Our bodies mirror Earth’s body.
As wind rustles through trees, our breath fills the branches of our lungs.
As water ripples through rivers, offering sustenance to the forest, so too our veins ripple and offer nourishment to our cells.
The sun rises and sets. Our eyes open and close.

And, when the Earth hurts, we hurt.

Right now, Earth is hurting, in ways not so separate from ours.
Injuries in ourselves and Earth’s many ecosystems.
Our talents and Earth’s abundance extracted past replenishment.
Anxiety rising with Earth’s global temperature.
Loneliness and disconnection—we from Earth, and Earth from us.

It may be painful to admit this is here; but you and Earth are doing so together.

So I ask you this: What if whatever challenge you’re facing is not keeping you from the world, but calling you into deeper intimacy with her?
What if this was both your body’s and Earth’s way of saying, “It hurts to be so removed from you. Come, let’s rebuild our trust in each-other. Let’s discover what’s possible when we move as one.”

This is possible. And there is a thrilling, life-affirming danger of saying, “yes” to such an invitation.

Because it feels so good, so right, all the way through ourselves, to align with the Earth’s wholeness—even when it contradicts the paradigms around us.

When we do, we feel compelled towards more reciprocal relationships, to work that serves soul’s purpose, to creating beauty in novel ways, to effort that is elegantly efficient, to embodying the full range of our humanity.

We develop capacity to stay present for the pain and the profound joy of our interconnectedness. We become deeply fulfilled responding to the needs of our human and more-than-human kin as if they were our own needs.

This is where we start.

“But what are these ways of responding?”, you may ask. “What does cultivating reciprocity look like? What does our world need from me at this unprecedented turning point?”

Pause. Feel yourself being breathed, just as your human, animal, and primordial ancestors have for a billion years.

You are home here. And you may discover your body’s already giving you little hints of responses.

Let them be small. Let them be dear and close to you. They will grow on their own time, as patient and full as Evolution herself. So that when they meet the inevitable challenges of this world as it is, you are rooted in them.

Those challenges, by the way, they are not new to you. You know them intimately, because you slowed down, and learned how they lived in your own body. Because as you moved back into wholeness, they gifted you with unique ways of guiding our world back to wholeness too.

This whole time, that slow and compassionate process back to your body has taught you to tend and defend Earth in your Earthliness.