What we do to the Earth we do to ourselves

A new wave of conciousness exploded upon me today.

It started last night during my run. It was dark out, and as I ran by a pond I noticed how brilliant the stars were-more so than usual it seemed. And so I sat on a bench near that pond and took it all in. I experienced it. And in those minutes,I happened to notice flickering, twinkling planes which on first glance looked like stars. But no, there were planes littered across the sky-at least 10 of them. People up there, looking like stars. Which made me think of a quote I heard earlier in the day: "We are all stardust." And so I sat there, taking this all in, marveling at it all. And this strange feeling crept up inside of me, and I knew that I ws nearing something.

What I was nearing on is what happened today. As I sat in on an Art History class (that I've already taken I just liked it so much I want to do it again-yes, I'm a nerd), the topic of discussion came to prehistoric art, and how the people of the time were not just close to the Earth, they knew they were a part of it, unlike people today. Then we watched a video by biologist David Suzuki, where he explores that idea, and then goes on to explain that thinking we're separate from the earth is not only silly but suicidal. We're connected to the Earth and to each other, he explained, through air, earth, water, and fire. For example, we breathe in argon atoms, then breathe them out. A scientist traced them from one of his breaths, and a year later 15 of the same atoms he breathed in again. They don't just disappear, so really, we're breathing atoms that dinosaurs, pharohs, our neighbors have breathed as well. Breath, air connects us to the past, to the present, to the future, to each other.

But now, in our own man-made environments, and consumer driven culture, we're unaware of that connection to one another and the Earth. So we're acting in ways that hurt not only ourselves in the long run, but others, and the planet-which is our home-as well. And because we're not connected to the Earth, we have a loss of cummunity(one that perhaps we're filling with consumption, I think), and because we're forgetting where we come from, we have a spiritual hole in us. We face huge dilemmas right now: the environmental crisis, the econmic crisis, overpopulation, etc.

So what do we do? I don't know know, but I think that to start we need to recognize that we're the Earth, that we are each other. As I did yoga after class, I began to feel, not just recognize, in an entirely new way how interconnected everything really is. It wasn't just a moment, it was an experience. We are all one. We must get back to nature, to our spirit. To ourselves.

"What you do to the Earth you do to yourself"