I am earth. Is cré mé. I know this.
I can no longer deny my disconnection from the earth. My flesh and bones are made of earth, and yet this disconnection feels so real.
I spend time in nature, and I feel at home, but almost as though I am visiting the beautiful dwelling place of a friend. Forests feel like they are the homes of trees that I’ve graciously been invited into. When I lie on a patch of grass, I am aware of the place where my skin ends and the ground begins. When I swim in the ocean, I cannot allow myself to dissolve into the water; I can imagine that the water in my body is the same, but I cannot feel it.
When I eat, I forget that my food came from the earth, that I become that food, and that I will return to the earth some day. I try to remember sometimes, and then I forget to remember.
I try to shop consciously, reduce my waste and recycle, but I don’t really care where my rubbish ends up.
I take airplanes across the world whenever I feel a calling to do so. I try to eat locally, but whenever the fuck I feel like it, I’ll eat foods without the slightest hesitation that have traveled across the world, too, from another climate, another season.
This is willful ignorance, at this point.
My spiritual ego wants to present myself as an earth-loving, eco-conscious being of light and love skipping gaily through the meadow of fucking marigolds, but it’s just not the full truth. I have to admit this because if I don’t, I am denying myself the first, essential step.
Admitting.
That I am unconscious.
That I don’t care as much as I would like to.
And that underneath that is a deep fear of what it would feel like to actually care.
It’s a fear of loving something so immense. The moments I’ve experienced where I have actually touched on this love for the earth, falling through a sunset or a mountain-top view or a fresh-water lake, I have felt like my heart would burst open if I let it. I’ve felt a love that is so total that the small ‘I’ is completely annihilated.
And I’ve felt a grief that as deep as the ocean, for the fact that I spend most of my time in a sleepy state of separation.
How could I live so long on this planet under the illusion that I am not it? Really? It’s no wonder I can behave with such a lack of consideration all of the time – it requires the biggest lie I’ve ever told myself.
That I am not within the circle of life – I’m outside of it, observing, trying to distract myself, hoping for a better future, trying to figure my shit out, trying to get ahead, trying to survive.
Meanwhile, nature is abundant and there’s not a thing that it cannot teach me about the absolute perfection of life on earth.
Against the protests of certain parts of me, I’ve ended up in a garden project at Highden Temple, where I’m living in New Zealand. I have so much resistance, and so much desire to be a part of it – the tension between the two is pulling me in deeper. I’ve been noticing how contracted I get when I have to go plant seedlings or harvest vegetables. I’ve been noticing how tired my body gets whenever we’re talking about the garden project. I’ve noticed how putting my hands in the earth feels traumatic in some ways, like touching the hand of a dying relative I’ve never visited.
It helps me to admit this, to speak it in the knowing that no outside judgement matters – only my judgement of myself. And I have judged myself so harshly for this, for this willful ignorance.
But I’m here now, humbled by my total ignorance, noticing the initial storm beginning to subside. Sometimes, I feel nothing. Then I feel sad. I feel disconnected. And I know that this is a part of a journey of coming home to the earth, coming home to myself.
I feel compassion for the parts of me that have been so shut down that they’re in contraction. I feel gratitude for the parts that are showing up to the land every day, offering my hands and my heart. I’m grateful for the ones here who can teach me, and my openness to be a total student, of them and of the earth. I’m grateful that I have eyes to see, hands to feel, ears to listen. I’m grateful for the contraction and the grief for what it teaches me.
I feel regret for the way I’ve treated my body and this earth, and I want to allow this grief to come through me. I remember the first time that I placed my hands in the earth since I was a child – I was in a permaculture community in Thailand, and had been given the job of planting beets. The moment my hands touched the warm, moist soil, I burst out crying. Intense waves of grief flooded through me for the entire time I was planting.
This apathy that I’m feeling, and the grief that is underneath, need to be expressed – I don’t want to turn away from them in fear. In order to heal, I need to feel.
It’s Christmas Eve, and for the first time ever, I’ll be harvesting much of the food that will make up the feasts of the coming week. In a time that’s usually synonymous with mass gluttony and unconscious consumption, this feels fresh, unusual and appreciated.
As much as my change-resistant ego wants to pretend that this isn’t me and I can’t be fucking bothered, I have to remind myself that my feet have brought me to this place, to this pivotal moment of stepping into something that is aligned with my soul, if I so choose.
And there’s no choice, really. It’s already been written.