Teach your Children
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers.
So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin.
Teach your children that we have taught our children that the earth is our mother.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth.
If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.
This we know; the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth.
This we know.
All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.
All things are connected….
All things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man;
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together. All things connect.
Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
– Chief Seattle