Here it is Earth Day again and time to write a post. Am I going to exhort you to recycle your plastic bottles? Wash and recycle your cans? Gather pop bottles and trash along the freeway? Use green products in your homes? Plant a tree? Bicycle instead of driving?
Not really. These are all useful enough behaviors and I am sure plenty will be written today about such matters. The sad truth is I think much of this activity will be nothing more than slapping an eco-friendly veneer on a fundamentally dysfunctional relationship with Gaia, the earth herself.
I would rather see a deep realignment in how we work with our own energies and how we work with the earth. Overall humanity’s approach is flawed and needs a serious overhaul, starting with each person individually and spreading out into the group energies.
The main areas that need immediate change are as follows:
- Self responsibility. We too often do not take personal responsibility for our own attitudes and the way we use our energies. Victimhood is alive and rampant on the planet. Many of us do not even take the slightest responsibility for our emotional stance in life.
- Reverence for life in all things. We frequently look at anything outside our own species as stuff to exploit, spiritless raw material to feed our needs. (Actually plenty of us even look at members of our own species as stuff to exploit.) Some make exceptions for animals, perhaps only certain animals. Others make exception for a few plants. But, by and large, the rest of the universe is regarded as inanimate stuff to use however we can manage for our own purposes.
- Willingness to see and act on the truth. We make many assumptions in order to function in life. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but becomes a juggernaut for destruction if those assumptions are never examined or challenged. In an ever-changing world we must be prepared ourselves to change when needed.
- Commitment to higher purpose. I am speaking here of a life-altering surrender to the soul and its purpose in life. I mean a total commitment to honoring the positive path and walking it daily in our physical lives.
If we all individually embraced those four points, we could approach living with the earth in a completely different way. Instead of taking small actions to stem the rising tide of incorrect behaviors and attitudes, a new way of being would naturally arise from within us all.
We would find new ways of relating to the living earth and working with her. Given the surprising creative aptitude of human beings, it would be marvelous to see what might result.
In closing, I ask for your comments on these ideas. I will be writing a series of posts, one about each of these four areas needing change. What are your thoughts about these underlying patterns and how we live on the earth both today and tomorrow?
The image shown above is a detail from a painting titled “Aldebaran Sings” by Lexi Sundell.
Copyright © Lexi Sundell 2008. All Rights Reserved.
Beautiful article, Lexi! You’re so right – the shift needs to happen at the level of Self, I think. Shift our relationship with ourselves, then we shift our relationship with every living thing, including Mother Earth. When we honor our own Divinity, we honor the Divinity in all others, including our planet.
I really look forward to the rest of your series!
Blessings,
Andrea
Commitment is one of the areas that people today feel they have no need of or for. They only feel commitment to themselves and not even other family members. Why have we become such a “I” world?
This is great, Lexi. It’s so true that our attitude toward the Earth is reflective of the internal commitments we’ve made.
Put another way, if we are at peace with ourselves we will behave in peaceful ways toward the earth.
Thank you all for your comments. I shall reflect upon them as I write the following posts in this series.
Lexi
Change begins with me and you and you and you. All of us are responsible for the changes that we want to see happening.
Ghandi says, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Good article, Lexi. The thing that strikes me about Earth Day is that this should be for all of Earth’s inhabitants. It’s that old ‘global village’ notion. We’re all each other’s neighbours.
Hey Lexi,
Great stuff. #4 is the key I think in how we need to approach our lives and the rest will follow naturally.
Cheers,
Anmol
Lexi,
Wonderful article! Seeing our “Self” in all and Self-surrender is the key to stop exploitation of everything outside the boundaries of our bodies.
I gave this a stumble!
-Desika
Hi Lexi,
Great article. Would love to see some concrete examples in the four suggested changes. That’s a comment for you as well as other readers.
blessings,
gia
Patricia, I could not agree more.
Barry, We are all neighbors whether we think about it or not, so we might as well recognize it and work with it in a positive way.
Anmol, Yes, number four is the one that makes everything else work, but the others often lead to number four.
Thanks Desika, surrender is essential but often misunderstood.
Gia, that is why I am writing a post on each of the four points, I quickly realized the article would get way too long if I did them all at once. Concrete examples we will do!
Lexi
Hi, Lexi;
Lovely post, and it speaks of the values I try and live and to instill in my beautiful daughter…I especially like and agree with your point about how a change would naturally stem from such shifts in our ways of being as a species.
What strikes me whenever I contemplate these things – which is often – is how EASY it would/should be for us all to feel and be this way…it seems natural to me to respect and honour my environment and all the creatures in it, as well as the living cosmos of which we are a part. At the same time, I am certain there are many actions I take in ignorance that do harm without my knowing. I guess it’s all a matter of different aspects of human nature manifesting, and unfortunately taking our earth along as a victim. My other half has commented that soon, if we don’t change, earth will tire of us and shake us off like a dog shakes off pesky fleas…
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