Whereas we humans did not generate our own being but are the youngest in creation’s family of living things—from rocks and water to plants and animals and onwards to the solar system—it is our role to gather our minds together and thankfully acknowledge the life-force woven through all the relationships that sustain us; and whereas we know that a spirit of gratitude creates in us a good mind with which we can respect all living beings, make wise decisions, and keep our needs in perspective, we therefore offer all our relations, human and more-than-human, our allegiance and thanks.
Whereas all physical life is mothered forth by the dark earth under our feet, where microscopic beings turn what has died into the compost of new life; and whereas we ourselves will be consumed and, like every living plant and animal, become food for new faces yet to be born from the soil, we commit ourselves to a long-term vision, extending at least seven generations, for the health and vitality of the soil we take for granted every day, and we convey to the earth our allegiance and thanks.
Whereas the water that sustains us is all one unity, from the smallest seep in the ground to the far-flung oceans, all one piece, all connected; and whereas the cycle of water from earth to sky and back again means that every living thing is downstream from every other, we recognize the sacredness and necessity of healthy water, and we convey to those who clean it—aquifers, plants, animals, and other humans—our allegiance and thanks.
Whereas the air that animates our earthen bodies is created each and every moment by the lowliest beings of land and sea—plankton, grass, and weeds—who, with all the other plant beings, from the humble medicinal strawberry to the tallest sugar maple, carry out their duties in snow or rain, sunshine or cloud, we return some of the inspiration we received from these silent living beings as we speak aloud our allegiance and thanks.
Whereas our security relies upon the agreements between all families of living things—birds and seeds; dung and roots; bees, butterflies, and pollen; fish, water plants, turtles, and rivers; peoples and nations—we acknowledge that these agreements are as beautiful as they are necessary, and we convey to those who openly form and maintain them our allegiance and thanks.
Whereas each life has its own spirit, shaped in the unique circumstances of family, ecosystem, and history; and whereas each spirit contributes what no other can supply, we acknowledge that greed, trauma, and disavowal have made us ignore the dignity of others, sometimes seizing their contributions as our own, sometimes obliterating them from our polity. We regret our fear and entitlement, and we belatedly convey to the spirits lost and those that still remain our allegiance and thanks.
Whereas creation speaks in the cycles of sun and moon, tide and season, and in the voices of the thunders and the winds, each alerting us to events on the horizon of what we know; and whereas there are elder peoples among us who have devoted generations to learning how these voices speak in each place, we affirm that there are various languages for what is and can be known, carried by holders of distinct and different knowledges, and we convey to them our allegiance and thanks.
With all our minds gathered together, therefore, we resolve: to live in gratitude, delighting in creation’s irrepressible resiliency even as we fiercely defend its delicate integrity on which our security depends; to liberate ourselves from the illusion that her life—that any life—can be bought and sold; and to honour the ways of knowing and being that are apprehended by those who have participated intimately in her cycles over many generations. Now all our minds are one.