November 12, 1993, was marked with a gold star on my wall calendar. It was the date I finished eight months of chemo and radiation and, according to the medical system, was able to consider myself done — for now. I was informed that my risk for recurrence was high, as was the likelihood of a secondary cancer from the treatments, so I was sent on my way on a very short leash: neck-to-pelvis CT scans with dye every three months for two years, then every six months until I hit the five-year mark, then on to annual scans.
The time period immediately after treatment was far more trying than I anticipated. Even if it was fairy-tale thinking, I wanted some semblance of my old energy and well-being back. I struggled to adapt to the limitations of my new body and “chemo brain.” Just when I thought I could move beyond such a medicalized life, hope was becoming an occasional and hard-won visitor. The psychic gap between who I felt I was on the inside and what I could actually muster often seemed insurmountable.
After my first three-month scan, I learned that the chief of oncology wanted to meet with me. Even though my results were good, he was concerned about the likelihood of recurrence and suggested I have my bone marrow harvested for a transplant to shore up my odds for survival. I was heartsick. I wanted to live my life, not go through any more procedures to try to ensure it.
“When will I be out of the woods?” I asked, hoping for an exact date to put on my calendar — a date that would hold such promise that I could finally exhale fully. He answered matter-of-factly, “You will never be out of the woods.”
Never out of the woods. The words rippled through my mind. With all my focus on surviving the treatment, I had not grasped the degree of uncertainty and struggle that would come afterward. Understanding that my life would only ever come with the caveat of “for now” was sobering. I wondered: How does one continue to live this way? What if there was no way I could plan for the future? What was I able to count on?
I wanted desperately to run away, to live somewhere beyond the grasp of hospitals until I was old and gray. Without even knowing what it meant, I still wanted and felt I deserved some approximation of “normal.” I knew I wanted to spend time with people and in places where vulnerability and uncertainty felt normal. Where life and death coexisted and everything was interconnected. Where the ruins and glories of my inner life and body would match the outer world I occupied. If I was never going to be out of the woods, I figured I might as well live in them. I decided then and there to move to the Berkshire hills.
As a girl, I had found solace in the endless acres of wooded land across the street from my house. I would disappear for hours to walk among the maze of tall pines collecting mosses, wintergreen, and ferns for terrariums. Not knowing what was next in my life, I craved that solace and a sense of felt belonging again.
For close to two years, the parameters of my life had been defined by the four walls of the various rooms where I lay in bed. Now, the land would become my home. Moving to a shared, rambling house in a town with 650 residents spread across 21 square miles offered me a needed contrast to the life I had left in New York City. Opening myself to pleasure became my medicine. If I sat still, there was endless living beauty to notice. I found awe and wonder daily with visitations of curious animals, dancing light, and symphonies of birdsong. My senses woke up and came to attention, as if I had been in an extended hibernation. And my body — so accustomed to pain and the anticipation of pain that I had unknowingly shut down its ability to attune to a diverse landscape of sensations and environs — slowly came back to life.
May you grow still enough to hear the small noises earth makes in preparing for the long sleep of winter, so that you yourself may grow calm and grounded deep within. — Brother David Steindl-Rast
The natural world is the very fabric of life. It is one of the most resplendent and consistent sources of generosity that we will ever know. When we allow ourselves to tune in and pay attention, our Earth is perpetually nourishing and providing for us, sustaining life and offering its abundance with a breathtaking and consistent flourish. We are fed, literally and figuratively, by its offerings every day. Amid fields, rain, trees, flowers, plants, animals, sky, birds, oceans, and sun, we immediately grasp our own relative stature. Feeling inextricably connected yet small in relationship with the natural world can lead us swiftly to a sense of the sacred.
Yet we are living in times when the natural world can seem more and more removed from us, inaccessible to many, and imperiled by humanity’s legacy of choices. The offerings of the Earth are woven into our clothing and what we eat, but they are obscured by synthetic ingredients, packaging, factories, and methods of transportation that carry them. These days our gaze is more often directed at a computer, television, or cell phone than at the ground or the sky. As we surrender to each technological advance, it is harder not to be cut off from the thread of connection that helps us know our true and necessary place in the resilient, fragile, reciprocal, real world-wide-web of life. It can require more effort than ever to connect with all that nature holds, and in so many ways it has never been more important — no matter where you live or the “nature” of your life.
Gratefulness supports intentional remembering and honoring of our relationship with Mother Nature. Grateful, we understand the privilege of her offerings and listen for both the small and loud cries for our reverence and stewardship. We allow ourselves to experience the great fullness of our emotions at how inseparable we are from her perpetual flow of gifts, recognize how much and how often we take them for granted, and grieve the losses she is suffering daily at the hands of our “advancing” civilization. Gratefulness invites us to heal our disconnection, live in celebration, and strengthen our place in the rightful relationship of reciprocity with the natural world.
Grateful living asks us to actively engage in ways that respect and also preserve what we treasure most. We are inspired to sustain that which sustains us through remembering the ways that we are bound to the world around us. When we come into union with the generosity of nature, we learn to be humbler and more gracious. As the Persian poet Hafiz says: “After all these years of shining, the sun does not say to the earth, ‘you owe me.’ . . . Imagine how a love like that can light up the whole world.”
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility. — Rachel Carson
When we lay down the clamoring thoughts of things in our lives — things to do and things undone — and when we dare to quiet ourselves in service of communion with the natural world, the peace of our inner landscape matches the quietest outer landscape we can imagine. Stopping to notice the true gifts of our lives — those most freely, consistently, and generously given — we discover again and again the Earth as our great benefactor and most beloved partner. Whenever we take a conscious breath, we know that we are an essential part of the full ecosystem of inspiration.
Deepening a sense of belonging can arouse not only a more reverential engagement with the natural world but can also inform and fortify the ways we relate to ourselves as essential creatures of nature. We are part of a highly interdependent ecology, and when our bonds of connection are strongest we know that to do harm in any one place is to extend harm to many places. To offer the nourishment of our appreciation in any one place is to set a benevolent chain reaction into motion.
We are kin to our precious planet. When we sit, we can embody the tenacious essence of a mountain. Standing, we can embody the balance of a tree. When we lie down, we can become grounded with the blessed Earth. Our heart is pumping blood to keep our bodies alive just as nutrients are pumped through the cells of plants. When we breathe, our breath is a tide touching and releasing the shoreline.
Let us sit, stand, walk, and bow with grateful reverence for the stunning flow of life-giving force that emanates from the Earth’s beneficence. Let us offer ourselves with respect and reciprocal care for her perpetual gifts.
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What habits, choices, or things take you out of an actively grateful connection with the natural world?
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What are some rituals or practices you could add to your life to bring you into a more resonant relationship with nature?
My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me. — Oliver Sacks
All manner of things born of the Earth can awaken us to perspective. And our moments in nature can offer us gratitude for life’s preciousness and remind us of our fragile, powerful bonds of connection.
Look up. Taking the time to truly notice a sunset, starry sky, sunrise, or the clouds above our heads can grant immediate perspective on our lives and reconnect us with astonishment. Look closely. A stone, flower, feather, ladybug, leaf, or snowflake can capture our senses and deliver a sense of wonder. Look out. Gazing into the canopy of a tree, into the eyes of a beloved animal, across a farm field, or at sunlight coming through a window can bring reverence. The daisy pushing itself through the smallest crack in the pavement, the squirrel leaping from one branch to another, the rainbow at the intersection point of rain and sun — let us be in awe of nature’s tenacious resilience, and the ways that life so often leans toward the light. The Earth is a gifted, generous teacher, and we are wise to be her students, as she has been around far longer and been through far more than we have been.
To turn our gaze inward with that same appreciative perspective would be a most spectacular thing. No less natural than the hills and valleys, fields and forests, flowers and clouds, we can be dazzled by ourselves and each other. We can observe the comings and goings of our feeling-states and thoughts, growth and loss, relationships, darkness and light, with the same appreciation and curiosity as we do the seasons and clouds. With our senses awake, our interest piqued for all that already is and all that will unfold, we can know ourselves as fully present to, and a full participant in, our mysterious experience of life.
Having these kinds of peak experiences, says Brother David, connects us to a kind of everyday mysticism and unites us in a sense of oneness and limitless belonging that helps us maintain perspective. To enjoy a peak experience and the viewpoint it offers, it helps to summit an actual mountaintop, but it is rare that we can scale such literal peaks. Instead, we can gain a richer perspective through the infinite landscape of our attention and the environment of our imaginations, in any moment of our lives.
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What direct experiences, memories, and imaginings in nature bring you into a sense of wonder or awe?
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What instills a sense of reverence in you? When and where are you most likely to experience reverence in the natural world?
When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the Earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us. — bell hooks
To discover possibility for our natural world requires that we feel our connection and interdependence with our whole hearts. As is so often the case, gratefulness will ask us to tune in, lean in, and listen. We will need to embrace uncomfortable feelings in ourselves, as we may hear a lament from the roots of the trees, a cry from our Mother’s creatures, a roar from her oceans. Love for our Earth will crack our hearts open, as it should, and leave us seeking new ways of being in concert with life.
Nature is not a one-way relationship built for our pure enjoyment, entertainment, and comfort. A new possibility will require us to go beyond a relationship of usefulness and service. If we do not commit to a deep-seated, reciprocal regard, we will extract pleasure and utility to the point of no return.
The Earth needs us to act — rooted in our passion — for her preservation and protection. We are her keepers and caretakers. To live in true honor of the natural world will require us to be inconvenienced and less efficient at times. Beyond taking simple actions like swapping out our lightbulbs, we may have to completely reinvent aspects of our lives that cost our world too much and put us out of alignment with our values. Transportation, travel, leisure, lifestyles, consumption, and how we get our food, from where, and when — much of it may need reconsideration and change. The more we let ourselves feel love and gratitude for our natural world, the more grief and responsibility we are likely to feel. It is worth every iota of our heartbroken consideration to be part of a new possibility for the Earth.
Envisioning new ways of being in stewardship with the Earth will invite us to explore far-reaching conversations about sustainability. We need to do this in concert with others, in community, in circles, on farmland, at the edges of oceans, in urban parks and at the base of skyscrapers as well as under majestic trees. Everything is up for consideration, including what we need versus what we want, and what is essential versus the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed. At the center of the circle are the questions “What is my share of the pie?” and “With whom can I share the pie?” and “How can I be more grateful for having a pie at all?”
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What are some ways that you currently demonstrate and share your love for our planet? What are some ways you give back? Is this a different form of loving?
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What could you do to up-level the ways that you show grateful care for the Earth?
After dinner, I try to digest
kale and cauliflower in my longing
to live longer, and a root-beer float
in case my world ends tomorrow.
I play the gamble game with exercise
and diet, reminded daily by obituaries
featuring people younger than me:
the impossible becoming likely.
I want to go out full, embraced by my life,
the grand quilt of being here. Yet memories
are remnants, and come one patch at a time.
And like moments, most fade unnoticed.
After a storm, I take a walk.
At the jasmine vine by my front door,
a raindrop, suspended on a stem, stops me.
What I want, what I can have, merge.
— Jeanie Greensfelder
For the Earth to stay in balance, for the gifts to continue to flow, we must give back in equal measure for what we are given. Our first responsibility, the most potent offering we possess, is gratitude. — Robin Wall Kimmerer
Nature is one of our most consistent sources of inspiration for gratefulness. When we encounter her majesty, we encounter the sacred paradox of our own significance and smallness. The natural world casts us into reverence. We are both lost and found there, and we are nourished in every moment of every day.
Grateful living inspires us to sustain that which sustains us. It is vital to be in a reciprocal, life-giving relationship with our Mother Earth and to experience our inextricability with her at all times. Our pain and joy are connected and true, and both are needed for the healing and repair of our world.
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May you hold the gifts of nature with wonder and reverence.
Stop. Look. Go. Practice
Just as we need to listen in order to be in healthy relationship with each other, we need to attune ourselves toward the Earth as well. We need to open ourselves to be impacted, informed, and inspired. Sometimes it can be helpful to make a sincere effort to listen to the Earth and hear what she has to tell us.
Stop: Sit comfortably with a journal and do the All Breathe practice . Attune your body and the natural world to breathe and beat synchronously.
Look: Imagine yourself as intimately belonging to the Earth. In any way that you can, take a peak awareness perspective of our planet or some aspect of the Earth that allows you to experience empathic attunement. Take a few minutes to find yourself in a felt oneness.
Now, endeavor to let the Earth speak to you. Open your heart and put yourself into a receptive conversation with our planetary home. Suspend any judgment or awkwardness that may put distance between you and this experience. Let yourself listen intently to the Earth as you imagine that she speaks and asks of you:
Go: Write down your responses, and then make a plan for how your answers could become actionable. Share your list with someone, or do this practice with a group of people and share your responses. Begin doing something every day that lets the Earth know that she has been heard and is cherished.
Perspective Prompts
When we see the Earth as an exquisitely fragile ecosystem on which all of humanity relies, we feel our interconnectedness. When something happens to any one piece of the system, it impacts the whole. In every moment, everything in nature serves our human aliveness in countless ways, just as we are able to serve or hurt the natural world with our choices. No one of us is any less a part of nature than any other. When Mother Earth cries out for care, she is calling on us. When we need care, we may be needing her. All of life is interwoven.
As you awaken to the susceptibility and generosity of the natural world, feel the fragile threads that weave us all together, and know your presence makes a difference.
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My well-being is connected to the well-being of the Earth in every minute of every day.
When astronauts look from space, they see the beauty of our planet with new eyes. If we have traveled by plane, we have glimpsed a view of the Earth that inspires amazement and belonging. If we hold a vast view of our planet, it can strike us as even more miraculous that it is the only one in our solar system that we know for sure is able to support life. It can overwhelm us with wonder to understand all the forces in nature that have to come together to keep our Earth functioning, and to support her billions of diverse inhabitants. Surprise and wonder await us whenever we behold the miracle of life on Earth.
Envision yourself gazing at our planet from a distance above. Behold the faces of people turned up toward you and the sky with reverence for the miracle.
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Life on this Earth is miraculous, and I hold it in my heart and hands.
The natural world is constantly providing us nourishment in both seen and unseen ways. There is such a glorious abundance surrounding us in every moment. No matter where we live, the Earth helps to keep us breathing so we will not expire. We are inspired every time we open our hearts and senses! We are provided food from the Earth’s riches. Trees, plants, herbs, roots, water — all blessings. Even under threat, the Earth remains generous. Awakening to the extraordinary wonders and plenty of the natural world, we can be ever grateful.
When you are next enjoying a meal, consider how many different ingredients arose from the Earth. Think of how your nourishment is provided for. Say a blessing of thanksgiving.
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The natural world generously provides for me in extraordinary ways every day.
Most of us have daily behaviors that express our values about the environment. We might recycle cans and bottles, bring reusable bags to the grocery store, or use biodegradable products. Maybe you belong to a food co-op or buy from your local farmer’s market. Additionally, it is important to listen for what else might be needed in order to be in alignment with our values. What do our most deeply held beliefs ask us to consider about how we behave and belong in the natural world? What truly matters to us? How do we offer our attention and appreciation to what matters most?
Know that every little thing you do and choice you make can take you into or out of alignment with your value of the Earth’s well-being. Commit to doing a little more to better love what you value, and value what you love.
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My value of the Earth compels me to tend those things for which I am most grateful.
We too often take natural beauty for granted. Stuck in feeling deprived or disappointed by life, we walk by her splendor without noticing. Meanwhile, nature is busy every moment creating magnificence that brings us hope and delights our senses. A sunrise and birdsong start our day, a tree growing through pavement moves us to hope, perennials commit to us even if we move away, and plants say “breathe” and make it all possible. Our senses attune us to creation, creativity, and celebration. How much more pleasure could we want? How much more alive could we feel?
Stop to look for nature’s tenacity and magnificence more often. Look up. Look down. Look out. When you discover it, make time to study it more closely. Be still and let yourself be moved.
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Everywhere I look, the Earth is offering its magnificent beauty and hope.