Imagine falling asleep on a bed of moss with a tree canopy protecting you from overhead, or in a patch of tall grass that conceals you from anything approaching on a horizontal but leaves you a beautiful, wide open sky to marvel at. Or imagine floating down a river midday, with the sun beating down on you and plenty of gorgeous clouds hanging above you. Or a long climb to an isolated look out with a view of a lush, forested valley teeming with life seen and unseen. All of this beauty and so much more readily available if you’re willing to just step out into the world and find it.
And finding it is simple enough, it’s not like the beauty hides from us, it’s in plain sight. At all times. You just have to be open to seeing it. The Earth gives us these beautiful things, but does not give expecting to receive, it just gives. I believe, in a way, the Earth is attempting to lead by example in this way, it creates such beauty and gives endlessly all to support the life of all its creatures and to lead we creatures to bliss and beauty.
But just because the Earth does not ask for anything, does not mean we shouldn’t reciprocate. In fact, we could all so to be a bit more like the Earth. Or a lot more like the Earth. If we were to follow the same path as your joyous mother, the path of creation and endless giving, the world we live in would be the very epitome of harmony and grace. If we all just shed the idea that destruction in the name of “progress” will get us anywhere new or different or somehow better (or that it’s somehow transcendent of plain destruction), we’d be able to treat the Earth with the respect and love it deserves. And we’d likely start to see some actual progress.
Because there’s progress in realizing that we don’t really own anything and never really will. There’s progress in creating beauty of any sort, art, music, comedy, tragedy, laughter, love, sex, dreams, and feeling that beauty in whatever way it presents itself to you. There’s progress in taking a step back and realizing that you don’t need your material possessions as much as someone else might. And there’s even more progress in giving.
