I sit at eye level with the plant called Mugwort. In this quiet moment, I realize that even though I know this land, I do not know this land. So much of what I do here has an agenda; let the chickens out, pick fruit, harvest kale. Even when using the land for “higher” pursuits, my outdoor meditations, yoga classes and workshops have a point to them, a destination, a way of using the land as a backdrop to what I do. And so while I notice nature and am grateful for Her, there still stands a divide; a place where I am separate from all that surrounds me. A place where there is the observer and the subject of that observation. A place where I put my stamp on what surrounds me, in a sense believing that nature is something in particular just because I think it is so. Or want it to be so.

Even when we have the best of intentions regarding how we live on this earth, we will always be colored by our perceptions and by the illusion that being in charge, whether to protect or control, is our birthright. It is why we feel entitled to own and to take what we “need” from the earth. It is why we talk about saving the earth, putting ourselves in the position of the ones doing the saving. It is effortless to do something to someone or something, “good” or “bad,” when you see them as being separate from you. What if we looked through the lens of that which I do to you, I do to me. How I feel about you, is how I feel about me. What if instead of living like either we owned nature or had to save her, we learned to realize, we are nature. We are Her. What might we do differently? How would the world around us look through that lens?

P.S. What if we stopped trying to save the earth? What if, instead, we tried to save ourselves. What if we remembered how to be as One with our truest nature.