Maybe the concept of all people being equal to one another is too complicated for us humans. Plants get it. Animals get it. We just don’t get it.

Plants operate on a mutual understanding that each species is important in the scheme of things. Rose gardeners know that “plant garlic near your roses” is a means of keeping aphids away, reducing fungal disease, and enhancing that beautiful rose smell.

Indigenous people observed that some plants helped to control pests that could interfere with the growth of crops. Other plants grew fast and provided shade for those that came later. Out of their observations came the “three sisters” approach to planting corn, beans and squash, so that each plant benefited from the presence of the other.

Today’s sustainable agriculture programs call this ancient wisdom “companion planting.” Crops are planted to deter pests, improve the nutrient composition of the soil, and to provide shelter for tender plants. Botany is finally beginning to operate on principles used by indigenous populations for centuries: first observe the conditions that allow individual species to flourish, then be careful to reproduce those conditions.

We are hearing a lot lately about how trees talk to each other. They have elaborate root systems that share water and nutrients. They also transmit chemicals throughout this network. If something is causing distress to one tree – such as disease, or an infestation of an insect – that will produce a chemical change that will be sent along the root networks to inform other trees. Those trees, in turn, can alter their behavior accordingly, such as making their leaves distasteful to the invading insect.

Plants and animals have always had a close relationship. Animals use the plant kingdom for food and to create their own ideal habitats. Plants provide animals with camouflage and safety, with food and shelter from harsh weather conditions. Animals help plants through fertilization, pollination, and the dispersal of seeds for propagation. No domination, no oppression, no inferiority or superiority among the members of any ecology anywhere on the planet..

In the documentary, “The Biggest Little Farm,” the farmers watched in horror as pests began to eat all of the fruit in their orchard. But the proliferation of pests attracted flocks of birds, who ate the pests. But birds also congregated to eat the fruit. Soon the hawks and owls came, taking advantage of easy hunting with all those birds crowded around the trees. After a while, though, all of those creatures had created an ecological balance: the birds ate the bugs and the fruit, but not in giant flocks; the raptors ate some of the birds, enough to leave the fruit alone to grow a healthy crop.

The book I am reading right now is Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed, 2013). I have, in fact, been reading it for months, going ever so slowly through each chapter, sometimes each page, at a pace that allows the author’s wisdom to connect to my stored knowledge, which came from a human-centric point of view rather than a nature-centric one.

Kimmerer is a member of an indigenous nation and a professor of botany. The two perspectives fuse in this book. One of the issues she describes, for example, is the contrast between the way indigenous tribes in the Pacific Northwest honored the bounty that came their way each year via the salmon run, and the way the colonists, arriving there around 1850, interacted with their surroundings.

The indigenous tribes spent four days watching the salmon leaping in great crowds upstream. Only then would they cast their nets, taking only enough to feed the tribe through the next year, until the next salmon run. In deeply felt ceremonies, they expressed their gratitude to the salmon for giving themselves to the tribe as food.

The colonists filled in the salt marshes and estuaries the salmon had been using. They wanted to create more flat land for grazing more cattle. They built dams and dikes to divert the water away from the cattle farms, and otherwise altered the landscape in such a way that the salmon run nearly disappeared. It didn’t matter to the colonists. They were getting richer and richer on their cattle enterprises.

Now, guess what? Today’s scientists are studying the salmon, the plants native to that region, and the streams that once allowed the salmon to return to their spawning grounds so that they can duplicate what once was. Scientists are dismantling the dams and trying to return the area once again to the natural conditions that favored the survival of salmon. They do this with new-found respect for the ways of the streams and the salmon.

It is becoming increasingly clear that plants know how to live in harmony with other plants. Animals know how to live in harmony with other animals (yes, they eat each other, but they do not overhunt and they do not waste). Plants and animals know how to live in harmony with one another.

And humans? We continually try to change the landscape, along with all of its plants and all of its creatures, so that we can profit. So that we can make money and consume more and more.

Whenever there is a conflict between human “progress” versus nature, it becomes a major controversy. You might remember the spotted owl controversy, the desert tortoise controversy, the dolphin controversy, the wetlands controversies, the honeybee controversy and on and on.

Before we completely destroy all plants that could have provided us with healing remedies, before we endanger more species or cause more extinctions of plants and animals that we need to maintain the delicate balance among all ecosystems, we desperately need to learn from plants and animals how to live in harmony – with them and with each other.

Destroying plant and animal populations is destroying us. Our willingness to destroy whole populations – the genocide of indigenous tribes, the slaughter of black people, the mass incarceration of black and brown people – puts us on the brink of destroying our democracy while we destroy ourselves.

Which is why I began this piece by worrying aloud that the concept of equality is beyond us. Until we can understand that having dominion over the plant and animal kingdom means treasuring each of the millions of species, being grateful for them, and caring for them, how will we ever understand that the human race, in all of its diversity, requires the same devoted care for each person?