Reconnecting with the Earth
by Robin Rose Bennett
What I see, over and over again, is that when people reconnect with the earth, whether they live in urban, suburban, rural or remote, isolated areas, they come home to themselves. And it becomes easier to know without so much effort or confusion who they are and what they really want to do. This inevitably contributes to the whole of life. When people awaken to their gifts, they naturally desire to express and share them. I see an enormous awakening of poetry, painting, weaving, story-crafting and more in my students, even ones who were not consciously looking to express themselves artistically in those ways. Liberating one’s authentic self is the best creative response to our individual and collective anger and grief. It is how we will be able to move forward in a healthy way at this pivotal moment in time. And in opening to ourselves, our hearts inevitably open to others.
Everything depends on us joining our unique talents together in ways that will lead to the redesigning of our social and political institutions so that they support all beings fairly and abundantly. This is vital. The solutions already exist, whether in the few remaining indigenous societies living in harmony with their environments or via the genuinely ingenious technological approaches being implemented in pockets and experiments everywhere today, technology that is based on biomimicry, watching what Nature does and emulating her as closely as possible. We need to follow her lead to reweave the tapestry of life, to resume living on our Earth in a good way. We cannot supplant Nature. That is a fallacy. We cannot replicate ocean water, nor compose another version of the air we breathe. But we can and must learn to work with and support nature, recognizing that like all of Earth’s species, we are supported by the complex living systems that we belong to.
We are all part of one another, part of the living web of life. We need to know this in our bones if we are to survive the challenges we face amid the evolutionary chaos of now. To heal ourselves and bring that healing to our communities so as to live in harmony, we need to return to the use of our animal senses and bring them together with our intellectual understandings. In the herbal world we call this organoleptic learning, learning through our senses. Making connections based on taste and smell, observing through sight and touch. We are the only species on earth who has forgotten how to do this. We may think it’s because we function on higher levels, but it is not so. Or if it is, it is like functioning as if only the upper floor of the house mattered, as if it will not collapse if the deep foundation and stabilizing ground level atrophy and rot from misuse.
If you will take the time to stand with your back against two different species of trees where you live, and especially if you are willing to return to them again and again, you will find that you learn different things from pine trees than from birch trees or from great old oaks. They all “speak Tree” but the variations are not just subtle, they are substantial and offer different teachings.
We belong to Nature and the Earth. Forgetting this has made human beings physically, mentally and emotionally weakened and sick, and also unbearably lonely. For me and for many others the most profound side-effect of studying herbal medicine is the discovery that we have kin everywhere, allies everywhere, seen and unseen. We are at our most fragile and vulnerable, and become the most defensive and destructive when we imagine ourselves to be alone and isolated. We can continue to treat the earth in rapacious ways that result in making each other and our kin ill, killing ourselves off as we are doing, or we can allow ourselves to know the truth. We are interdependent. Everyone matters. We can unite in creativity, compassion and connection to make each other well and strong.
And this is happening, growing at the grassroots level all around the world. We are joining hands and hearts. Remembering we are in this together. Separation is a mass delusion that leads to disaster and mass extinction. The Earth will ultimately be fine with or without us, but in unity there is healing, by gathering ourselves together in the present, we will have a future.
We don’t need to be the same — any more than a walrus needs to be a butterfly. But we do need to slow down, to disconnect from our fast-paced distractions and go outside and touch the ground. It is imperative that we feel our grief over our losses and face our fears, especially our massive fear of scarcity that is continuously stoked and manipulated to justify institutional greed and cruelty. Astonishingly, although there is enough for all, many people have nothing. We sanction starvation, slavery, misery and death. We stifle our concern, close the doors to compassion, unwilling to make room for it out of fear that it will hurt too much or deprive us of what is ours. We keep ourselves in the dark — some are in sheer survival mode at the same time as others are drowning in distracting luxuries while toxic mountains of plastic, electronic and chemical waste befoul our land, air and water. But Earth is adaptable and so are we. Now is the time to rise.
We need to take care of ourselves and tend to each other’s well-being. We cannot continue to deny our power and responsibility nor suppress our grief over the harm we are causing. We must face the losses we are suffering in our families and throughout our increasingly polluted and abused planet.
We need to participate in dismantling the edifices of domination and exclusion, especially if we have been benefiting from them. The truth is they are already self-destructing. Those perched at the top are precariously hanging on to the rungs of a teetering ladder that will inevitably fall. They are holding on tightly to the power of the few over the many, but this moment of authoritarianism and dominion over the earth and her inhabitants will not last. It is crumbling.
We the people are joining hands and hearts together. Awakening. We are many and they are few. And in our unity there is empowerment.
When I have been in despair and asked the Earth what she needs from me, what she needs from us, I almost always receive a variation of the same response. Sing and dance. Gather together. Remember who you are and what brings you joy. The solutions are already here. Joy is medicine.
Consciousness is growing. Rising. Deepening. We are remembering that we are all in this together, along with the animals, the trees, the insects and the rivers. Reconnecting with the earth brings this to light and life, creates the undeniable, heartfelt experience of belonging. Reconnect yourself to the web of life that you may have temporarily forgotten you belong to. Let your heart lighten and fill with joy, then your hands will reach out for mine, and together we will walk, step by step, into the next era of life. Some of us will be limping, some of us will be dancing, but we will be nourished by our compassion and dedicated to healing what has been broken, celebrating the beauty, reveling in freedom, and planting gardens to feed everyone.
And so it will be. And so it is.
Blessed be.
ONE’s Webinar with Robin Rose Bennett, November 21, 2021 ~ Looking into the Mirror of Nature – Metaphorical Medicine Gifts of the Plants and Trees
Robin Rose Bennett is a story-teller, writer, and herbalist. She has been offering classes in Wisewoman Healing Ways: Herbal Medicine and EarthSpirit Teachings since 1986 - at herb conferences, festivals, clinics, medical and nursing schools, and most joyously, outside with the plants. Robin Rose shares herbal medicine with gratitude for the loving generosity of the plants and the magic, mystery, and beauty of the web of life. She is on the faculty of the New York Open Center and the Arbor-Vitae School of Traditional Herbalism, and is the author of two meditation mp3’s and the books: Healing Magic- A Green Witch Guidebook to Conscious Living and The Gift of Healing Herbs- Plant Medicines and Home Remedies for a Vibrantly Healthy Life. (FB: WiseWoman Healing Ways, with Robin Rose Bennett, IG: @RobinRoseBennett, YouTube: Robin Rose Bennett. For more information, visit: www.RobinRoseBennett.com.
Bennett, R.R. (2021). A reflection on reconnecting with the earth. Ecopoiesis: Eco-Human Theory and Practice, 2(1). [open access internet journal]. – URL: http://en.ecopoiesis.ru (d/m/y) .
