This beautiful, bounteous, life-giving planet we call Earth has given birth to each one of us, and each one of us carries the Earth within every cell of our body.
Thich Nhat Hahn
For the last several springs, my sister and I walk down along the river with our dogs, watching the nesting, the lives and growth of a pair of bald eagles and their eaglets. We feel quite honoured and amazed at these incredible creatures who gracefully take flight across the sky. We eagerly await the development of their offspring who eventually learn to fly and to source their own food. The young eventually move on to their own territory and the cycle of life continues.
I am in awe of these eagles who inspire me to remain aligned with my passion and calling to share and facilitate healing with people, whether in individual Soul Coaching, in Peace Circle, or in Reiki Ryoho programs.
What I have witnessed in my own life, as well as in my professional life working with others, is that our healing is deeply rooted in the Earth. The quality of our healing is matched by our qualitative connection with the Earth and all of Nature. Earth is not just our environment. She is our Mother ~ sentient and abundant. She gives us life. The atoms that make up our cells and being are the same ones that create all life. There is a great and incredulous order and harmony to the flow and function of our Earth and how we are to be in respectful stewardship with all our relations.
A few of my Reiki friends spent a couple of years exploring our relationship with Nature where we gave ourselves permission to really notice Her, to delight in Nature, to celebrate and play with Her. We also gave ourselves space to grieve and anger at all that is diseased, killed and maimed, desecrated, raped and violated in Nature. This 2-year healing circle opened us and guided each of us into our own unique way of volunteering, of giving back as awakened stewards and of being in love with our Living Earth. We each found that deep appreciation for Her natural cycles and rhythms, for the boundaries and natural laws that support the balance of all life.
We had to grapple with our own disconnect, with our own disembodied paradigms of cultural success. We were called to remember that we are human beings, living in a resource limited planet. We were called to celebrate our limits on this Earth rather than push beyond them for greed. We also were humbled by all that remains a mystery to us about this elegant and beautiful Earth.
In a recent workshop I was facilitating, one of the participants is a geneticist who is moving into the specialty of roses. The incredible existence of roses, she explains, is they are are like the bananas we eat, from the point of view of chromosome composition (triploids). Simply stated, odd numbers of chromosomes can’t reproduce, and when something can’t reproduce, there are no seeds. That is why we have seedless bananas. Sterile. What she said is that some roses are triploids as well, but scientists are discovering that unlike bananas, rose pollen can still be fertile. In other words, they don’t follow scientific ‘rules’ of genetics. So now they speak of ‘guidelines’ rather than rules. It’s not ‘a mechanical universe’!
I was delighted to hear about the rose’s capacity to do what we didn’t believe was possible. It made me fall in love with roses and the Earth all over again. And I was reminded that our perceived status as superior to the Earth needs a ‘falling’. We need to fall from our present position as superior to the Mother Earth and into Her. We need to ground, connect and recognize our own constitution as from Her. Though we can be as diverse as Nature and all creatures in it, we need to respect our place in Her.
What this highlights for me is that our language about the Earth needs to change, so that our relationship with the Earth can also change. Our language has been from a position ‘above her’, ‘standing upon her’, ‘having power or dominion over her’. This structure or position of above, over, upon Mother Earth is filled with arrogance, delusion and entitlements. And now after hundreds of years of this kind of structuring of our relationship with Mother Earth, we are experiencing the consequences of our plundering and abuse of Her.
It’s time we collectively step down from our self-made platform of ego superiority and into right relationship with Nature,humbly and gratefully accepting the gift of having limits and boundaries to our existence as humans. It is time we stepped back into the circle of life, take our place in the rim with all our relations, rather than believing we alone are the centre, or are entitled to control the centre of the circle of life.
If we fail to accept our place here as ‘part of, one among, with’, if we fail to ‘fall in love with our Mother Earth’, we deny ourselves healing on any issue we have. We deny ourselves our true heart’s abundance and health. We deny ourselves respect and the flow of Love. And we deny ourselves the gift of being guests here on this planet. By Nature’s power, we will be the ones asked to leave, as any disrespecting, violating, extremist person is tried and judged as unsafe for society.
Earth Day (April 22nd) is coming soon. Mark this day as a time to celebrate. A time to fall in love with Mother Earth. A time to experience the magnificence, elegance and mystery of what gives us life … and love. I also invite you to join me in our next Peace Circle on Wednesday, April 20th and share your stories of Falling in Love with our Living Earth.
Namaste,
Shirley Lynn