Wednesday Word Rogation Days Meditation from Art France

The earth is our mother.
She gives us life.
She gives life to all.

She provides for us all we need to sustain our lives.
We thrive on the bounty she creates
and grow rich in the beauty and wonder of her creation. When we see this bounty clearly,
We are grateful.
We are moved by our gratitude to give back to our mother.

Our relationship to the earth is not ownership or dominion. Our relationship to the earth is communion.
A communion of gifting and receiving.
A reciprocal nurturing and caring.
A celebration of life.
And the invisible connection that we do not see but often feel without understanding.

This poem challenges us to reimagine our relationship to the earth. For a very long time, humans viewed the earth as if they owned it and could bend to their needs in any way they saw fit. We continue to ruthlessly exploit its resources to fulfill the economic vision of infinite growth of wealth, technology and consumption of natural resources.

The poem imagines a perspective that to us may be new but one that indigenous people embraced for thousands of years. The belief in ownership and dominion must give way to a vision of communion between ourselves and the planet. This will require sacrifice if we are to create an economic system that allows humans to maintain a scaled down version of modern society and to regenerate and nurture the natural world that we depend on for sustenance.

Art France