In the indigenous Shinto faith of Japan sacred natural objects are marked by tying a twisted or braided rope around them.  This signifies that they hold a special place in the faith.  They are natural objects that hold the spirits of the land.  They could be trees, rocks, mountains, and even waterfalls.

I appreciate the reverence of nature in the Shinto faith, but I also have some troubles with it.  Nature is worshiped by some practitioners as a god.  I for one do not subscribe to this belief; because, for me there is one and Only one God.  All nature flows and is possible because of the One God.  I am thankful that I live in a country and grew up in another one that allows people to follow and worship as they see.   I know that all nature is scared, and humans should work to protect the nature we have.  We shouldn’t just preserve a tree here and there as a memory for the wilds that once spread over the land.

For without nature we will not be able to nourish our bodies and souls.  If humans allow our land to be ravaged by industry we are doomed to perish.  In genesis 1:28 we are commanded to have dominion over the earth.  I read this in that we have to be it’s caretakers.  We are not to brutally destroy the earth as some have interpreted.  We are the ones responsible for its care.  We must be the ones to call out for justice because the animals cannot.

We must not forget that we came from the earth.  We might be living in a technological bubble and have contact with the earth, but it is never to late to establish those connections.  We are only capable of being fully human when we are caring for our communal world.

Let us be the caretakers of the earth.  We are here for only a short time; therefore, let us strive to make the world a healthy thriving planet.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 14th, 2013 at 9:25 am and is filed under Photography Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.