As I opened my eyes after an in-person contemplative practice on interconnectedness, I looked around the room with the profound realization that everything I saw was either produced by a series of human hands or came directly from nature. Everything! Laptops, tables, chairs, clock, windows, tiles, shirts, shoes, pens, paint, …

I tried to imagine the hands that made the buttonholes on my shirt and others that cared for the cow who’s milk is in my cheese stick. I remembered the essence of a quote from Karl Marx to the effect that all we value comes from human production, working on and with nature.

It was good to have the space to nurse the realization – along with with gratitude – that we people are indeed totally interdependent with one another and with the planet.