and the great fisheries that are now catastrophically depleted. The
environment is treated like a vast garbage dump where toxic chemicals, pollutants,
greenhouse gases, and plastic junk can be disposed of. So-called infra human
species are seen as unrelated to Homa sapiens, and species extinction is not
connected to the quite perilous status of human survival. Because humans objectify,
they see other humans as unconnected beings, and genocide, nuclear war, radiation
poisoning, famine, and unrelenting competition are not believed to affect the wellbeing
of any but the victims. The objectifying mind-set is the cause of the mortal
disordering confronting our species.

Spirituality is a world-view that treats all organisms and the natural world, the
planet upon which we all reside, as interconnected. Spirituality is based on
mindfulness. It is a meditative practice that has been empirically shown to enhance
empathy and compassion. Humanity Rising, an organization I founded in 1991, is a
spiritual practice that can take many forms. For over 20 years our spiritual practice
has been the sweat lodge, a collective meditation that has antecedents in Native
American, Teutonic, and Celtic societies. As the objectifying mind-set in the form of
christianity metastasized around the world beginning in the Middle Ages, shamans,
the traditional stewards of spiritual practice were systematically murdered, and when
the mind-set arrived in North America, the cultural genocide continued, and shamans
and spiritual practices were all but obliterated. Fortunately some of the Native
American shamans survived and in modern times transmitted these practices and
the mind-set of interconnectedness to Anglos who were unaware of the ancient
tradition among their own people.

The Lakota People expressed spiritual interconnectedness through the
concept O Mitakuye Oyasin, which means “All My Relations. When we enter our
sweat lodge we kneel in the doorway, touch the earth, and speak the words “O
Mitakuye Oyasin,” which is our commitment that we suffer, celebrate, and pray for the
benefit of all our relations, everything that ever was, is now, or ever will be. The entire
world, our solar system, our galaxy, and the universe is experienced as a living thing,
some of it animate, some of it inanimate, and all of it interconnected. In the lodge we
experience a state of Being of oneness. We are the lodge, we are the Stone People,
the water, the Standing Nation -- the trees that provided fuel to heat the stone people --
the water, the air we breathe, the plant helpers like cedar, tobacco, and sage, the
drum, the hoop with its feathers, the songs. As interconnected human beings, our
work in this world is to be aware, for we are the carriers of self-aware self
consciousness. We bind time. We are the means by which the Universe is aware of
itself. We are also the carriers of intention. Our prayerful intention is that the false,
cancerous objectifying mind-set will be dissolved and that the mind-set of
interconnectedness will take its place so that every living thing including Our Mother
The Earth and Our Father The Sky will once again be harmoniously united in a
healthy, living, interconnected whole. This is the vision, the purpose, and the practice
of Humanity Rising.

O Mitakuye Oyasin