Nature gave us humans the miraculous ability to tell stories; to share goals, beliefs, and abstract concepts. But today, we’ve poisoned our collective well with narratives about the individual, about eternal life, and about death as a dark taboo. We talk about Nature as a service, even while we know that this “service” will soon end if we don’t change our material-thirsty rituals.

Today there’s fundamental flaws in our stories. Nature isn’t something separate from us; it is us. And death isn’t just part of life; it is life, the transformation of a corpse into another organism’s living force. I believe we all feel this truth in the deepest corners of our hearts. Some of us avoid it, some of us confront it, but we are all equally powerless in face of it. Our ecosystem gives us everything, and when it’s time, it takes everything away, like a true manifestation of divinity.

With science, we have gained understanding of the complexities of ecosystems. But with all this scientific knowledge, could our ecosystem still be considered sacred?

The Forest You Live In is a meditation on our relationship with nature, tought from the perspective of a dead person. It’s a reminder that as we look at the cycle of life, the cycle of life is looking straight back at us. We are it, after all.

Maybe an outsider, a refugee who has lost everything, can approach this truth unclouded by cultural narratives, separate from nationality, religion, and social schemes. When those are not present, what remains are the most obvious yet important intuitions. The outsider and the urn of ashes have a lot in common; they are both separated from the roots of their trees. Maybe they can help each other out?

My mission is to build bridges between different cultures, through fostering a richer relationship between us and our ecological environment. A new relationship that exists beyond the realms of science and politics.

In the forest we all live in, could the literal ground be our common ground?