The thoughts of the earth are my thoughts … the voice of the earth is my voice … All that belongs to the earth belongs to me … It is lovely indeed.

from “Song of the Earth Spirit,”
Navajo origin legend

Earth teaches us many useful concepts. Through its example, we see the change of each season; we know that all life forms are born, grow, and die. We are taught how death feeds every other living thing in the food cycle.

Awakening to the fact that all life has its own season can be temporarily overwhelming until we recognize the universal truth that earth offers: life feeds other life. We also learn how the earth continues to go through its cycles, even when a valued person or animal has passed on. We who are still alive will grieve, but we will eventually go through that final transition ourselves. We will rest in the good earth then, or our ashes may. Meanwhile, the solidity of earth offers us a stable home. All earth asks of us in return for its available wisdom and support of ecospheres is that we not overuse its resources. With world population growth, our species has pushed that natural balance over the limit. We need to encourage sane, earth-healthy reproductive choices so that we continue to have open space, clean dirt, and lots of mud to mess around with.

Many people are birthing a new consciousness about the earth and our relationship to it. Although their numbers may still be a small percentage of the world’s people, these consciousness groups and individuals are gathering in healing circles, holding conferences, and taking action of necessity, spurred by the agony and ecstasy of awakening to the earth’s needs. Jacquelyn Small’s insightful book Awakening in Time describes a few steps to help us achieve this kind of earth awareness. She and others in her field urge us to:

• Awaken to our soul’s evolution;
• Take concrete action to actualize it; and
• Deepen our connection with the Divine in preservation and conservation.

Bill Plotkin, through his seminal work Soulcraft, reminds us that earth provides a personal testing ground for our soulful and physical development and that we can learn from stretching our sense of limitation as well as from limitation itself. His program in southwest Colorado invites seekers into rites of passage through the earth’s majesty and challenges.

Even with all the contemporary horrors of pollution and toxic soils, the earth still contains so much beauty. As we take time to physically inundate ourselves with its enveloping fields and backcountry quiet, the earth lovingly carves trails back to us that create new passages in the untraveled places of our souls. The delight of taking the time to be conscious of personal experience with the earth renews body, mind, and spirit. In the process of doing so, it may not be so much that we discover as that we are discovered, truly known by the earth itself, our home and much-needed source of nurturing and solidity in our lives.

Reprinted with permission from Moose Medicine by Robin Bridges. Available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Balboa Press.

Robyn Bridges has traversed the natural world both as a seeker and a bodymind- spirit therapist for 30 years. With the honorary Seneca name, “She Who Knows the Way”, Bridges has inducted hundreds of questers into their own psyches for soul healing. She has been a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) in Montana since 1996, and is now a now full-time author, speaker, and traveler.