For Earth Day 2006

The Earth within Us

The desert is full of contradictions. Its sparseness supports abundance; flowers bloom at night, creatures sleep by day. The desert follows its own song. I think that’s why I live there…because I want to learn how.

The rhythms of place, of hatchling or cub, of bud or seed, and the unmoving character of elder trees and weathered rocks that stand watch and hold the earth with fierce love-these affect me to my core.

Human institutions, on the other hand, serve me not. Built landscapes and unnatural acts like office work and traffic jams rise like dull monoliths separating me from my senses. They can not prevail though; I needn’t really worry. The earth is as much within as without. That we are separate from the environment is just another modern day scam.

We start out rocking in a warm sea, soothed by the steady beat of mother’s heart, enlivened by muffled strains of her voice. Like a rose unfolding petal by petal, we are brought into the world connected to the source of life. It’s just an illusion that we separate. There is something profound to be remembered here.

We each receive a marvelous body, a vessel to get about on Earth, a bellows to voice our thoughts and dreams, a way to pass on our traits to our progeny. This body of ours is durable, comes with its own self-repair kit, and given plenty of care and proper nutrition, is capable of great physical, mental, and spiritual acts.
Our body carries the ocean in its blood. Water, minerals and oxygen from the blood our mother gave us, passed down from distant times when our relatives rode on swells of plankton-rich depths, remain a tie with all time.

We take in earth, sky and water in the food we eat and the air we breathe. Our body's muscle, fat, elastic tissues, bones and teeth are all made up of earth, sky, water and fire. These remain profound connections with the Earth.

Even the movement of the Earth on its axis creates temperature, moisture, quality and length of sunlight, changes that our bodies respond to. Seasonal Affective Disorder is depression caused by lack of sunlight during winter months. A tiny mass of cells-the pineal gland in our brain-is a sun-sensor. It secretes a hormone when sun light enters through our eyes, a hormone that promotes a feeling of well-being. This is an old tie to a time when our relatives sensed light through these specialized cells underneath an azure sea.

Creatures of the moon, we women spend the majority of our lives fluctuating along a 28-day lunar cycle. Seasons prompt us to move faster or slower, build a nest or seek far-flung places, eat more fat or drink more water. We are centrally attuned to Earth and celestial forces. How could we forget?

I once befriended a child hidden in an old woman’s body. She dressed in purple and frolicked near the sea in California. She was a teacher of tiny children, the ones before school dims their lights. She taught me how to be a child again so I could become a real teacher. Donis brought me gifts from the sea. One of them was a children's book, Pagoo, by Holling and Lucille Hollings. It tells the adventures of a tiny hermit crab (Paguradae). That’s how I was reminded of Old Pal Instinct!

Pagoo’s kind start out as tiny dabs of protoplasm drifting in giant surf and thrown against the rocky tide pools and reefs. Most of his clan never make it to adulthood. But Pagoo’s internal sage, Old Pal Instinct, cues him at each important step of his life. Old Pal is responsible for saving Pagoo’s sausage-shaped butt as he navigates life's storm-tossed seas, predator-laden reefs and the ever-changing tides of a hermit crab’s life.

Adult humans have an Old Pal Instinct buried under multiple layers of should’s and cant’s, should of’s and could of’s. Unless wisely instructed, most of us forget Old Pal soon after we are born. Yet instinct is always at work cuing us even if we have no "ear" to listen. Old Pal whispers what to eat and not eat; when to rest and when to get going. When we are in a threatening situation, Old Pal tells us to “get the hell out of there!”

Unfortunately, at almost every urging from Old Pal Instinct, modern society teaches us to ignore our inner wisdom, sometimes even telling us we should act or feel directly opposite. Children raised in dysfunctional families, for example, are taught to ignore their need for human warmth and affirmation, learning instead to stuff their feelings and be independent. Yet our dependence on each other is one of humankind’s most basic instincts that promotes well being, i.e. survival.

Our inner set of instructions, included with each new baby, is the wisdom of billions of living relatives gleaned by experience over millennia. Not to make use of Old Pal Instinct causes grief and sickness and hampers the full unfolding of the human spirit. "Failure to thrive" is a dramatic example of our irrefutable connection to each other. Without physical touching and maternal nurturing, human infants quit eating and die. They wither on the vine in emotionally barren soil, the inner fire of will just flickers out.

We are learning about another basic need: the health promoting aspects of beauty and quietude that promote mental, physical and spiritual health. Humans, we are learning, need to look at flowers, trees, open sky and bodies of water. Without natural landscapes we experience a kind of pervasive stress. City parks provide relief from heat, noise and artificiality. We are most likely to wax cynical, lose heart and go a little insane without the beauty of nature as a reassurance that life is worth living. This is because we are not separate from the Earth nor have we ever been.

In the Twenty-First Century, 80% of the world's population lives in or near a city. The majority of people live in very poor conditions. Hopelessness serves to squander a huge reservoir of human ingenuity. The loss of instinctual knowledge among civilized people additionally ensures we will struggle to determine how to live well together.

The tragedy of our time is that we are the cause of our own suffering. We are witnessing the fraying of whole biological systems in our oceans, lands and air. Certainly, some species will survive and "Go on!" as Old Pal Instinct instructs. But humans depend upon the whole of the environment to survive. The survival of the human race into the future is in question by many who are watching the demise of earth ecosystems.

What does Old Pal Instinct tell us Homo sapiens about living on Earth?

Protect Diversity
Diversity is good. We humans like variety! We are drawn to places where there are communities of different living organisms. Our inner wisdom leads us to keep a diverse gene pool of living things to ensure survival.

Stick Together
There is safety in numbers! Social relationships provide all the basic things we need. Families and communities share resources with each other and provide support and protection. Our inner wisdom promotes the survival of group members.

Be Good
Old Pal leads species to cooperate more than compete. Respecting territory, observing rules of engagement, feeding another’s young when they cannot, are the wisdom of altruistic genes. These conserve energy and resources and protect the group’s viability.

Be Moderate
Humans living together need to share equitably so there is enough for everyone, and there is no over-harvesting of any one resource by individuals or groups. Life on Earth is in a dynamic state of balance.

Old Pal Instinct tells us to rise with the sun and retire with the sunset; to work in the early morning and rest at mid-day; to commiserate in the afternoon and eat well together in the early evening; to laugh heartily, speak our minds but listen to each other. Old Pal teaches us mammals that our progeny must be nurtured. Like seedlings of a fruit tree we gently care for them and hope they bare much fruit one day.

Above all, we need hugging, touching, freedom of movement physically and mentally. Old Pal urges us outside to garden, hike and ruminate, to slow down and live in the moment. Old Pal tells old, old stories of those who went before us. We are reminded of our story because we need it to set our life and give it meaning and purpose.

I believe it has come to pass that even with our great intelligence and schools of thought about so many other things, we as a culture have lost touch with the set of instructions that bring balance to our actions: a sense of how much is enough, a feeling of reverence for all life, and basic knowledge of how to live on Earth.

These are all "there" in our genes if only we were attuned to recognize it. We must not forget, however, that at least very young children still know where the sidewalk ends and the moon bird rests in the cool of the peppermint wind. They could lead us back to our senses.

Once I had a spot on the Earth where I sat in soft green grass. It was on a little hill on the side of my grandparents’ gravel driveway that wound around their farm. It pitched toward a meadow and onward to Aunt Kates’ farm that stretched to fill a little gorge with green fields and spotted cows. Near my spot a tiny pond (created by my grandmother from an upturned tin garbage-can lid) collected drops of water from an old spicket until it was full to the brim. With each new drop a little water spilled over the edges catching the sunlight like a diamond. I sat in quietude, holding my breath to not disturb the blue dragonfly with gossamer wings skimming over the water, or the tiny bee perched so carefully on the edge to imbibe a little of life’s elixir. I smelled the sweet, cool fragrance of mint that grew around the edges and entered the dreamtime of being in perfect harmony with life energies. I was eight years old.

Will life be worth living without such moments? Can we live without them?

Lately, when I walk in the desert on a cool morning, I wonder how much more the Earth that is in me and all around me can take of our foolishness. Then perhaps I am stopped by the sudden trill of a cactus wren perched on a tall saguaro. I can see its feathered throat shudder and expand with breath. And for that moment I am lifted up by one still following its own true song.

To all my friends and family and readers who visit this blog, I urge each of you to celebrate the Earth within you! Below are the books that inspired this essay, each one a gem. - Susan


References

1. Berry, Thomas (1988). The Dream of the Earth. Sierra Club Books.

2. Berry, Thomas (1999). The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. New York: Bell Tower.

3. Bowlby, John (1980). Attachment and Loss, Vol. III. London: The Holgarth Press, Ltd. And The Institute of Psyche-Analysis,

4. Hollings, Holling C. & Lucille W. Holling (1957). Pagoo. N.Y. Houghton Mifflin Co.

5. Kuhn, Peter H. Jr, (1998). The Human Relationship with Nature. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

6. Nabhan, Gary Paul and Stephen Trimble (1994). The Geography of Childhood. Boston: Beacon Press.

7. Orr, Daniel (1994). Earth in Mind. Island Press Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

8. Silverstein, Shel (1974). Where the sidewalk ends. N.Y.: HaperCollins Publishers.

9. Wilson, Edmond O. (1998) Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge. New York. Alfred A. Knopf.

10. Wilson, Edmond O. (2002) The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.