4th of July gives us a wonderful summer opportunity to enjoy the season’s beauty. Still, in our need for rest and rejuvenation, we often don’t take time to think about what we are celebrating.
Every school child knows that July 4 honors the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which established that the Thirteen Colonies were no longer subject to Britain’s monarch, King George III. Now united, free, and independent, we had taken a step in growing up.
I’m now watching my grandchildren begin to assert their independence at ages one and two. This is an important stage of human development when a child starts to see themselves as separate entities from their parents. It is when the sense of “I” comes into being, along with a sense of agency. This stage is accompanied by endless practice of the word “no,” which helps build a sense of healthy identity while creating a fair amount of frustration for the most loving parents.
In our culture, it is essential to have a strong ego that allows us to create healthy boundaries and manifest our destinies. The accomplishment of individuation and autonomy is important. However, it is not the whole story.
The next step is to expand our perspectives to include interdependence. The Buddhists called this dependent origination. This teaching says that nothing exists separately and that nothing is permanent (including us). Everything is changing, and everything is simultaneously shaping and being shaped.
Scientists are now discovering that the ancient mystics understood reality in a way that we are just re-discovering.
As Willie Cosby of Fungi Ally says,” The ideas of everything being connected and exchanging information and being interdependent scientifically seem irrefutable when the role of mycelium is understood. All of the trees are connected. Nothing is standing alone in isolation but is impacting and changing things in the environment far beyond our comprehension”.
What would it mean in our lives if we considered ourselves not separate individuals but part of an elegant, intelligent, creative whole that needs our full expression? How would it change our understanding of who or what we are if we saw ourselves as a necessary part of a greater whole? How would our actions with friends or even enemies change if we saw everything as part of ourselves and ourselves as part of everything? Sitting with these thoughts could blow the mind, but perhaps that is part of the healing we need to engage with in these times of shattering change and chaos.
Sometime during the holiday, you might want to look up at the sky and feel the stark beauty, the vast space, the wild and violent events that created the universe, and the beauty of our own Planet Earth. Or watch a hummingbird dart around the feeder. Or listen to a child’s laughter. We are all held together by the mystery. There is no separation, and that is the mystery.