How Can We Love this Earth? Even When It's Burning

Evening sun turned brilliant orange by a thick haze of wildfire smoke. Photo: Susan J Tweit

terraphilia n. An intrinsic affection for and connection to the earth and its community of lives. Without this bond we are lonely, lacking, no longer whole. Origin: terra, Latin, literally ‘earth’; philia, from the Greek, ‘fondness’

Hello Friends,

I woke yesterday morning to orange light, dawn made apocalyptic by a thick haze of smoke, the gift of huge wildfires burning 300 miles west of us in Utah. Our normally pristine air is officially unhealthy, with high measurements of the size of particulates that are truly bad for any of us, plus carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and other not-salubrious compounds. This is life in the arid West in a time of climate change and mega-droughts.

My valley is not literally burning, but the smoke causing my eyes to weep reminds me that it is burning in the figurative sense. This Earth is round. None of us can escape the crisis of climate change.

How can we love a burning planet?

I grieve the wild communities already burned to ash: the juniper and Douglas-fir trees, aromatic big sagebrush shrubs, waist-high bunchgrasses, and brilliant wildflowers. The native bees in their burrows, butterflies and birds on the wing, snakes and deer and coyotes and other terrestrial beings. The fish whose streams are flash-fried around them.

At the same time, I am also consciously continuing to love this battered and burning Earth.

By remembering that we are all kin. That this beloved planet is home. That we are all in this together, from the microscopic algae that exhale the oxygen I breathe in to the largest of blue whales. That what each of us does impacts others around the globe.

How can we live in ways that lessen the burning?

First, face and accept that we are all part of this crisis. Joanna Macy’s book, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience & Creative Power is a good guide. Read this overview of the book that I wrote for the Terraphilia Book Club.

Second, articulate our feelings: grief, anger, frustration, impotence, despair. These are real, valid emotions. If we ignore them, they will immobilize us. Instead, name them. Own them. And then use these feelings to motivate change.

Third, remember that we are inextricably linked by heart and spirit to all of the lives with whom we share this unique water-blessed globe spinning in the vastness of space. I call this bond terraphilia, ‘terra’ for Earth and ‘philia’ for affection. Our species was born to this planet. We are made of its essential elements; our connection informs our DNA and our cells.

The climate crisis, for all its urgency, is not at its core a crisis of emissions or even of capitalism and greed. These are symptoms, expressions of a deeper rupture: the loss of an ancient connection, a sacred kinship that has bound us to the Earth since time immemorial. —Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Remembering Earth: A Spiritual Ecology

Fourth, take steps in our daily lives to shift the narrative that drives this crisis, the inherited belief that the Earth is our resource to exploit for gain, that humans are the most important species on the planet. Read or listen to “Written in Stone,” Priscilla Stuckey’s deeply researched look at how far back this narrative goes to see why it has such enduring power.

Fifth, practice our innate terraphilia: Remind ourselves daily that we belong to this planet, that we are kin to the web of life that animates it, and that those kin have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness too.

We are part of this great sacred web of life, not a-part from it. Our lives are interwoven with every other life here, all equally blessed by the ineffable threads of spirit. Humans are a meaning-making species: we can create a new story to live by.

For ideas, read “How shall we live beyond the edge” by Leah Rampy at Weaving Earth & Soul and “What Story Does the Earth need us to remember?” by Camilla Sanderson at The Revising of the Divine Feminine.

Kinship with the Earth is a powerful wellspring to sustain our compassionate action. An intimate, embodied bond with nature is the very origin source for our protest, action, creativity, art, and endless forms of care on their behalf. —Lindsay Branham, Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees

Practice: A few ideas for everyday actions to shift your subconscious narrative:

• Drive less and walk more. As you do, turn your attention from electronic devices and human sounds and pay attention to the community of nature around you, whether that’s Rock Pigeons cooing and strutting in a city park, a sweet whiff of old roses blooming in a garden, or the sound of water lapping in a pond or lake. Take joy in that connection.

• At least once during the day, thank an item of food or drink you consume: Envision a coffee tree as you take that first sip, and thank the tree for the beans, the soil and forest that nurtured it, the people who harvested and dried the beans, and those who transported, roasted, and sold them to you.

• Buy less stuff. Whenever you have the impulse to purchase something, ask yourself why you want the item and whether you really need it. And practice the no-net-accumulation rule: for each thing you bring into your household, one item of equivalent sort has to find a new home, whether sold, gifted, reused, repurposed, or recycled.

• Let the sun dry and gently scent your laundry. Instead of using electricity or natural gas to power a clothes dryer with single-use dryer sheets, put up a clothes line or a drying rack to draw on solar power and naturally receive that fresh, sun-dried fragrance. (You’ll save money too.)

  
  

These and more ideas come from in my forthcoming book, Earthbound, A Year of Mindful Connection in Nature, which includes 52 weeks of essays and practices—along with inspirational quotes and nature photos—to guide us in nurturing our essential connection to this planet.

Writing a new story means being mindful about the underlying beliefs that drive our life choices. We can change that story, but it takes awareness and practice.

Slow down so that you have time to consciously decide, rather than acting on habit. Choose less rather than more. Let your daily life tell a story that honors your cell-deep connection to this Earth and its diverse community of life.

Thanks for practicing terraphilia with me.

Blessings, Susan