Hello Earth #28

Hello again, Earth!

Here we are, on the last day of June 2020, for the last of these daily letters to you. It’s been fun! But now it stops. It’s not you, it’s me. 

   Wisecracks aside, it’s been an amazing four weeks. Doing this daily has taken me to unexpected realisations. And it has been good to conjure you, Earth, as a present, listening companion.

Earth, you are so much bigger than that. I inhabit one small, relatively green and unpolluted part of you. I’m aware of the rest, have travelled some of it, lived in other places than here ... but I let this region stand for the all. Still, it’s you I speak to, that whole greater than the sum of the parts, which at the same time infuses every part — as an arm is to the body, or any one life form is to God.

Leaning in, I blow you a kiss, dear Earth. I’m not going to keep doing this daily, but l’m thinking of doing something similar from time to time. Maybe weekly? We’ll see. But I won’t leave it vague. This exercise has shown me the value of discipline. I’m a freedom-freak – but it’s like writing poetry: formal constraints can provide more depth, more focus, more intensity. Putting in place a structure paradoxically allows greater freedom to move, the expression supported by that structure. (I think.) Anyway, a regular commitment to communing with you, Earth, being mindfully in the present moment with you, would support me in receiving all that's valuable in this practice. So I’ll think about it, decide how often to talk to you in future, and make a schedule — not a chore; a treat to look forward to.

Listing gratitudes: I’m grateful to me for taking on these communications with you, Satya for offering the opportunity, and the readers who tell me they value these musings. (I was afraid they'd see them as boring or self-indulgent.) Above all I’m grateful to you, dear Earth, for the amazing fact of your existence in a form that not only supports life but nurtures it ... nurtures, enriches and blesses my life — and challenges me too. I’m grateful for being here now; for all the present moments I’ve enjoyed or endured. 

Offering grateful appreciation, I promise to love you every second of my life. An easy promise to make: I can’t not love you.  I’ll say cheerio for now, while knowing you are really still here with me every moment. Talk to you again soon!
   ... A nice breezy  finish. But then I rethink. I can’t not love you, I say, believing it to be true. But ‘actions speak louder than words’, in love as in everything else. How I express my love is crucial, now that my species is altering you so rapidly, in ever more harmful ways. How can I love you helpfully, protectively? Let that be the lasting exploration I take from this.