With forgiveness our seeds take root and produce the vines that through divine love bear flowers and fruit… with peace and harmony, we tend the flowers and pick the fruit, and with oneness we eat the fruit and share with all others as brothers and sisters. –Rev. Dr. JC Husfelt (1997)
Have you ever taken the time to go out into nature, away from human encroachment, and just sit on the earth and feel the beauty and love surrounding you, and if you let it, existing within you? You have no other reason than to just be part of nature—no smartphones or tablets, no hiking from point to point, but just you and the Great Mother, seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, and even tasting the essence of the kingdom.
When was the last time you viewed the miracle of sunrise, the wonder of sunset, or the magical rise of the moon in its fullness, reminding us of the interpenetration of light within dark? Have you ever been in awe of the darkness of a new moon, knowing that all growth is born out of darkness? When are you going to awaken to the paradise spread before you?
When I talk about Mother Nature, I’m referring not only to the earth but to the whole of the seen and unseen universe. Mother Nature is wondrous, magical, and a miracle of creation. The universe as Mother Nature is a great concept to embrace. It expands our concern and consciousness for the well-being of all things out to the stars.
The superiority of humans over nature is an entrenched mindset of our culture. This philosophy can only result in a separation mentality from the essential paradise that has provided, and so far still provides, humanity with food, shelter and beauty. Why do so many go along with this separation paradigm? How blind can the majority be when “it is as true today as it was in those ancient times, dimly recalled by legend, that Nature can bestow upon human beings great wisdom and knowledge.”[i]
As a society and culture, our separation from nature underlies many of the problems and ills we face today, from climate change to the worldwide abuse and second-class citizenship of women. Being separate from nature, the keys to the kingdom remain hidden, buried beneath layers of church and institutional patriarchal rule.
On this Earth Day change and transformation are needed. A return to a green philosophy is needed. This is an egalitarian philosophy of humanity’s partnership with the seen and unseen things of the earth and nature—a green philosophy.
Furthermore, society has lost many of the values treasured by past indigenous cultures, such as a partnership with nature, truth telling, and elder/ancestor respect and honor. We need to discover meaning in life—not accumulate money and material things. The equality of men and women as well as the equality of all things—as all have the starlight/divine spark within them—needs to be reinstated. These and other lost values need to be reinstated throughout this earth. Nature needs to be respected, loved and cared for by humanity. We need to be partners in relationship with nature, not its stewards.
Listen, Look and Learn
Life doesn’t occur inside the bubble anymore but inside a box! Science and organized religion separated us from nature, but now, technology has separated us from not only nature but each other. The illusion is connectivity, but the reality is isolation—we are boxes unto ourselves. When was the last time you had a conversation with someone heart to heart and eye to eye that lasted more than thirty minutes? When was the last time you sat and listened to the wind blowing through the trees while watching a bee settle its love on a flower? When was the last time you looked up at the cloud-filled sky’s radiant white and blue?
There is great value in the world. Our world of everyday experience is the world of the divine. They are not separate. The cry of a crow is the sound of the divine. The daily chorus of beauty freely given to us by the winged ones reflects the heavenly music of the spheres. Our ordinary world provides us with an ongoing message of beauty, of spirit. But we need to listen—with quiet minds and hearts.
Nature is wondrous, a precious gem to embrace, and one not to be found within your smartphone or iPad. On this Earth Day and every day; your choice—wake up to the beauty of nature and each other, or stay asleep in a self-contained, secure illusion of life.
[i] Paul Broadhurst, Tintagel and the Arthurian Myths, 24.