A Story of Relationality: Seeing the Threads That Connect Us
There’s a story I’ve heard about a spider’s web—how it stretches across the branches of a tree, catching sunlight and dew, shimmering in the morning. You see the web, intricate and fragile, and you think it is separate, suspended. But if you look closer, you realize that the web doesn’t exist apart from the tree, the breeze, the light. It’s part of a whole, woven into the life of the forest.
I thought about that web when I first encountered the work of Arturo Escobar, Michal Osterweil and Kriti Sharma, and their exploration of relational ontologies (worldviews). They describe a way of seeing the world that isn’t about separate pieces—humans here, nature there, each thing existing on its own—but about connections, relationships, and interdependence. This is the story of relationality: a way of living that recognizes how everything—people, animals, plants, even the land—is bound together in a web of relationships. This is not new - it is a way of knowing and being in the world which has been around since time immemorial, experienced by many communities across the world.
The Story of Scarcity
I grew up, like many of us, in a world shaped by what they calls the dominant ontology. It’s a story about separation and scarcity. In this story, humans are the main characters, separate from the land and superior to other beings. The world is a place to be conquered, used, and divided into winners and losers. It tells us that there isn’t enough to go around—enough resources, enough time, enough worth—and so we have to compete for survival.
I felt that story resonating in my own life, especially in my work in international development. I saw it in the way aid workers burned out, shouldering the weight of systems that treated care as an individual responsibility instead of a collective one. And how we hold a paradox, as we work in some of the poorest and most marginalized places on earth. I saw it in the way communities were treated as problems to be solved rather than as places of wisdom and connection. Nature to be consumed, extracted, beyond the limits of the planet. I felt it in the way I pushed myself, believing that I had to prove my worth by doing more, achieving more, giving more, even as I grew more exhausted and disconnected. I see it now as a parent, constantly worrying that I’m never enough, and never will be enough.
The Story of Relationality
But there’s another story, one that I’ve been learning about from scholars, activists, artists and Indigenous knowledge-keepers. It’s a story told by Indigenous peoples, by feminist thinkers, by those who live close to the land. It’s the story of relationality, and it begins not with separation but with connection. In this story, the web is not a metaphor—it is reality. We are all threads in that web, and every action we take vibrates across the whole. There is no “other” here, no “out there.” There is only us, together, with all sentient beings. This isn’t a romanticized notion of connection—it is a deeply complex, entangled, embodied way of being that knowing—one which requires a deep committment to unlearning from those of us “one-world worlders”, as Arturo, Michal and Kriti call it.
In this story, trauma is not just an individual wound but a rupture in the web—a breaking of relationships with ourselves, each other, and the land. Healing, then, isn’t about fixing something broken inside us. It’s about weaving the threads back together, restoring relationships and remembering that we were never truly separate to begin with.
Living the Story
When I began to see the world through relationality, my work—and my life—started to change. I began to ask different questions. Instead of “How can I fix this?” I asked, “What relationships need to be nurtured here?” Instead of seeing burnout as a personal failure, I started to understand it as a symptom of systems that prioritize productivity over care. And instead of thinking of healing as something I had to do alone, I began to see it as something that happens in community, through connection and reciprocity.
The story of relationality doesn’t offer quick fixes or easy answers. It’s not about tying up loose ends neatly but about learning to live in the complexity of the web. It’s about listening deeply, giving generously, and seeing the world not as something to act upon but as something we are profoundly part of.
The Invitation
Today, as I reflect on relational ontologies, I think about that spider’s web again. It is fragile, yes, but it is also strong. Its strength comes not from any single thread but from the way the threads work together, holding each other in place, catching the light and the dew. That web, like the world, invites us to see differently, to live differently. It invites us to remember that we are all connected, and that when we care for one thread, we care for the whole.
In this story, burnout isn’t just a personal failure—it’s a symptom of systems that sever relationships and prioritize productivity over care. Healing isn’t about fixing something broken inside us—it’s about mending the threads of connection with each other, the land, and ourselves. Relationality invites us to reimagine the world not as something we act upon, but as something we are a part of—a world we can learn to weave together with care, reciprocity, and love.
How will you choose to weave?
