I am sure you’ll recognize these words from one of my favorite John Denver songs.
The Earth is our Mother. She feeds us, clothes us, and provides us with a roof over our head; without her love and nourishment supporting us, we probably would not survive into the next millennium.
Science has come to realize that all the technology in the world does not feed the soul. When our spirit is starving, we lose hope and the will to live. Life becomes meaningless and we fade away regardless of what drugs or therapies we pursue. The Earth is more than a repository of minerals and gases. It is a vortex of life sustaining energy. It feeds our bodies, but more importantly, it feeds our souls.
When we walk the Earth absorbing her precious beauty, we feel uplifted and reborn. Her mountains, seas, and valleys teaming with rich vegetation, provide us with an explosion of colors, smells, and sensual delights that transfigures the inner landscape of our minds. She seductively moves us out of logic, releases our stress and soothes our troubled hearts. We remember why life is worth living, just being present in the given moment, embracing our truth, and communing with God.
Isn’t it interesting how often we forget about what is most important in our lives? We get lost in the fabric of our personal dramas. We work so hard trying to get somewhere we lose sight of the one thing that makes it all possible. Nowhere is God, spirit and life more present than in the nature that surrounds us. The more we allow ourselves to receive her gifts, to let her gentle spirit replenish our vital life force, the more we can accomplish in our personal and business lives.
There is a direct correlation between what we take in and what we put out. I call this inflow, "the receptive" (female polarity of our being) and the outflow "the expressive" (male aspect of our being). Now the female polarity is that part that provides us with the ability to receive nourishment, physically, mentally and spiritually. If this aspect is closed down, if we feel unworthy of love, we tend to cut ourselves off from anything that is life sustaining or at least limit it. We are not open to receiving peoples’ love. We eat badly, we get little rest, we work way too hard for way too little and we forget the meaning of play.
Now if we are suppressing the receptive part of our being, the mother or female polarity, we are literally denying our own being what we need most to prosper. Without gas in the engine, we unfortunately travel nowhere. This unhealthy relationship extends to our Earth mother. The less we care for ourselves, the less we care for others. The less we care for others, the less we care for our beautiful Earth.
Now I know you may disagree with me, but check into your truth. How often do you do something really positive and nourishing for your spirit? How often do you do something loving and supportive for the Earth? In spite of our best intentions, the relationships end up being the same. We treat the Earth the same way we treat ourselves, with the same measure of respect and integrity.
This brings up the issue of do we really want to make a difference in this world? Do we really want to realize our highest potential, bring our creative vision to life and share it with our fellow human beings? If this is important, then we will realize we cannot do it alone. We cannot do it without support and love of our fellow human beings, and we cannot do it without the vital life force this planet emanates. It will require a committed and sustained effort. If you eat well one day and eat badly the rest of the week, what do you think will happen? If you receive love one moment and reject it the rest, how will you will feel? If you do not get enough rest or play, how long can you go on and how much will you accomplish? If we honor, value and support the Earth in the same way, what do you think the results will be?
This is our problem. We conveniently forget about taking care of both the Earth and ourselves. Believe it or not, the quality of the relationship we have with ourselves is mirrored in the quality of the relationship we have with others, which is mirrored in the quality of the relationship we have with the world. It’s time to stop abusing ourselves, friends, neighbors and family. When we deny ourselves love, we end up denying love to others. This abuse destroys everything that brings joy and fulfillment into our lives and opens the door to the abuse of this planet. As a result of our abuse, we end up dumping our anger, sadness, pain and our trash, and we deposit them all over our fellow human beings and our beautiful planet. We clog her arteries as we clog our own, and we wonder why the quality of life is diminishing.
It’s time to wake up. It’s time to come home. We have a very special relationship with this world. She has provided a cradle for all of us humans to grow up in. It’s time for us to give thanks for her love, to receive it and return it with our all our hearts. Can you imagine never seeing another sunrise or sunset? Never feeling the wind on your face or watching the clouds dance in the sky? The Earth is our Mother, and she has patiently watched over us for tens of thousands of years. It’s time for us to watch over her, and love her, and respect her, as we would any other human mother.
Let’s open our hearts to her love, patience, beauty, strength and splendor. Let’s drink her cup of golden nectar; we will come alive again and remember why we are here, where we have come from and where we are going. We will remember what love really means and share that love with everyone around us.
We will come back home to our truth, purpose and God. Thank you mother of my being, mother of my heart, and mother of my Earth. We are eternally grateful.
With love and great respect,
Richard Hatch
Copyright © April 1999
