Caring for Creation

American Indian Spirituality is an oral tradition and a shared cultural view that understands that the good health of one’s family and community is dependent upon each individual’s good relationship, alignment, and harmony with God, or Great Spirit, and all of Creation. One is taught to observe harmony and balance in nature, and to strive for that harmony and balance in one’s own life. It teaches that God, or Great Spirit, is immanent within all that is created.

“There is a life force that flows through all living things—the plants, the animals, the birds, even to the smallest creatures on the ground or in the earth. Through all these living things, including us human beings, flows a life force. We have that in common with all these things and it causes us to be related to all living things as this life force is of the Sacred Creation.” –Adkube Shibisha Aguwi’e (VYB), Hidadsa, as told to Jimm GoodTracks.

All Creation is, therefore, sacred and alive and is to be treated with respect accordingly. All in Creation are considered holy beings—including humans, birds, fish, the four-legged, the trees, the stones, the clouds, and so forth.
All Creation has four aspects of being: physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental. Metaphysically, Native American understanding extends these four aspects beyond the human being to all elements of Creation. A plant or a thought, for example, would be considered to have four aspects of being: physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental.

Caring for Creation is a way of life in the faith of American Indian Spirituality, and all four aspects of being need to be addressed in providing optimum care. This, not increased technology and more and more layers of bureaucracy, is the path we must take to achieve better health and healing in life.