I have been noticing an underlying feeling of constant grief within me these days. Is it that I haven’t let go of my attachments to those that I loved and have lost? Or is it that I haven’t found enough love to fill up myself from the wounds that left holes in my heart from the past? Or is it because we belong to Nature and are feeling her great distress in ways that we are only beginning to awaken to?

Upon deeper reflection, I feel that the core of my grief has more to do with the state of the world and the undeniable fact that we are in a state of constant crises where I can connect with a profound feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness. There are personal aspects in my own story and individual history, but there is also a more macro level of our deep inter-connectedness with the Earth and how deeply unbalanced and out of control ‘she’ is feeling.

I can find myself more short-tempered and impatient. Even quickly rageful. This is not normal for me. Some days my energy is good and strong, other days it’s weaker and I need to go slower, nourish my body and soul and find my balance again. I feel like the instability of the weather patterns and the emotions of the raging tornado winds we had a couple of days ago, to the low energy of cleaning up the mess left behind this morning in the peaceful sunshine.

We belong to Nature in ways that so many of us have been deeply asleep to. Yet now we are being dramatically awakened to a newer state of living with the Earth with a deeper respect, integrity and sacredness of her real fragility. I feel that the state of the world has a lot to do with the loss of understanding ourselves as deeply connected to Nature.

“The Earth with its layers of land and water and air provides the space within which all living things are nurtured and the context within which humans attain their identity…… There is need for awareness that the mountains and rivers and all living things, the sky and its sun and moon and clouds all constitute a healing, sustaining sacred presence for humans which they need as much for their psychic integrity as for their physical nourishment. “ 

         ~ Thomas Berry, Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community