I don’t know what caused the screams of protest from the backseat of the car: it could have been a pinch, a kick, a stuck-out tongue. My toddler brothers were fatigued and hungry from a day of adventures. I tuned out and turned to the mountain silhouettes blurring beyond the window, misty specters in the night. But as my stepmother gently eased my brothers apart, her quiet words caught my attention: “All of life is simply relations. Relations to others, relations to yourself, and relations to nature.” I smiled to myself at the sweet line that soon slipped out into the night. But I found myself remembering her words the next day, as I stood beneath trees of vibrant yellow and, in a sudden moment, becoming aware that some quiet part of myself was in conversation with autumn. And I recalled them again this morning, as I stood in the village park and watched a new friend help my stepmother and brothers drag enormous bags of leaves towards her van for compost. This one was a slow moment, giving me the chance to breathe in the senses: the smell of decaying foliage, the sound of laughter dimming with each added step, the physicality of being supported by the ground. The relations were present in that stand of trees, drawing lines between us all. Stepmother to new friend. Little brother to little brother. Mother to children. Children to mother. Me, observing and drifting behind, but tied to each of them in a way that is wholly and completely my own.

This way of living feels weighted with potential for the world and for me, someone whose gaze is often turned inwards to my own needs and worries. We in the Western world have been raised and trained by capitalism and its tenets: competition, consumerism, and individualism. Our cultural and economic hegemony convinces us that we need to be at the top; that there is scarcity and we must fight for our share; that we must be self-reliant and independent. In such a capitalist system, relations are not integral or sacred – because centering relations means decentering our selves. Centering relations means accepting, and even celebrating, our interdependence, and recognizing that we all must work for a shared survival. Seeing connection as the guiding force of life turns self-obsession outwards, for the necessary work of tending to our relationship with all things.

Take a breath and imagine a world instead guided by a relations tenet. What would such a world look like? What would tending to a web of connection mean for society? And how would we, as humans and global citizens, feel and exist differently? The answers are simply too vast and infinite to write. But even if I could, I wouldn’t. It is a deeply personal (yet essential) process to envision new futures that feel worth fighting for and striving towards, futures that may offer alternatives to a world that too many feel trapped in. But once we find our own answers, we share them – build upon them – to bring us closer and to make these futures even a little bit more real and more possible.

It’s fitting to ask these questions now when nature feels new every morning: turning from green to yellow, yellow to brown, brown to empty. It is during this season, with bittersweetness in each breath of crisp air, that we are reminded of just how deep our relationship to nature lives. It’s imprinted in our bones, our cells, and our microbiomes. These are days when the sun recedes, the world quiets, and we do too. Maybe it is now, when everything is in transition and shedding its leaves, that we can see these threads of relations a little clearer. Right now, I feel them: I relate to the winter as I prepare for its inevitability and I relate to the land as I see it go to sleep. I relate to myself as I work my beliefs with my hands as pieces of clay, maybe (who knows?) forming something that serves me and the world better. And I relate to you, in this small moment of sharing. I’m beginning to consider that there is no other way but to gracefully, intentionally, kindly – relate.