What does celebrating Earth Day mean to you? Participating in a beach or river cleanup? Taking the stockpile of cans to recycling center? Donating money to an environmental cause? Or is it just one of those guilt-ridden “I should be doing something” moments?
Here’s a suggestion to consider:
Explore this “Love Earth Invitation,”
from my book, Love Earth Now.
Allow yourself to steep in this exercise, even if, especially if, it feels silly, a waste of time. Dare to feel, listen, and sense. Resist, if you will, trying to put a label on it or explain it. Let go of any sense of urgency to fix or resolve any issues that arise in this moment. Even the most prolific bacteria may require weeks to compost a single banana peel and yet their work is essential to the cycle of life.
Love Earth Invitation
How do you demonstrate your affection for Earth, Nature, the places, the plants, the critters, whomever and wherever you love? How do you feel about your own contributions? Do you feel you’re doing so much that it’s exhausting you? Do you despair over not doing enough, lacking the time, energy, or know-how? Or are you somewhere in the middle?
Walk outside or close your eyes and imagine being somewhere in Nature. Breathe deeply and allow the images to develop. Sniff the scents, consider the colors, receive the sounds, touch the textures. Devote the full faculties of your senses.
When you feel immersed, ask any question that occurs to you in this moment—even if it sounds foolish. Resist any temptation to think of what you should be asking. You may wish to direct this question to anything or anyone with you in this experience, be it to a plant or critter in your mind, to the name by which you call the Divine, or to any guide you sense at your side. Or to your own heart. Continue breathing, listening, sensing, feeling.
Release any expectation, if you will, that responses to your question must take the form of words. Trust, if you are willing, that your question has already been answered, that it is for you to discover with curiosity and awareness.
When you are ready to conclude this experience, set an intention to remain open to answers when and as they come. Perhaps the insight will come as you drift off to sleep, take a walk or cook dinner. Or perhaps it seeps in slowly as you go about the busy-ness of living this life. Honor the insights whenever and however they show up, like finding, at last, that one missing sock. AHA.
❤️🌎
