Right Relationship: A Return to Belonging

There is a phrase whispered through Indigenous teachings, echoed in Rastafarian reasoning, remembered in Buddhist precepts, braided into African proverbs, and etched into ancient cosmologies: right relationship.

This is not a doctrine.

Ii is not about moral perfection.

It is a way of being.

A remembering.

That life is relational.

That the quality of our connections—to self, to others, to land, to Spirit—shapes everything.

But what does it mean to be in right relationship?

And how do we recognize when we’ve drifted from it?

A Shared Root Across Cultures

Across the globe, traditional cultures carry the knowing that well-being is collective, circular, and sacred.

In Rastafarian spirituality, the term I and I is a radical reframe of identity. It dissolves the separation between the individual and the Divine, between one self and another. “I & I” means God in me sees God in you. It is the language of oneness, dignity, and right-standing.

To speak in “I & I” is to reject the lie of hierarchy.

It is to centre love, over ego.

And to know that any harm done to another is harm done to one’s own self.

In Indigenous North American traditions, such as the Lakota principle of Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (“All My Relations”), every being is kin—trees, rivers, animals, ancestors. We are not stewards over nature; we are part of a family of life.

In Ubuntu, a Nguni Bantu philosophy from Southern Africa, right relationship is encapsulated in the saying: “I am because we are.” It is through community that we know ourselves. It is through mutual care that humanity is affirmed.

In Hinduism, the concept of Dharma speaks to the rightful path—living in accordance with truth, duty, and balance. And in Buddhism, the Eightfold Path teaches Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood—ways to live in harmony with all beings.

Every tradition reminds us:

The way we live with each other matters.

The way we walk upon this earth matters.

The way we speak to ourselves matters.

Right Relationship with Self: A Sacred Reunion

To be in right relationship with self is to no longer abandon, betray, or belittle the being within.

It is to sit with our unmet needs instead of numbing them.

To listen for the voice that’s been buried under expectation.

To stop seeking permission to be whole.

It looks like silence before decision.

Rest before burnout.

Truth before performance.

In the wisdom of I & I, self-worth is not earned—it is innate.

There is no inner war to win, because the divine is already here.

Right Relationship with Others: The End of Othering

Relationships are mirrors, not masks.

To be in right relationship with others means we stop using each other to validate our wounds.

We cease pretending that some lives matter more than others.

We do not dominate to feel safe.

In Ubuntu, the pain of one is the pain of all.

In Rastafari, to harm another is to defile the temple of Jah.

In Indigenous law, justice is restorative, not punitive—it seeks repair, not revenge.

Right relationship invites us into a field beyond transaction.

Where empathy is not weakness.

Where boundaries are sacred.

Where truth is not wielded as a weapon but offered as a seed.

Right Relationship with the Earth: Returning to Kinship

Right relationship with the Earth is not environmentalism—it is remembrance.

That the soil is not a resource, but a relative.

That the waters are not to be conquered, but conversed with.

That food is ceremony, not commodity.

In Andean Ayni, one does not take without giving.

In Māori tradition, Whakapapa (genealogy) links every person to mountain, river, ocean, sky.

In Rastafari livity, Ital living honours natural rhythms and rejects the processed and profane.

Right relationship with the Earth means we stop asking, “What can I get from the land?”

And start asking, “How can I serve this sacred inheritance?”

How We Begin Again

There is no single map to right relationship.But there are signs:

• You feel in integrity.

• You feel connected, even in solitude.

• You feel humble before the mystery, not above it.

• You make amends, not excuses.

• You honour life, even when it breaks you open.

Right relationship is not a checklist.

It is a vibration. A remembering.

A living prayer.

And it begins the moment we ask:

What would love do here?

What would truth say now?

What does it mean to walk gently—with myself, with you, with the Earth?

In the End, a Beginning

Right relationship is the soul of a just world.

It is not something we achieve, but something we return to, again and again.

With breath. With grace. With listening.

It is how we come home to ourselves.

To one another.

To creation.

It is how we remember that we belong.

And that all things—when treated with reverence—can be made whole.