You Belong To This Earth

Countless plants are supporting you in every moment - every breath, every mouthful. Leaning in to this incredible web of life that we are part of, with gratitude and love, helps us feel how much we truly belong to this wild and wonderful world. How can we feel lonely when we recognise how deeply this earth and all its living beings are providing for our every need? This is a short introduction to earth connection practice.

Transcript

We are in difficult times in so many ways.

Our broken relationship with the living world,

This planet and all the beings in it,

It's showing up in the climate crisis.

Our very bodies are showing the signs of this broken relationship.

Toxic and disrupted ecosystems and food chains are triggering booming rates of chronic disease and cancer.

12 million Australians are currently living with one or more diagnosed chronic disease that they now need to manage for the rest of their lives.

Our broken relationship with our own deep wild selves is showing up in the mental health crisis.

Nearly half of all Australians will have a diagnosed serious mental illness at some point in their lives,

Nearly half.

And horrifically,

The age group with the highest prevalence is 18 to 24 year olds.

Thirty six people try to take their lives every single day in Australia and six of them succeed.

This is not just a climate crisis.

This is a crisis of relationship,

Our relationship with life itself.

We have lost our sense of ease for belonging to this world.

We fear that we are parasites destroying the planet,

That the earth would be better off without us.

We imagine in the wee hours that perhaps we might be like an abusive husband who knows he is destroying the woman he loves,

But somehow just can't stop perpetuating violence upon her,

Upon this earth.

How do we heal this?

Finding a deep connection with medicinal and psychoactive plants is a fantastic doorway into deeper connection with life,

Into a more wholesome relationship with the earth and with our souls.

In my own work as a herbalist,

More and more I feel like the herbs I give people are only an adjunct to the deeper work of inviting people into a more intimate relationship with their own bodies and with the world around them.

Our bodies are the small piece of the earth that we are constantly inhabiting.

If we cannot care for this vessel of soil and dust,

These rivers of blood,

These bones of stone,

How can we hope to care for the larger soil,

Rivers and mountains of this earth?

Bringing our attention to the interactions with the living world,

Becoming aware of the amazing fact that millions of plants grow and create complex chemical gifts we can tap into to transform our bodies,

Minds and souls,

Allows us to really feel the tangible nature of our connection with this living system that we call Gaia.

Not just our connection with it,

But also the indisputable fact that we do have a place here.

We are home.

We are an intrinsic part of the dance of life on earth.

The very fact that plants all over the world are turning sunlight and water into these complex symphonies of chemicals that just happen to cause changes in my mood,

In my state of being and in the way that my body functions.

For me it is a real flag,

A real indication that my body is meant to be here.

That humans are meant to be part of this wild dance called life.

It is really hard for me as a person to have a relationship with a collection of glucose and chlorophyll molecules.

If I only think of plants in this way,

Then it is very hard to cultivate this sense of intimacy that I think is what we are really lacking in this world.

But I can have a relationship with the chamomile being,

A gentle and compassionate friend who so generously soothes and calms many of my emotional hurts,

Who helped me relax as a child for bed,

Who soothes me when I am feeling tired but overstimulated and can't really wind down for the night.

I can have a relationship with the succulent,

Slippery,

Soothing balm of aloe vera.

I can admire her spiky leaves and the incredible goo that is so supportive of my skin,

Anything that is burnt and hot and irritated.

When I learned to relate with plants in a way that was almost personal,

That almost saw them as a spirit or a being,

I was able to start to feel this sense of reciprocal relationship.

Because we are in reciprocal relationship,

We are embedded in this web of life,

A network or system of intelligent and mysterious beings who are offering us an incredible level of support regardless of our achievements,

Our success,

Our failures,

Our fears,

Our desires.

This support and connectedness just keeps coming.

Whether we are aware of it or not,

The plants in this world provide so much of the fabric that we use to stay warm at night,

To cover our bodies,

To cover our windows.

All of the food that we eat is based on plants.

Even the meat is based on animals who have been fed and kept alive with plants.

Almost all of our medicine is based on plants,

Even pharmaceuticals.

Eighty-five percent of the pharmaceuticals that we use in the world are taken and adapted from plants.

The raw materials come from the supreme and incredible chemists that are the plant world.

This desk I'm sitting at.

Half of this house I'm living in is made from the trees that created the timber.

Everywhere I turn,

The plant world is offering me succor and support.

Every breath I take is a gift of oxygen from the forests of the world.

So much of my joy as I walk through the streets of the town I live is because of the flowers and the gardens that are blooming.

When I look outside and see the trees dancing in the wind,

My heart is lifted.

Everywhere I turn,

The plants are offering me support.

And when I can also look towards them as living beings and open myself in gratitude and love,

That starts to become reciprocal.

And then I can feel I really am in relationship.

For me,

Learning to actually feel and acknowledge this relationships with plants has increased my sense of well-being,

Of happiness,

And ultimately belonging.

How can I feel lonely or like I don't belong here when there are so many beings across the planet providing for virtually my every need?

And that's not even thinking about all the humans that have been involved in sewing my clothes,

Farming,

Repairing my food,

Building the buildings,

Organizing all the infrastructure,

Et cetera.

It's an endless web of life.

Plant,

Fungus,

Bacteria,

Humans,

Animals,

Birds,

This web of life just pulsing and dancing.

Dancing around me,

Dancing with me in every moment of my existence.

Even when I die,

My body will continue to enter this web of life,

Decomposing and dancing with the creatures of the soil that then become plants that then become chemistry that then go out into medicine and oxygen and et cetera.

And I really feel this web,

This connection,

This endless interaction and intimacy with life.

My motivations for my actions change.

My decisions change.

I become less focused on achieving,

On being seen to be successful,

And more focused on participating.

Less desirous of excelling and more desirous of serving.

Offering back my gifts into this web in gratitude for all the gifts I'm being given in every moment.

Plants are the world makers.

This sounds big,

But if we just think about it,

Before animals walked the world,

The plants had to weave an environment that was nurturing and conducive to animal lungs and bellies.

The great ancient forests of kelp and fur created the oxygen over centuries that we need to breathe.

They took sunlight and water and built the soil with their bodies.

As they decomposed,

They created the soil that the small fruiting plants that produce all of our foods needed to be able to grow.

In this way,

The plants and trees are literally our ancestors.

They were here before us,

And they built the world that we needed to be able to even exist.

They literally breathed us into being.

And after that,

They kept and keep on providing the environment we need to thrive.

So many aspects of it.

As I deepen on my plant path,

As a herbalist,

A healer,

And a lover of this wild world,

I'm coming to realize that human life is not meant to be lived without being in constant relationship with our plant friends.

This is how we have evolved.

Our bodies are used to taking the chemicals of plants,

Of wild plants and herbs,

And using them to adapt and modify our internal functioning.

Our ancestors were intimately connected with plant medicines.

Our environment,

Externally and internally,

Would be simply unlivable without plants.

So here I make for you an invitation.

Look around at the plants in your life,

Out your window,

In your office,

In your bedroom,

And see more deeply,

Not just the pot plants,

But the plants,

The cotton that is in your clothing,

The timber that is in your house,

The coffee that is in your cup,

All these different plants connecting into your life and making your life livable every day.

I invite you to lean into this and really feel supported,

Feel grateful,

To pay attention to the way that the plants and all the other living beings support you,

That dance with you,

And ask yourself,

How are you dancing with them?

Reviews

Thank you for this gentle and deep reflection ❤🌺

O my goodness ! Your words give me “ hope “. Your words give me strength and joy. Your words are so poignant and beautiful and make me happy like I have never been ! Thank you for your truth and I will continue to revel in my dance with my wild plants and woods and forest in the low country ⭐️

In kindness,
Hope

Thank you 🙏🏾

Loved this so much! 🥰🌴🌸🐝🍄🌿🌱💚🌟