You Are Earth
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YOU ARE EARTH
“Experiencing our own dynamic nature can be the first step towards understanding the dynamic nature of all living systems.”
– Adam Wolpert
Some people look in books as they seek the mysteries and magic things of life. I see the mysteries and magic when I look at the plants, animals, soil, rivers, ocean, and sky. But they are not as they should be.
I see Earth weeping, the wildlife aching, and the people wandering. They are torn from each other by the selfishness that has ravaged the planet. It is a disconnection from Nature that has ripped a wound into the spirits of humanity, wildlife, and the living planet. It continues to hemorrhage as commercial society perpetuates a lifestyle dependant on toxic chemicals, on cutting down forests, on burning fossil fuels, and on placing value on collecting money and high-priced belongings.
In its collective mind, humanity has devalued Nature, wildlife, and the value of a planet that breathes and lives and that is being killed by the infestation of greed.
You and everything that you see around you is an expression of energy. The expression has arranged substances into a pattern that makes up the structures of everything.
We are beings made up of magnetically-charged energy fields and we exist on a sphere that also has currents of electricity flowing through it. There are other fields of electricity streaming through the air and in and out of everything surrounding us.
The substances that make up your tissues are recycled from something else. They may have once existed in other people, and in animals, plants, rocks, soil, and in the air and water you have take in. Some of the substances inside you existed in dinosaurs, in ancient forests and desert cacti, in wildflowers and fruiting trees, in seaweed and ferns, in eagles and finches, in whales and walruses, in lizards and snakes, and in snails, ladybugs, caterpillars, mosquitoes, and butterflies.
The patterns in which the substances in your body are arranged allow for your body to function as a living being ruled by your spirit. As directed by your spirit you are animated.
Because you continually cast off the outer cells of your skin, grow and lose hair, and are putting forth gasses and waste through your skin, lungs, and eliminative organs while also taking in oxygen, water, and food substances, you are constantly interacting with your environment in a way that makes you part of the environment.
You are a system of substances that are always moving in and out of the different forms of life and in and out of the terrain of the planet. Because there is a continuous flow of substances from outer space falling to the planet, including meteorites and solar electron neutrinos, you are part of the galaxy.
You are Sun, stars, planets, soil, rock, mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, streams, oceans, plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and air. You are part of the flow of Nature and Nature is a part of you.
You are the environment. When you are neglecting the environment, you are neglecting yourself. When the environment suffers, you suffer.
Is your consciousness paying attention to the environment and how you impact the environment? If not, it is time to wake up.
Be a part of the solution.
“Everything in nature contains all the power of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.”
– Native American Proverb
“There’s not a single scientific peer review paper published in the last 25 years that would contradict this scenario: Every living system of Earth is in decline. Every life support system of Earth is in decline. And these together constitute the biosphere. The biosphere that supports and nurtures all of life. Not just our lives, but perhaps 30 million other species that share this planet with us.”
– Ray Anderson
“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.”
– Linda Hogan
“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
– Also Leopald
“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
– Henry Miller
“The boundary between ourselves and other people and between ourselves and Nature, is illusion. Oneness is reality.”
– Charlene Spretnak
“The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature.”
– Albert Schweitzer
“In the Native way we are encouraged to recognize that every moment is a sacred moment, and every action, when imbued with dedication and commitment to benefit all beings, is a sacred act.”
– Dhyani Ywahoo
“Our true wealth is the good we do in this world. None of us has faith unless we desire for our neighbors what we desire for ourselves.”
– Muhammad
“You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for others – something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.”
– Albert Schweitzer
“It is one thing just to use the earth: it is quite another thing to receive the blessing of the earth and to become at home in the law of this reception, in order to shepherd the mystery of being and to pay attention to the inviolability of the possible.”
– Martin Heidegger
“The universe is the primary revelation of the divine, the primary scripture, the primary focus of divine-human communion.”
– Thomas Berry
“There is an entire history behind the relationship of man towards nature. Our indigenous ancestors like the Incas, Aucas, and other native tribes used to acknowledge the power and crucial relationship between nature and man. Therefore, they respected, cherished and took care of Mother Nature. Man lives because nature is the mother who takes care of her children. Man feels that he is the dictator when in fact he would die if the mother ceased to exist.”
– Alex Leonidas Pusternak
“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed.”
– Wallace Stegner
“What you people call your natural resources, we call our relatives.”
– Oren Lyons Faith keeper of the Onondaga
“In the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it’s unenvironmental it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature.”
– Mollie Beattie
“Every morning I awaken torn between the desire to save the world and the inclination to savor it.”
– E.B. White
“When a man throws an empty cigarette package from an automobile, he is liable to a fine of $50. When a man throws a billboard across a view, he is richly rewarded.”
– Pat Brown
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
– Rachel Carson
“You are held within the web of life, within flows of energy, and intelligence far exceeding your own.”
– Joanna Macy
“Make sure that the things you do keep us alive.”
– Graham Nash
“The Earth is what we all have in common.”
– Wendell Berry
“I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.”
– José Ortega y Gasset
“When we heal the earth, we heal ourselves.”
– David Orr
“The stars, as though they knew no one would see them now, were twinkling brightly in the black sky. Flaring up and growing dim again and quivering they seemed to be busily signaling some joyful mystery to each other.”
– Leo Tolstoy
“Water is the driving force of all nature.”
– Leonardo da Vinci
“The have-nots can be out of sight and even out of mind, but they breathe the same air, drink from the same scant supply of fresh water, and birth children who will grow up to work with our children to finish the job we’ve barely started; they will have to find a way for all of us to live well within the Earth’s means.”
– Vicki Robin
“To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.”
– Hellen Keller
“Nothing will benefit human health or increase the chances for survival of life on earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
– Albert Einstein
“If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.”
– Chief Seattle
“Man is at his highest when Nature is his teacher.”
– Mervyn Brady
“Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.”
– Gerard De Nerval
“Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.”
– Leonardo Da Vinci
“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”
– John Burroughs
“There are things for which an uncompromising stand is worthwhile.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature.”
– Zeno
“The seed never sees the flower.”
– Zen philosophy
“We have spent 99% of our history in the wild. Sky, water, and trees are embedded in us. Sever that and we’ve severed what it is to be human.”
– John Todd
“The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all.”
– Wendell Berry
“Learn from the lowliest in the earth, in the birds, in the trees, in the grass, in the flowers, in the bees – likewise listen to the birds, watch the blush of the rose, listen to the life rising in the tree. “
– Edgar Cayce
“Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we now have acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is part of nature, and his war is inevitably a war against himself.”
– Rachel Carson
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Earth turns to gold in the hands of the wise.”
– Rumi
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.”
– Wendell Berry
“When we try to pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
– John Muir
“Some day the earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you will die too.”
– John Hollow Horn, Oglala Lakota, 1932
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
– Anne Frank
“There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”
– Marshall McLuhan
“Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate, sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth… home. My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.”
– Edgar Mitchell, sixth man on the moon
“The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw Earth from space.”
– Aleksei Leonov
“The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great nerve-center from which we quiver forever. Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus? But it is a vital power, rippling exquisitely through us all the time.”
– D. H. Lawrence
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
– Morrie Schwartz
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead
“I have never come across anything in nature that is superfluous and does not fulfill a function. There seems to be no redundancy or unemployment in these natural worlds. Be it rock or plant, bird or tree, or even the bacteria within the soil, everything occupies a vital place in the dance of life.”
– Michael Lindfield
“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It is our choice whether we will diligently work toward optimizing our health, restoring the planet, caring for all that is vital to our existence and bringing light to darkness.”
– David Klein
“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.”
– Zeno
“The purpose of conservation: The greatest good to the greatest number of people for the longest time.”
– Gifford Pinchot
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things are connected.”
– Chief Seattle
“There is an entire history behind the relationship of man towards nature. Our indigenous ancestors like the Incas, Aucas, and other native tribes used to acknowledge the power and crucial relationship between nature and man. Therefore, they respected, cherished and took care of Mother Nature. Man lives because nature is the mother who takes care of her children. Man feels that he is the dictator when in fact he would die if the mother ceased to exist.”
– Alex Leonidas Pusternak
“There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet.”
– Brooke Medicine Eagle
The health of the planet reflects the health of the people living on it. The planet is in its current state of destruction because people have made unwise and unenlightened choices that have resulted in this unfortunate end result. To get a better end result people need to make a better beginning.
Great things have been accomplished in the past. Great things can be accomplished now to turn around the state of the planet.
We are living in a time when we can do tremendous good to improve the condition of wildlife and the environment.
It all starts where you live, by making better choices in your daily life that protect, restore, and nurture Nature.
When we realize our kinship with wildlife and our need for a healthful environment we rediscover our connection to and reliance on Nature.
Since we are all reliant on the same things, everyone should be involved in protecting what we all need: a healthful environment.
As you work to improve your health, work to improve the health of Earth. On some level, be involved in creating a sanctuary of Nature. Welcome the birds, bees, butterflies, beetles, and insects. Protect it as a place for wildlife to play and make their homes.
Find organizations in your community and region that work to protect the environment and the wilds of Nature. Select an organization for which you can do volunteer work and/or financially support through any type of donation you can give. Commit to sending a certain amount of money per month to an organization that works to protect Nature.
Through improving your health by following a plant-based, vegetarian diet, you also improve the health of the planet. As each person works to improve their own life to live more in tune with Nature, the health of the planet will improve.
The time to do it is now.
Plant trees.
Protect wildlife, wildlands, and the water bodies of Earth, which are all one with us.
Just as a seed never sees the flower, some people who work to restore Nature will never see the benefit they will have. A person who restores land that was once a forest, and plants the trees, may never live to see the trees grow into forests where wildlife lives and raindrops gather into a creek that feeds a river traveling into a distant ocean.
I encourage people to work to protect and restore the natural environment because I recognize our communion with Nature, and am aware that Nature’s health is our health.
Now is more important than ever to realize that we are Earth.
“Man’s ethics must not end with man, but should extend to the universe. He must regain the consciousness of the great Chain of Life from which he cannot be separated.”
– Albert Schweitzer
© 2009 John McCabe
The following are some organizations working to protect Nature, animals, and wildlife:
Allegheny Defense Project, 311 Pitt St., Pittsburgh, PA 15221; http://www.alleghenydefense.org
Amazon Alliance, 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW St., Ste. 1100, Washington, DC 20036; http://www.AmazonAlliance.org
Animal Rights Community, http://www.AnimalRightsCommunity.com
Animal Rights International, POB 1292, Middlebury, CT 06762; http://www.ARI-Online.org
Animals Australia, 37 O’Connell St, North Melbourne Victoria 3051, Australia; http://www.AnimalsAustralia.org
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre, POB 323N, Cairns North, Qld. 4870, Australia; http://www.cafnec.org.au
California Wilderness Coalition, 1212 Broadway, Suite 1700 Oakland, CA 94612; http://www.CalWild.org
Care for the Wild International, http://www.CareForTheWild.org
Cascadia Wildlands Project: POB 10455, Eugene, OR 97440; http://www.CascWild.org
Conservation Council of Western Australia, City West Lotteries House 2 Delhi Street, West Perth, Western Australia, 6005; http://www.ConservationWA.asn.au
The Coral Reef Alliance, 351 California St, Ste. 650, San Francisco, CA, 94104, USA; http://www.coralreefalliance.org
Earth First!, POB 324, Redway, CA 95560; http://www.EarthFirst.org
Earth First! Australia, POB 1270, Albany Western Australia 6330 http://www.EarthFirst.org.au
Earth First! Journal, POB 3023, Tucson, AZ 85702-3023; http://www.EarthFirstJournal.org
Earth Island Institute, 300 Broadway, Ste. 28, San Francisco, CA 94133; http://www.EarthIsland.org
Earth Justice, http://www.EarthJustice.org
EarthSave, Earthjustice 426 17th Street, Oakland, CA 94612; http://www.EarthSave.org
Endangered Species Coalition, PO Box 65195, Washington DC, 20035 USA; http://www.givengain.com
End Mountaintop Removal, Appalachian Voices, 191 Howard St, Boone, NC 28607; http://www.ILoveMountains.org
Farm Animal Reform Movement, 10101 Ashburton Lane, Bethesda, MD 20817; http://www.FarmUSA.org
Farm Sanctuary, Farm Sanctuary National Headquarters, 3100 Aikens Rd. Watkins Glen, NY 14891; P.O. Box 150; http://www.FarmSanctuary.org
Food Not Bombs, P.O. Box 424, Arroyo Seco, NM 87514, USA; http://www.FoodNotBombs.net
Food Not Lawns, 31139 Lanes Turn Rd., Coburg, OR 97408; http://www.FoodNotLawns.com
Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Box 489, 331 Neill St, Tofino BC V0R 2Z0, Canada; http://www.FOCS.ca
The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, POB 900113, San Diego , CA 92190; http://www.FruitTreeFoundation.org
Green Peace, 702 H Street, NW, Ste. 300, Washington, D.C. 20001, USA; http://www.GreenPeace.org/usa
Habitat Works, 3436 Foothill Blvd., Ste.130, La Crescenta, CA 91214; http://www.HabitatWork.org
Heal the Bay, 1444 9th St., Santa Monica, CA 90401, USA; http://www.HealTheBay.org
In Defense of Animals, 3010 Kerner Blvd, San Rafael, CA 94901, USA; http://www.IDAUSA.org
International Rivers Network, 1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94703; http://www.InternationalRivers.org
Kahea, The Hawaiian Environmental Alliance, POB 270112, Honolulu, Hawai'i 96827-0112; http://www.Kahea.org
Mendocino Environmental Center, POB 299, 106 W. Standley St., Ukiah, CA 95482; http://www.MECGrassRoots.org
Natural Resources Defense Council, 40 West 20th St., New York, NY 10011; http://www.NRDC.org
Nature in the City, POB 170088, San Francisco CA 94117-0088; http://www.NatureInTheCity.org
New England Anti-Vivisection Society, 333 Washington St., Ste. 850, Boston, MA 02108-5100; http://www.NEAVS.org
No Veal, POB 15, Watkins Glen, NY 14891; http://www.NoVeal.org
The Ocean Project, POB 2506, Providence, RI 02906; http://www.TheOceanProject.org
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, POB 6753, Huntington, WV 25773-6753; http://www.OHVEC.org
Oregon Wild, 5825 North Greeley, Portland, OR 97217-4145; http://www.OregonWild.org
The Paw Project, PO Box 445, Santa Monica, CA 90406-0045; http://www.PawProject.org
People for Puget Sound, 911 Western Avenue, Ste. 580, Seattle, WA 98104; http://www.PugetSound.org
Rising Tide Australia, POB 290, Newcastle, 2300; http://www.RisingTide.org.au
Rising Tide UK, 62 Fieldgate St., London E1 1ES England; http://www.RisingTide.org.uk
Save Happy Valley, POB 9263, Te Aro, Wellington, New Zealand; http://www.SaveHappyValley.org.nz
Society for Ecological Restoration International, http://www.SER.org
Turtle Survival Alliance, http://www.TurtleSurvival.org
United Mountain Defense, http://www.UnitedMountainDefense.org
Vegan Voice, Australia; http://www.Veganic.net
Voice For Animals, http://www.VoiceForAnimals.net
Western Mining Action Network, http://www.WMAN-Info.org
The Wilderness Society of Australia, Australia; http://www.Wilderness.org.au
Wild Lands Project, http://www.WildLandsProject.org
Wildlife Watch, http://www.WildWatch.org
Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, Woodstock, NY; http://www.WoodstockFAS.org
Zero Waste Alliance, http://www.ZeroWaste.org
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