The Earth is our mother, we must take care of her.
Her sacred ground we walk upon, with every step we take.
The earth is our mother, she will take care of us.
–Adapted Hopi Chant
Happy Earth Day!
This morning I awoke to beautifully gentle spring rain and the song The Earth is Our Mother flowing through my mind.
Many years ago, I co-facilitated a mother-daughter goddess group with my daughter when she was between the ages of six and twelve. Each month we would gather to celebrate the sacred feminine in one of her many goddess forms. The stories we would learn and the songs we would sing brought us into the timeless threads that women weave together.
As a mother, I felt my responsibility was to raise my daughter with a deep appreciation for the sacred feminine. The Earth is our mother. We breathe her air, drink her water, and eat from the bounty of her land. She takes care of us.
This song captures the simple awareness that the Earth is our mother. Embracing the Earth’s wisdom is a reciprocal consciousness of interdependence and love, The power of place can inform our consciousness and help us connect to the beauty of nature that we are all a part of.
The Earth is Our Home
Today, we can draw on ancient indigenous wisdom and cutting-edge science to understand that life is mutually interdependent. Sharing a biodiverse planet with other human beings and the creatures who live here is the richness of life that connects us to the living, breathing, numinous world surrounding and permeating us.
We call the Earth our Great Mother, and this is more than just a metaphor. There is a presence and being in the Earth beyond our understanding, a wisdom beyond all words. She is Gaia; she is the primordial Mother Goddess; she is Pachamama and she is real.
The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth. We are earth beings who live on a changing, fragile blue planet. Our home is here on this planet. The choices we make can help lower our carnivorous footprint so that we have a home to leave to our descendants.
Nature Connectedness
Nature connectedness captures the right relationship between people and the rest of nature in relational reciprocity. We depend on functioning ecosystems to meet our and other species’ needs and support well-being across the life span. Reciprocal relations invoke intimate, mutual obligations between place and the people that are part of everyday local practices.
Understanding the fragility of the environment and the importance of its protection is critical if we are to genuinely care for each other. Many Indigenous worldviews position people as just one part of the natural world, co-existing in a web of relations that includes land, water, animals, and other non-human entities, including spirit beings. Cultivating a relationship with the natural habitats where we live is our responsibility. We cannot wait for others to turn around the dire conditions we are now experiencing.
When I was in my psychology graduate program I was introduced to “eco-feminism”. The theory explores the connections between women and nature in culture, economy, religion, politics, literature, and iconography, and addresses the parallels between the oppression of nature and the oppression of women.
Basically, the perspective helped me acknowledge how social issues related to women’s health and well-being and the environment are intertwined and how solutions in one area can influence positive outcomes for all of us living together.
We do not worship the Earth; we honor and respect her. We acknowledge and accept our place in the web of life and recognize our limitations and ignorance. We strive to be humane and human, to live with compassion and gratitude for the gift and abundance of life.
Living in the right relationship with nature and letting life’s regenerative patterns flow through us, we come to understand ourselves not as owners of the earth but as expressions of place.
Earth Wisdom
Fleur Earth Wisdom Ritual Essence was created several years ago at Fairy Glen by Maggie Smith to capture the timeless magic of earth wisdom.
Maggie’s Story
It was a blustery cold day on the glen. Not many flowers bloomed and I wasn’t sure how I should proceed. So I sat down on a rock to meditate with the bottles of spring water in my jacket pockets. The first bottle flew out of my pocket and rolled down the hill under some short trees, as I turned to retrieve it the second bottle flew down the hill. I went to get them and found the rocks under the trees covered with moss. This was the perfect place. I put my crystal bowl in the middle, poured the water closed my eyes, and was surrounded by a parade of wee folk joyfully bringing the energy of this ancient place round and round into the bowl, dancing, and whistling. Their message to me was to embrace this “earth wisdom” that is timeless. I felt grounded and joyful simultaneously.
Earth Wisdom Ritual Essence reminds us that all Life is encoded in our DNA. Our life cycles and cycles of the natural world unfold along the spiral path. Alchemical wellness care for ourselves and our planet provides a clear path of connectedness that lifts our hearts with love.
Use this essence when you feel disconnected from the Earth’s natural energy or when caught up in the day-to-day activity of life. You’ll feel more connected to the natural essence of earth wisdom. Earth Wisdom Ritual Essence will help you reconnect with the magic and spirit of the land. Its energy carries the original intelligence of nature and enhances regenerative resilience.
By imagining yourself anchored by Mother Earth’s love you’ll re-discover the grounded strength and wisdom that is within you. By imagining the beauty and joy of her nature reflected in your own being, you can rediscover the beauty that resides deep inside yourself.
Fairy Glen – Isle of Skye
The Fairy Glen on the Island of Skye is a unique and unusual landscape, a geological wonder on the Isle of Skye. It has a long geologic and cultural history, going back to prehistoric times.
This magical place is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. A jumbled morass of mysterious moors, jagged mountain peaks, deep lochs, and towering sea cliffs define the isle. The clusters of hills contain ridged spiral mounds and some resemble upside-down beehives.
Much of the landscape was formed in the last Ice Age when glaciers carved the land and smoothened it over millennia. Following the ice age, hunter-gatherers are thought to have inhabited the area as early as the 7th century BC. People have recognized the spiritual significance of the land at least since ancient times.
Small ponds sprinkled throughout the knolls reflect the natural colors within the glen. It is a land of vibrantly green grass with golden, reddish, and purplish shades that ripple in the breeze. The colors of these hues are incredibly vivid during the day, but the sunset colors transform them into something more magical.
Fairies, or “the little people,” are believed to live deep within the heather of fairy glen. It is said that the fairies have potent abilities that can manipulate our awareness of time and space. It is impossible not to feel their playful joyous presence no matter what time of day it is.
Whatever its original meaning in Fairy Glen, we can only imagine, but it is an ancient place of ceremony and continues to draw people to this magical place.
Spiral Wisdom
The unmistakable spiral in the center of Fairy Glen is a focal point in the glen. It captures the attention and people from all over the world continue to be drawn to this remote spot.
The spiral is one of the oldest symbols used since the Neolithic and Paleolithic periods. Some argue this powerful symbol may have represented the sun or the portal to a spirit world.
Perhaps it represented life itself, life cycles of the natural world, or life beyond life. It could have been used for a more mundane purpose, such as to drain water or as a calendrical device to divide time into seasons and solstices.
We know is that our human life cycle and the cycles of the natural world unfold along the spiral path. The old dies away so the new can come forth. The cycle may be regenerative or it may destroy. Regenerative landscapes are those that restore the environment and encourage long-term sustainability, increased biodiversity, and enhanced resilience.
Nature Pathway
As science reveals what many wisdom traditions have known all along, we now have the capacity to align our ideas and sustainable systems more closely with natural rhythms to live in harmony with our changing Earth.
One of the greatest ways we can celebrate our planet is to make a heartfelt commitment to take more responsibility for our own energies – our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions. It’s especially important to remember to find balance within yourself. As you give priority to your inner balance, it can facilitate balance in our relationships and Earth’s ecosystems.
A closer, healthier, and more connected relationship with nature comes through noticing, feeling, and celebrating our fragile existence. We do this by engaging the
- Senses – tuning into nature through what we see, smell, touch, feel, and hear
- Emotion – embodying aliveness through nature invokes feelings of care
- Beauty – noticing nature’s beauty arouses body, mind, and spirit
- Meaning – interdependence is mutual enhancing collective concern
- Shared Values – starts with choices in the home with our children
- Wonder & Awe – inspires reverence for nature
- Action – taking daily sustainable steps to reduce our carbon footprint
- Celebration – every day is earth day.
Living in balance and harmony with each other raises our vibration and is among the highest gifts we can give to Earth as it can help magnetize higher vibrational solutions to humanity’s and Earth’s challenges.
The earth belongs to all Life, is all Life. It is encoded in our DNA. We must learn to care for our mother. Together we can be her voice and invest our time, energy, and effort to make this planet, our home, sustainable for future generations.
It is a great responsibility. We are the change-makers. We are the wisdom keepers. We recognize and remember our deepest humanity and place within the larger unfolding spiral in the web of Life.
The Earth is our mother, her sacred ground we walk upon, with every step we take. Caring for our mother is reciprocal and in doing so our mother will care for us.
All my aromatic love,
Vidya
