Tree, Forest - Which Do We See?

     Traditional aboriginal cultures live Thich Nhat Hanh's "interbeing" - in profound relationship with everyone and everything ("all our relations"). Whereas industrialized people tend to be lost in a sea of seemingly unrelated, meaningless, arbitrary, random factoids.
     Anthropologist Edward T. Hall's 1976 book "Beyond Culture", contrasts the communication differences between such "high-context" and "low-context" cultures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-_and_low-context_cultures
     Our education system, up to & including university, is embedded in our culture's communication style. We low-context, "nuclear giants" hotly pursue highly specialized narrow goals, and as "ethical infants," continue to be oblivious of our impact on our shared quality of life.

          "Learn how to see.
          Realize that everything connects to everything else." 
                                                                                              Leonardo de Vinci

     "To Western medicine, understanding an illness means uncovering a distinct entity that is separate from the patient's being; to Chinese medicine, understanding means perceiving the relationships among all the patient's signs and symptoms in the context of his or her life.
     From a biomedical viewpoint, the Chinese physician is assessing the patient's specific and general physiological and psychological response to a disease entity."
       Ted J. Kaptchuk OMD. "The Web That Has No Weaver. Understanding Chinese Medicine." Contemporary Books, Chicago, 2000.

     "In Indian mythology, Indra was a God who attached all phenomena with visible and invisible strands weaving together a universal net. Earth, trees, clouds, mountains, sky, passion, aggression, creativity, women, men, and children, all were connected in Indra's expansive net. At the intersections of these strands, Indra tied dulcimer bells. In that way, as one part of the net was pulled or moved, the bells would ring; when the sound of a bell was heard, awareness of interconnectedness arose becoming another strand of consideration in one's weave. When the bells were ignored, an illusion of separation and independence reigned; the outcome could be destructive, reverberating throughout the net.”
        W. Anne Bruce: "Abiding in Liminal Space(s): Inscribing Mindful Living/Dying With(In) End-of-Life Caring." PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2002, p12

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS