We're all cells that make up one, living, breathing being called Earth

The science and spirituality of interconnectedness + How everything is sentient

Jun 26, 2023

What if we aren’t separate, unrelated individuals that exist in a vacuum of our own? What if we are parts of a greater whole?

I’ve been taught to think of science as an entirely different realm than religion or faith. Despite my animist/ muslim/ hindu roots, I used to see religion as fiction and science as reality because it is an arena that systematically studies and observes the natural world to understand it “without bias”. With growing political awareness, I’ve realized that these two worlds are deeply intertwined and what I think of as “science” is actually colonial, capitalist science. It is not the greatest, most superior, ‘correct’ approach to understanding the world- but rather a dominant, reductive, backwards way of approaching nature that has been violently enforced around the world at the expense & erasure of much more expansive, creative and bold local, traditional systems of science & medicine that dared to dream BIG.

Similarly, my understanding of religion was corrupted, desecrated and corroded by hierarchical religious institutions that manipulated & leveraged their own biased interpretations of religion for domination, control & oppression. The last decade has been about rediscovering, reframing, reclaiming and reconnecting with my roots— both religious and scientific. I’ve begun to see how decolonized, politicized, collectivist religion and science are actually one & the same in many ways. They are drivers of hope in the form of faith, curiosity, care & love. They have both been altered by colonial, capitalist empires that seek to exploit rather than nurture or care. The more I reckon with what it means for me to come from many diverse land-based traditions, the more I grow into embracing my innate subjectivity and let go of the impossible chase of objectivity.

This piece isn’t a metaphorical poem even if it may come off as one. To me- it is very real even if all the pieces of it haven’t been proven. As humans, I think it is ironic when we grasp onto the idea that we confidently “know” what is real and what isn’t. We live on a floating ball of life that is hurling through the vast, incomprehensible ether of space, tethered to a flaming star on one end and a moon on the other, surrounded by intricately different planets that are all orbiting the same home star coordinated by an invisible force called gravity. We know nothing. We think we know some things. How can we possibly ever pretend to know it all?

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We are one when we let go of the nonexistent boundaries

A group of cells come together to make an organ like a heart or a liver or a kidney or lungs or the brain,

A group of organs come together to create an organ system like a digestive system, a cardiovascular system, a respiratory system or a nervous system,

A group of organ systems come together to collaboratively produce a living, breathing, sentient, being called a human,

A group of humans come together to create collectives called communities,

Communities come together with the land beneath their feet, the skies above, the water within & around them, the flora/ fauna/ microbes living within & outside them to collectively form an ecosystem,

A countless number of ecosystems merge together to create a unified, complex, alive being we call Earth, पृथ्वी (Prithvi), ಭೂಮಿ (Bhumi), أرض (Ard), دھرتی (Dharthi), Tierra, Pachamama,

A group of planets come together with numerous asteroids and our home star to collectively create our solar system that is hurling through space at 515000 mph and yet we feel none of that cosmic motion as our land grounds us firmly,

An estimated 4000 similar solar systems with planets revolving around their own home star come together to make up our home galaxy, the Milky Way, that is kept together by a supermassive blackhole at it’s very center called Sagittarius A*, 4 million times larger than the sun we know,

You get where I’m going with this.

Why then do we assign an arbitrary, rigid boundary between me and you? Individuality is an illusion. An illusion that has intensified over the last few hundred years of colonialism and capitalism but an illusion nevertheless. And the last few hundred years are nothing but a dot in the vast expanse of human history where our collective ancestors have existed by having intimate relationships with the every part of the land for much longer than they have not.

So when I say humans are a part of nature and not separate from it, I mean it both literally and metaphorically; scientifically and religiously. Sure, plants producing oxygen allowing for diverse life forms to thrive is a metaphor for our rainforests serving as the lungs or the respiratory system of the Earth. But also, the same molecules that make up your lungs, make up mine, and they also form the dirt and soil beneath our feet. We really are comprised of the same fundamental elements.

The Earth is our great mother, the one that birthed us all, and our eternal caregiver that sustains us and into which we will all return to continue the cycling of life. But also we are the Earth. Earth is only a whole because of it’s individual parts. Earth is comprised of our bodies, minds and souls just as it is made up of the microbes in the soil and within our guts… but as we get bogged down with the daily hurdles that capitalism and the state throw us, it is so exceedingly easy to forget that.

There is a unifying thread of life that runs through us all. We can attempt to quantify it, measure it, reduce it to a metric trying to make it comprehensible to our simple minds or we can admire it, appreciate it, pray to it, honor it with endless gratitude and let this incomprehensible complexity drive our daily acts of community care. Science and religion (faith/ spirituality). When we approach either of them thru the lens of community care, a lens that honors 1000s of years of collectivist, land-based traditions, we see that they are the same.

Colonial science in it’s founding was designed for domination and given that goal, it had sealed it’s eventual demise. It approaches the world thru a mechanical, arrogant lens of superiority with a desire for exploitation. It seeks to fully comprehend & master rather than connect & understand. As someone who is trained in classic colonial systems of science and medicine, I find it ironic when ardent supporters of these systems shut down traditional systems of scientific inquiry and healing criticizing them for not being “evidence based”. Who do you think decides what is considered evidence or not? Who do you think funds research and decides what line of questioning warrants support while other more abstract, bolder hypotheses that don’t align with colonial, capitalist values are shut down? It is the utmost biased, uninnovative form of science that has ever existed and its seething desire to be the best is its greatest failing.

Despite my training, it was obvious to me how little we actually know about how the universe works. More so, science everyday proves the science of yesterday wrong. To me— real, genuine, care-based science is about humbly surrendering to the mysteries of the universe while accepting that we will never comprehend it all. We cannot. & when the incentive is care, not profit, our inquiry is truly unhindered, unbiased, open-minded and pushing the boundaries of what we know because that is what we need to do to better care for each other.

Love is the most sustainable motivator bound by integrity, not profit or fear. Love, I firmly believe, is a true, powerful, tangible force that flows across space and time just like gravity does. Love, or whatever you want it call it, is a thread that intertwines us all together with the Earth and cosmos. For now, I don’t have to measure it to know that it is a powerful force. Similarly, I know that there is plenty of science that already exists to prove that collectivism, not individualism, is the way of the universe but it depends on how you look at it. & that is okay. I choose to believe in our inextricable interconnectedness. I’m okay with that as a scientist, community caregiver and a believer.

Ultimately, if what we’re all seeking is safety then that lies in connection & community, not in isolation or the total absence of struggle.

On choosing to see all life & the land as sentient

Colonial science and medicine have always sought to deem humans superior to the rest of nature. But not just any human, specifically white cis heterosexual conforming men. Social constructs like race and gender were created in the pursuit of such supremacist thought. Today, such colonial ideas continue in various forms that sometimes claim to be progressive and radical like the idea that some life forms like animals are sentient while others like plants or microbes are not based entirely on their perceived proximity to human beings.

Us, flora, fauna, microbes, and the land itself— everything is alive and aware of their aliveness.

Is it faith? Absolutely. Is it science? Depending on which framework of science you look at, YES. Even colonial science is increasingly coming around to proving that plants and microbial life like fungi are just as complex as animals. Regardless, for 1000s of years, communities that have prayed to the land and honored the sentience of all life have been integral in preserving the integrity of the planet and sustaining life itself.

brown wooden house on green grass field under white sky during daytime

Everything becomes complicated and arguably more beautiful when you see all life as sentient. It challenges how we’ve been taught to treat each other & the land itself. It’s a lot more complicated than “eating animals bad, eating plants good”. It pushes us to think more deeply about what it means to exist ethically as a species intertwined in a web of complex relationships with other beings, helping maintain an integral balance within our ecological systems that helps all life thrive. It implores us to pushback on the entire system of commodification and objectification that exponentially & greedily exploits human beings, animals, plants, microbes and the entire land itself for profit to no end. Most importantly, it requires us to step away from any “1-size-fits-all” solution to the climate crisis and see how many communities across time and space have existed (& continue to exist) outside the framework of capitalism by ethically weaving in all forms of life into their food systems with dignity, humility and the utmost respect & care.

Are the immune cells that protect me and the cardiac cells of my myocardium that keep my heart beating aware?

Do they understand that they are a part of a whole being that is called Ayesha? Maybe. They work with so many other cells and even non-human microbial cells to collaboratively breathe life and sentience into me. So what does “me” or “I” even mean when I am an amalgamation of so many within me, on me, every interaction I’ve ever had that shaped me, & those that came before me?

When we start blurring the lines of what it means to be sentient or an individual, we start to see ourselves as micro-ecosystems within ecosystems rather than siloed, isolated beings who are untouched by the world within & around us. We are an ecosystem like a log of decaying wood, a pond, a prairie or rainforest— we are home to trillions of microbes living in & on us. We depend on them for survival just like we depend on plants for oxygen or the soil beneath us to provide for us & hold us up. These microbes also use us as a food source in our lifetime and beyond when we decompose in the soil that created us. So what hierarchy?

Ultimately, I choose to believe in the aliveness of our planet & our interconnectedness because the implications of both these beliefs hopefully are that it helps us become better community caregivers everyday. There is some science to prove it depending on the lens with which you approach it. There are lots more unknowns and we may never fully wrap our minds around these complexities & that is where faith or religion or spirituality (whatever you want to call it) stabilizes us far more than colonial science does. We don’t need to know everything to care for each other.

Somehow we walk around everyday and accept that we are tiny beings on a planet that supports such beautiful life thanks to the contribution of every celestial body around us that stabilizes us or provides us with the molecular ingredients for life. Our minds cannot fathom the infiniteness of space and the endless expansion of the universe. Respectfully… we don’t know jack s**t. And today, I revel in that wonder because it grounds me when I get lost in the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of self enlightenment or get corrupted by the desire to be right or know more than someone else.

I have faith that being in community, trying to intentionally foster these threads that extend out from me to you… is enough. & one day I hope to return to the dirt of my mother-land that made me such that the molecules that were once me become sustenance for many.

With care,

Ayesha

I feel guilty for getting this newsletter out much later than I planned for. I’m trying to be easier on myself & trying to explore writing more “stream of consciousness” pieces that are less curated, with more soul & heart than references & academic jargon. This piece is different than what I normally write so let me know what you think!

Cosmic Anarchy

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