Articles

Intimate Conversations with Mother Earth

With great respect I bow down before you Mother. You are a planet, you are the mother of all species, including our human species. Your children number millions of species, each with its own way of expression. Because you are the mother of all of us, you understand all these ways of expression, including the human language. So we feel perfectly at ease to have a conversation with you and we offer you these words from the depths of our heart.

Mother, you are a green-blue planet, a Bodhisattva that purifies and refreshes all that belongs to the earth.

I bow down before you in the clear awareness that you are present in me and that I am a part of you, my mother. You have brought me to life, you offer me everything I need for nourishment: the air that I breathe, the clear water that I drink, the food that I eat and the plants and herbs that heal me when I am sick. I know that I shall never die, because just as you have brought me to life this time you will bring me to life countless times again. Every time I manifest in life I am brand new and every time I return to you, you stretch out your arms of compassion to receive me in your loving embrace.

You are the great earth, Terra, Gaia, the Green Planet, the Pure and Refreshing Bodhisattva. You are very fragrant, very refreshing, very beautiful. You have the capacity to receive, preserve and transform everything; including filthy and foul-smelling things, poisonous air, radioactive waste. You embrace these things and transform them. Sometimes you have to give yourself a long, long time to do this, if necessary, millions of years.

Many of us humans out of greed, arrogance and ignorance fail to recognize that you are our mother and have done terrible things to each other and damaged your health and your beauty. We know that you have enough strength to embrace and transform our mistakes, but because we are and have been foolish we continue to compete with each other to exploit you, tiring you out.

Your infinitely great patience and endurance are what have made you a great bodhisattva, an infinitely solid place of refuge for us all. Whenever we are unstable and lose ourselves in forgetfulness, in self-pity, hatred or despair, we should return to ourselves and practice touching the earth. Then we find a place of refuge in you, so that we recover our peace of mind and revive our confidence and our joy in being alive. We know that we are all your children and although we have made so many mistakes you forgive us. When we return to you, you are ready to put out your arms of motherly love and hold us to your heart.

Dear Mother, there are times when we suffer greatly because of natural disasters. We know that at those times you are also suffering greatly. Sometimes we turn to you and ask: “Can we trust and count on you?” You do not give a direct answer immediately. Later, you look at us with the eyes of great compassion and say: “Dear children, of course you can count on me. I shall always be there for you. Though, please ask yourselves the question: “Can your mother trust and count on you?”

Dear mother, we have stayed awake many nights with this koan and now with our faces bathed in tears we come and kneel at your feet and give you this sincere answer: “Dear compassionate, good and holy mother, you can count on us and trust us.

Touching the earth
With body, speech and mind in perfect oneness we touch the earth before Bodhisattva Gaia, holy and compassionate great mother earth who nourishes, holds, heals and gives birth to all species.