Plants Take Care of Us

This concept of plants as caretakers is a common theme in many indigenous cultures and languages. Examples of indigenous languages that have a similar meaning include Navajo (Diné Bizaad), where plants are called “our relatives,” and the Anishinaabe language, where the word for “plant” is related to the word for “gift.” Similarly, the Maori language of New Zealand uses the word “mauri” to refer to the life force of all living things, including plants, and many languages in the Bantu family of sub-Saharan Africa describe plants as “medicine” or “healers.” In Navajo, the word “hozho” signifies balance and harmony, encompassing the relationship between humans and plants. The reverence and understanding of nature’s importance and our relationship to it in older indigenous cultures are crucial for our planet’s future, and ours. The way they care for their environments is not an afterthought, but simply a way of life we should strive to emulate.