At ease on earth?

There are some phrases that have been going in and out of my consciousness for years:
Be in this world, but not of it
My dreams [as in goals] are not of this world

These phrases are becoming inter-twined with some thoughts that come whenever I read posts about how bad we humans are, or have been, for this planet:
Don’t waste energy in blame, even if it’s self-blame. It just ties up energy from doing something that we can use in improving what we feel we’ve done wrong. Not ‘someone else’ but ‘I’. What do ‘I’ do, that is good or not-good for the world, for the planet? How  can ‘I’ change what I feel is not right? What shall I do about what I cannot change?

Then I wonder: at what point did humans begin to bring harm to this planet that is our home? What if we went back there? Can we change? Was it for instance, when we built houses? Then, can we, city-dwellers, town-dwellers, village dwellers, live as tribals do, ‘in the wild’?

I love Nature, I lived as much in my garden as in our childhood homes; but what I love about nature, are the beautiful flowers, the trees, the vistas. Back up there. Those vistas of rainforests could nurse blood-sucking mosquitoes, poisonous snakes and terrain difficult to walk through. So – yes of course I love nature, but bodies require rest as well as exercise, some comfort as well as challenge. That is where our ancestors, battling the difficulties of living in the wild, began to build houses which became increasingly separated from nature.

I am fortunate in that I live amidst greenery. I have lived in the past that I felt would never end, suspended on the 18th floor of a building, and the separation from trees made me ill. I know now that trees are not just physically grounding, but energetically and emotionally grounding as well. They help to ground or deeply root, center, expand both from roots and branches. So, I live amidst greenery. But can I live in the yard? Sleep on the rough grass, enjoy the mosquitoes, the strong noon-day sun, the thunderstorm, if it were not for the retreat offered by the structure of the house? No. I could not.

This is the challenge, isn’t it? If I dream of a world in which I am comfortable, I may be able to live in a world without doors, a garden of eden, perhaps, or heaven on earth,  but in this world, the climate is always salubrious, the  animals friendly, the  people harmonious.   Some time back, I began to encourage people to visualize their dream, to take time off and daydream, without guilt about wasting time or being unrealistic, to air out their dreams – perhaps long-forgotten memories, perhaps alternate realities – to their own awareness, until they find their happiness and bring it out to the everyday world.  From my generation on, people have become far too pragmatic, daydreaming and idealism have been replaced by practicality, and it is no wonder that depression has become so common, even among teenagers.

I meet many people who don’t seem at ease in the world. At times, perhaps, we all feel that way. A stranger in a strange land. It is this disconnect, as if we are from another planet, another world, or just visitors on this one, that leads us to act irresponsibly. I have another theory as well – we as a ‘human race’ have lived as children and teenagers on the planet, and are now growing up, waking to our responsibility.

A mother does not blame or weep for her children’s child-likeness, and I doubt that Mother Earth, herself growing as we are, would be weeping either. If she does weep, it is for the disconnect a mother laments when she sees her child pulling away or mindless about the love between mother and child. What is really necessary to feel at ease on earth, is to deeply connect to her, to ground into her depths, feel our roots deep into the earth, spread all around her surface,  and just a little under her varied surfaces. To feel our branches spread high into our amazing atmosphere and the stars beyond. If they were once our home, this is our home now, this universal being that twinkles as a star for other worlds.

Grounding and expanding, and then walking the waters, mud, grass, pebbbles of this earth, sharing with people, with animals, reveling in connection and service – these are the activities and feelings that help me feel at ease with the world. For we are all her children, and as we come to really realize that, in the sacred silences of a Gaia Minute, in daily hugs to our brothers, sisters, tree friends, animal friends and others, that sense of responsibility begins to extend not only to the earth, to all living and nonliving beings, but also, ultimately, to ourselves.

My dreams now are of this world that we are co-creating together, as we wake to the joyful awareness of our shared experience in this world.