Even though we are kin, it is hard for me to know these people.  Their tribe has for all time been one with the living natural world around them.  The rainforest that is their home is a holy place of great power.  Wanting for nothing, the myriad of creatures sharing this place live in communion with the complex web of energy and life that surrounds and enfolds the Bamliki Bandula. 

More recently in their memory they have begun to feel unease.  There is nothing in their forest that is wrong but they sense a disturbance in the force.  What many people do not realize is that we humans are living on a living being that we have named Earth.  Some call her Mother Earth – we are her children as she provided all of the raw materials and the needed environment for our human species to arise.  This is so for all living creatures on this planet.  We are all Earthlings as are the Bamliki Bandula. 

Mother Earth has provided all that is needed for us live and thrive.  However, having such a rich and resilient mother, many of us have become filled with self importance.  We have forgotten that strength and wellbeing comes with our ability to work together.  When the cells of our body are not working together for the good of the whole, it is called cancer.  Cancer is something quite foreign to the Bamliki Bandula.

At our stage of human evolution the majority of us are like arrogant adolescents thinking we know everything and should be able to do whatever we want, plundering and wasting the riches we have been given so freely.  We have been losing our way of “natural” wellbeing as we have lost respect for our Mother Earth.  Yes, we have the right to be masters of our own destinies and be the creators we have been designed to be.  However in telling new stories and finding new adventures we have too often separated ourselves from the very world we depend on.  In our growing intoxication of “self” importance and mastery of our creative powers we have squandered the bounty and natural balance of this living being, our Mother Earth. Instead of a symbiotic relationship as stewards and gardeners of this Eden we have too often become parasites raping and pillaging our own home.  We are not as wise as the Bamliki Bandula. 

As we strive to survive to one day become responsible adults as a species, we are now faced with the crisis of dis-ease on a planetary level that our carelessly ways have given birth to.  We must now grow up to remember what many of the elders and indigenous peoples never forgot.  We must remember that we are not independent even though we have independence.  We are as the cells are in our own body – all part of one entity that can only function as intended when all is in balance and working together.  We must always let desire drive our creativity but we must recognize that anything that does harm to the natural balance and wellness of the whole will also diminish our lone self.  We must recognize that separation is an illusion and that all is one.  This is the knowing of the Bamliki Bandula.

* In the Ituri Forest of central Africa there is a tribe of diminutive people known as the Mbuti Pygmies who live in this rainforest and call themselves Bamliki Bandula, translated as Children of Spirit.