I love the earth! Earth is home, our green and blue planet spinning through the vastness of space. In my mind, earth has always been synonymous with nature. I resonate most strongly with this element, my sun being in mutable Virgo. The nurturance and power of nature has sustained me through all these six plus decades. I was lucky. I had ponds and creeks, woods and fields, animals, and was left alone to make my way through it freely. As a result, I always feel accepted by Mother Earth, even when I have not in other settings in society. It is where I am still most at ease. My interaction and relationship with her plants, animals, minerals, and the other elements is one of curiosity, reverence, and intimacy. I know I am never alone.
Our breath is an oxygen/CO2 exchange with her plants and trees. We are part of it all, no separation. Earth is alive and we share a deep connection with her even when we are not aware of it. The indigenous peoples and all who live close to the land have this “knowing”. Great wisdom comes from an understanding of interdependence. Chief Seattle (1786-1866) clearly spoke,
“Human kind has not woven a web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
We need to expand our definition of kin and community in our lives to include all with which we have relationship…the winged ones, the swimming ones, the crawling ones, the 4 leggeds, the standing ones, the stone people. As someone who works with stones, I am reminded everyday by the power they hold in their structure, their color, feel and shape. They taught me how to go into silence, and slow down my listening to receive their messages. Stones are the wisdom keepers, the record keepers on earth. Transmitters of energy, crystals are highly evolved on their evolutionary path, and willing helpers as we travel ours. Just as plants do, the mineral queendom offers healing for body, mind, and spirit.
Over a decade ago Richard Louv wrote his classic, ”No child left inside”, beginning a sort of “back to nature” movement calling for us to reconnect children with the outdoors. The consequences of that loss are seen in many ways in the lives of our youngest ones, that are often left modeling the lives of their parents. Prior to technology becoming such an enormous part of daily life, children spent time in the wood and ditches, or at least in their yards playing and learning under the sky, clouds, and trees. With a touch of necessary benign neglect, we were free to explore, and free to do nothing. Free to listen, to feel, to be. As adults, disconnection from our earthhome leaves us stressed, depressed, anxious, and overwhelmed. And so follow the children. They see us, and their lives seldom support connection to the spirit of an embodied childhood in nature these days. Since the industrial revolution, society pushed a different agenda for success and happiness, and the divide began and continued to grow. Nature that brought access to spirit through its beauty and wonder, became something to use or subdue. Now is the time to reclaim our place on earth, restoring balance and creating harmony for ourselves and to our earthly home.
We must be grounded to do this work, present in our bodies, to fully experience our relationship with earth. We can let go of all the static from our thoughts, with awareness. We can focus on the energy coming up from the earth into us, filling our body vessel, and let distractions fall away. Feel our roots grow down. Breathe in the energy from the mother and let out outbreath fill the body with the energy of her constant presence. Sit with the power of her support. Important in meditation and ritual, grounding is no less so in the activities of our day to day living. Grounding brings us into alignment, helping us recover our balance, integrate spirit and body, providing stability and ease. Gratitude to the earth for all she does if we just let her! We can choose to walk the beauty path each day, acting with consciousness.
Today I go barefoot, sensing that grounding energy coming up through my feet…so good for my wellbeing, and with my hands working the soil, planting seeds, and saying prayers, I smile. Gardeners know the secret of opening to the blessings of earth energies. Watching and tending a garden through the seasons, and nurturing it along is soul fulfilling work, and it centers us. I find real magick in growing flowers, all kinds, but am a true lily lover, and I also await the end of summer for the blooms of the heavenly blues that greet me each morning when I have my coffee. Twining around the deck bannisters, their splendid radiant color connects the sky to the earth with their bright glory. This afternoon with its mix of sun and rain, I see the peonies and purple iris are opening, the trees are fully leafed out, and fecundity rules. Up on the mountain there is a celebration of every shade of green.
The elemental compass has earth resting on the north point. Its always been the point of power to me, representing winter, the dark of midnight, time of rest and incubation. It is associted with Mystery, with a capital “M”, and the power of silence. The physical body, bones, crystals, stones, and the colors black, brown, and green, are all associated with the earth. And here is where I envision the great earth mother. Lately I have come to revere Pachamama, as understood by those of the Incan tradition. She is earthmother, fertility goddess, and independent, omnipresent female spirit overseeing the planting and harvesting of crops. One with the mountains, with her generous, self sufficient creative power, she presides over life on earth. Like Gaia, from the Greek, and Danu from the Celts, and every other ancient tradition, Pachamama is the primordial mother of life, a feminine deity that protects and sustains her children.
With every heartbeat, with each step, each breath, honor and bless the earth, in return for all the blessings given. Let us begin again- to listen, to sense, to learn.
Grow things- in a garden, in your house. Lay flat on the ground and close your eyes. Find a stone totem to keep in your pocket. Sleep outside sometimes. Really notice trees, and be fully with them. Love the animals and care for them. Get outside for awhile everyday, in every season. Take off your shoes and let your feet touch and remember the earth. When you eat, acknowledge the earth, and all the elements, plants and animals that brought the food to your plate, and be thankful. Watch the changes in nature in a familiar place day to day, week to week, month to month, through the cycle of a year on earth. Feel the mystery. Know your connection. Hold the moments of wonder and beauty close.
Earth is sacred.
Mitakuye Oyasin