All My Relations — Mitakuye Oyasin
The Teaching
Mitakuye Oyasin — All my relations.
Black Elk speaks: "The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."
"Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours."
Commentary
Mitakuye Oyasin, All my relations, is the Lakota affirmation of radical interconnection. It is not a sentiment but an ontological claim: all things are related, are kin, are expressions of one underlying web.
This is Indra's Net in the Buddhist tradition, every jewel reflecting every other jewel. Black Elk's vision of the circle, 'the center is everywhere', is the same paradox as the Hermetic sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
'Their religion is the same as ours', the birds, the wind, the seasons. This is the deepest ecological spirituality: the sacred is not separate from nature but IS nature, seen with the eyes of relation rather than the eyes of exploitation.