Is it true for you also, that you have had one self-identity your whole life and it just shifts incrementally and unnoticeable? But there is at least one constant in that self-identity. Separation. I am (you are) a separate something.

Consider that that constant, separateness, is not in fact true. And consider if it is possible to remove that false assumption.

Look at your belly button. It should be a reminder to us that we started out not being separate. Then snip. And since then we have been separate. At least it appears that way. What is not so obvious is that at about the same time that the umbilical cord was cut, a new dependency was started with the interaction of our lungs with the air. And if we take a moment to notice, that dependency has not stopped for our entire life and is going on right at this moment: breathing. At the same time we were cut from our mother, we became attached to the atmosphere of the earth. And here we are.

All of our mothers also had this connectedness to the earth atmosphere. All of our living mothers still have this connectedness. We are, along with all living and breathing beings dependent and connected in this same way. Always have been and always will be. It’s a fact. Can we integrate that fact into our identity?

I recently watched a dozen piglets sucking on their mother. Can you picture an earth sized mother pig and ourselves and every other breathing being sucking on it as if our life depended on it, which it does? If we can see this, we can see that separateness is a lie and connectedness is true.

The connectedness goes even deeper than this. What gives us our life out of this atmosphere is oxygen. And what puts oxygen into the atmosphere is photosynthesis. And this vitally connects us to the sun and all plant life. The sun is not separate from us. Trees, grass, flowers they are not separate from us. It is brutal, false, dishonest and deadly to hold an identity that is not connected to the light and warmth of the sun, the life in all the green living plants, the energy in each breath of air and to all the beings that live with us in this exact same dependency.

This shift of self-identity does not come automatically or easily. It is an immensely richer identity than that lonely, fragile and false separate identity.

This shift of self-identity changes everything. Without this shift of identity in great numbers of us, we are unlikely to survive this sixth great extinction. The separate identity is actually causing this extinction and has the ability to ignore and forget about the great extinction. The connected identity feels it constantly and applies ourselves toward protecting all life.

And that is why your and my efforts to shift our self-identity from separateness to connectedness is a life and death issue.