In Praise of the Earth: An Earth Month Celebration
In Praise of the Earth: An Earth Month Celebration
As we face unprecedented ecological devastation, many of us feel hopeless and overwhelmed, especially if we are sensitive, empathetic, and loving people. While we long to make a difference, it's hard to imagine that our gifts are enough. But what if the climate crisis is actually a crisis of intimacy? This perspective changes everything. Now, our sensitivity, empathy, and capacity for connection becomes our most potent gifts for reimagining and transforming our relationships.
From April to May 2024, Kinship community members responded to three prompts adapted from Joanna Macy and Molly Brown’s book Coming Back to Life and recently featured on We Are The Great Turning podcast. Here, they introduce a powerful process called Open Sentences. Designed as a structure for spontaneous expression, “open sentences” are usually practiced in listening circles where partners ask each other questions and invite open verbal response.
Here at Kinship, we responded with photographs.
Some things I love about being alive on the earth today are…
“I love nature’s surprises. And how it breaks us open when we least expect.”
Diana Borden
“I’m intrigued by nature at the “edge lands” of cities. This photo tries to capture the awesome power and mystery of the water…”
“…the way that photography has helped me to see and notice things. I am maybe more fascinated by the impact of mankind on nature than in unspoiled vistas - but that is the reality of most of my surroundings. Making those signs, interactions and juxtapositions part of an image is what exhilarates me.”
“… I’m loving the geological processes of the earth, which have sculpted some truly mind-bending and otherworldly landscapes.”
“…everyday mossy log & bricks... I love that what we interact with, even everyday, is always different and will actually register as different depending on light, wind, temperature, our views, and materials used to record or impress… it is never boring!”
Glenn DeRosa
“…the shapes of nature.”
“Some things I love about being alive on the Earth today are the shock of cold mid-spring river water and the emergence from a cold plunge into a vibrantly reviving landscape, dawn descending down the mountain side illuminating the small bodies of freshly born calves, the sprawling Appalachian mountains that are revealed around a curve of my morning commute, the heady of scent of wisteria blossoms just beyond my fingertips. I feel so grateful for the beauty around me that often feels like a gift. “
“Some things I love about being alive on the earth today are…that there is still the possibility of having a random encounter that makes me catch my breath, and hold very still, even though my heart is racing…”
Today I’m loving the earth’s abundance in these Blue Ridge Mountains. A foraging class helped me learn where to look. Caring and expert harvesters. Fresh and delightful meal.
“Born and raised on this 3rd generation farm I acquired a love for all things under my feet and even above my head. The rain is a blessing, but on a field of winter wheat the crop will grow better under a blanket of snow. New growth from tiny seeds, or buds on trees, the blue sky, and even the wind. “
“Some things I love about being alive on the earth today are … when nature comes to my highrise home in the city. How a bit of awe can improve your health.”
“Some things I love about being on the earth today are the landscapes I have the opportunity to visit by hiking around our national parks, often with my husband and other family. Our earth is full of stunning places.”
“Bearing witness to all that the earth can create when she’s given a chance to express herself. Meandering Mold - from between the jacket and cover of a book that sat in the elements for over a year.”
What breaks my heart about living on earth in this time is…
“…so my heart break remains, truly for all the suffering for the non-human residents on our earth. I grieve for all, but somehow the birds are, for me, the most challenging for me to accept. “
“Man's inhumanity to his fellow man and the greedy disregard for this earth and its beauty breaks my heart. Often a cloudy day will reopen those feelings.”
“What breaks my heart about living on earth in this time is…everything.
And everything is compostable.
Areas of the understory of the bosque (riverside woodlands) along the Albuquerque stretch of the Rio Grande were recently hacked and pillaged in a campaign against “invasives”. Words escape me as I consider the lost habitat and lack of reverence. The way we absent ourselves from kingdoms of curiosity, presence, and wisdom is sparking me deep into research and possibilities.“
“Visiting the Fallen - clear cut trees along a popular walking and biking path in my neighborhood victims to a storm in 2023. Home to birds, squirrels, insects and shading the path. It makes my heart hurt and brings tears to my eyes. I have no words to describe it is similar to the grief over the loss of someone close - a longing ache, never quite gone. “
“What breaks my heart about living on earth in this time is how the extreme heat is causing Saguaro cacti to be scorched, lose limbs, fall over and take years to succumb to their demise.”
“What breaks my heart about living on the earth is the casual disregard for the earth, and of the experience of other people and creatures.”
“…looking back at the promises of the atomic age. “Atoms for Peace” gave us new energy sources and medical breakthroughs, but included the devastation and contamination of huge areas around the world through mining and cutting corners. And it always went hand in hand with the production and testing of even more and deadlier weapons. Even without nuclear strikes it does not look like a lot of wars have been avoided or victims killed in any less barbaric ways.
Project Shoal plaque in Nevada. The inscription starts “A 12-Kiloton Nuclear Device was detonated below this site on October 26, 1963,” then prohibits drilling, digging and removing material.
“What breaks my heart about living on earth in this time is, First it is the LOSS of tillable crop-producing land. Secondly, it is man’s inhumanity toward our environment. As farmers face a rising cost of seeds, fertilizers, fuel, equipment, and taxes, more owners will give up farming. Unfortunately, the sale of the land may go to commercial non-farm preservation developers. About 3.4 million acres of land in California's agricultural counties are now urbanized. Another 2 million acres are in areas that are so urbanized that there is no more agriculture. Development is now consuming an average of about 40,000 acres of agricultural land per year. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of farms in the U.S. declined by 141,733 or 7%, according to USDA's 2022 Census of Agriculture. Acres operated by farm operations during the same time frame declined by 20.1 million (2.2%), a loss equivalent to an area about the size of Maine. Statement released, Mar 7, 2024. These statistics are shocking. I think about the future of our farms and the earth with trepidation.”
“…gazing at the beautiful Great Lake Michigan, while knowing we have poisoned it with invisible micro-plastics, mercury, heavy metals, which the fish accumulate in their life cycles; and which we, birds, and other sentient beings consume…”
“Recently I walked beside a winding turquoise river bordered by a clear cut. A clear cut that shocked me when I’d first encountered it a couple years earlier. Before, it was mostly a forest of alders with a scattering of maples — I couldn’t make sense of why they were cut down. I hadn’t been back till this day. As I walked, I was surprised by hundreds of purple fawn lilies spread out on the forest floor like a fairy tale. A gift from sorrow if I chose to see it, but also from all the sunlight that can reach those lilies, maybe for the first time, because the trees are gone. What breaks my heart about living on earth right now? That as humans we can refuse to feel the whole of the wound.”
What breaks my heart about living on the earth at this time? Needless tear downs of affordable housing, and destruction of old growth trees for the sake of McMansions.
What keeps me going when the world breaks my heart is…
“Prairie Vistas and Magnificent Mountains”
“The creatures we share this earth with. Following the same ancient pathways, migratory routes and habits of mind, I watch these beings as a reminder of the “original instructions” that, not only they, but we as humans were given at the beginning of time to guide how we are to be on this planet. Many have forgotten these instructions, but those “not-humans” act, to me, as an ancient prompt to stay on the path. It helps me! “
“What keeps me going when the world breaks my heart is being alone in nature on a windy, stormy day. I am filled with awe and wonder at its expanse but embraced at the same time.”
“What keeps me going is the tiny, quiet beauty of threads and webs and roots.”
“What keeps me going when the world breaks my heart are trees. They inspire me with their strength, beauty and resilience.“
“What keeps me going when the world breaks my heart is seeing the resilience of wildlife that has adapted to suburban life. Screech owl fledglings in a friend’s tree. The parents used a nesting box that my friend had attached to a red oak tree.”
Brenda Spielmann
“In this crazy, multi-layer problematic yet mesmerizing world, there’s always the possibility of looking from a different angle.”
“What keeps me going when the world breaks my heart is the ability to change and create, to begin again and again, to remake and unmake, the moments when I am seen and held by others, the moments when I am able to see others. The brief moments shared on a stoop in the late afternoon glow that linger long after the sun has faded.”
“How the sacred is in the details of the everyday outside my door… and how the vibrations of colour thrills me.”
“What keeps me going is marshland preservation and the families that inhabit them.”
“What keeps me going when the world breaks my heart:
The moon tells the sky
The sky tells the sea
The sea tells the tide
And the tide tells me
from let the light pour in - Morning Poems by Lemn Sissay”
