Interview with Rose O'Leary
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Video transcript: "Many indigenous people don't feel as if it's proper to treat water, minerals, plants, animal people as resources simply to be abused, but rather we are supposed to treat them as relatives with whom we have respectful and reciprocal relationships. And in order to maintain those respectful and reciprocal relationships, we must always think about what we are giving back when we take from them. So there is often an expectation that you will acknowledge your responsibility to help maintain health for the water, the land, the air, all of the other beings under creation.
It's also understood that you have to kill in order to eat. So there is of course some use, but that use needs to be practiced in a respectful and reciprocal way, and in a way that maintains balance in the world. It's also often taught to us as young children, that we may not directly perceive that balance, but that we should respect all things, and know that maybe they exist for a reason, and try not to upset the balance of their existence, because there could be very dire consequences. And I think now with what we know of climate change and what science has taught us, that has born true in the world."
Other interviews with Rose O'Leary