The Earth Is Fine - How are you?

I recently sat in the bush at the foot on Lake Taupō, for 40hrs. It was my first Vision Quest. This meant it was just me, the earth, water and blankets to stay warm.

“How are you, Earth?” I inquired over the course of 2 days and one night. And, surprisingly, the answer came, a deep continuous…Fine-ness.

“All is well, thank you”, the reply came over and over again.

All is well, as the sun sifted through the canopy.

All is well, as the blow fly delicately cleared the nutrients from skin,

All is well, as the spider repaired her web.

All is well as the thunder rolled casually across the sky.

“All is well, here” she said,

“and, Millicent my dear, how are you?” I did not so much hear this question. Rather I was filled with it. As I lent deep into timelessness and deep into my body on the ground.

Utter stillness filled me. “If all actually is well, then how am I?”

The question rose up through me and I waited, curious to what would appear in the space it created.

Life on planet earth, really is fine. It is the human made systems that are wildly out of alignment.

Being Change

I write a lot about the need to change. I feel it deep within me, this seismic shift that needs to occur, collectively if we are going to continue living with each other on this planet.

I sense I have a part to play in calling forth this change.

So naturally I train.

I place myself in many situations that feel new. I challenge myself to not get too comfortable with the status quo. I give myself plenty of opportunities to learn what is actually involved in the process of shifting. Whether that is introducing a new routine, moving cities or jobs, doing things that scare me, that interest me and noticing what happens. What happens in me, what happens to my thoughts, out looks on life and where am I still unwilling to look?

Frequently I grapple with this lack of settledness. Frequently I listen to a cry in my heart that something else could actually be real for humanity right now. And frequently I hear a familiar cry of “Of course we have to do something different because our beloved earth is dying”.

This past month I have come to look at what is happening right now in a different way. Life on planet earth really is going fine, it just is, it is moving, changing, evolving, responding, doing its thing and the earth as a planet, a a citizen of our galaxy and the universe really is fine.

The earth sees no big problem. The earth just is and will continue to be, as it did long before I was here and long after I go. The earth will not change , whether I am here or not.

This is where it gets really interesting. The other answer that rose up through me as I sat with the earth was:

The earth does not care about me, in exactly the same way I do not care about the earth.

We have a shared agreement, as long as I keep a certain distance from the earth, She keeps a certain distance from me. As long as I do not treasure her offerings — for example, the legs of a mosquito as it quivers slightly at the effort it takes to pierce my skin, as long as I keep some distance from this awe, majesty, and perfection of design, the Earth will — I heard her promise, as the cool night air blew down my neck, not seep Her fingers of care into the sinew of my heart. The Earth will stand, politely at arms length and watch from a safe distance, then go on Her way.

If however, the Earth also said, if I dare to choose to care, ever so slightly more, about — perhaps the splitting of white light into a thousand rainbows as it strikes the dew on the morning cobwebs. If by chance this splits also the cage I had placed about my own uncannily clever ability to perceive light, then the earth promised that the unfolding into ever more care, beauty and wonder will never cease.

In short, as I lay in the dark scared, hungry, lonely and surrendering to the realisation that she did not actually care wether I lived or died. I heard her whisper, below her ok-ness, that she also knows, deep in her molten belly, exactly what it is like to have no care shown as to whether she lives or dies either.

In being shown this I sobbed. Heavy, slow, long sobs, from deep in my own molten belly, long into the endless night.

It Is Not The Earth Crying For Change — It Is You.

What is this sense of deep unsettledness inside me? I look into the future and move through my day, and watch the river levels drop, I feel scared and angry. If the Earth really is fine, what is this deep sense of unease — what is this sense that humanity needs to change?

I have come to understand it a system ache. It is the systems that are dying. Humans have built these and they become the bedrock of how we organise ourselves socially. We rely on them to sustain us, thus we sustain the systems.

And now they are crumbling as they cease to nourish life.

I identify with these systems, because I was raised in them. The part of me that identifies with some or all of these systems senses their demise. As this happens the hair rises on the back of my neck and a cold fear settles within me. The system decay and destruction can feel like part of myself is dying. Because, in someway, it is.

The Natural Dance

This is why I train myself to dance in the process of change. The slow erosion, death and rebirth of life, this is change. This means going where I have never gone before which is not good or bad it just is requires a certain awareness.

This is the distinction that the earth taught me as I sat with her she said – “It is not me that is dying my dear, dear friend, but you, and you, like me, with my crisp leaves turning to compost, are built to thrive off this sort of death”.

Hello friend,

The Earth is fine, but how are you?

Love,

Millicent

You can listen to Seth Godin and Rich Roll speaking more about the necessity to create new systems here.

Also you can read the full report on the current state on New Zealand’s natural environment here. — Are you ok with this?