Devotion does not have to be learned.  It emerges as a natural outgrowth out of the depth of love.  When we love deeply we seek to give to and to bless the beloved, to nurture all that we can of their life, growth, and wellbeing.

What we love deeply, what we care about deeply, we are devoted to.  Devotion does not have to be learned or willed.  It arises naturally out of the depth of love.  Nor is devotion something that just applies to one's family, or children, or parents who one may be caring for at different stages of life.  Devotion in its true meaning is the expression of the desire to give to and to bless those we love deeply out of the bounty of our love and out of our desire to do all that is possible to benefit the welfare, growth, and wellbeing, on all levels, of the beloved.

Devotion can also be toward that which is not human.  It can be toward the creatures of the Earth.  It can be toward the forests of the Earth.  It can be toward the Being of the Earth itself.  What we love deeply stirs our desire to express as the gift of our love, of our caring, of our desire to nourish.

In relation to the Earth as in relation to human beings, devotion is manifested by the continuity of our caring for those areas that are in greatest need of our help.  Out of love, we seek to insure that wellness is maintained and that no harm comes to the beloved.  Just as we do not let young children out of our sight when they are a certain age, knowing that they cannot take care of themselves, our devotion toward the Earth requires that we keep a continually watchful eye on those parts of the Earth that we feel need us most, her forests, her creatures, her oceans, her skies, her land masses that are crying out for our attention. 

We cannot afford to let the Earth out of our sight, much as we cannot afford to let young children out of our sight.  We are responsible for her welfare.  We are responsible for her wellbeing.  It is the lack of awareness of our devotion to the Earth that has led to the mistaken actions that we, as a collective humanity have taken, mistaken actions that have created great harm to the Earth's natural resources and habitats, as well as to her creatures, some of whom have now disappeared altogether.  We must attend, with devotion, to the needs of the Earth as we would to our own children.

The Earth's oceans are being poisoned by radioactive waste that is seeping into her waters, harming fish life to a far greater extent than we have been able to bear witness to.  For currents travel, and what is initially localized in one area soon becomes transported to other areas not just by currents, but also by the nature of the food chain which transmits radioactivity from one individual creature to another and from one species to another.

The Earth's skies are being polluted by chem trails and other toxins that are deliberately or unintentionally finding a new home there without sufficient knowledge of, or attention to, the consequences of this growing danger.  The Earth's skies are no longer clear.  They are becoming part of a problem that has grave consequences for human, animal, and plant life.

The Earth's forests are being depleted by the absence of devotion on multiple levels, and the substitution of motives of profit for motives of love.  We are one with the Earth, one with the forests, and the trees themselves and the land that supports them are calling to us with a full measure of awareness of being reduced to a marginal existence based on the absence of nourishment in the soil, over-foresting, and the lack of awareness of the environmental consequences of endangering large swathes of forest for the entire Earth.  All is integrated into one vast Earth-body.  All is One.  And as the trees in the great forests of the world are being cut down without being replenished, the oceans themselves are affected as are the skies.  There is only one Breath that links all aspects of planetary life, and it is not possible to harm one aspect without harming the whole.

Our devotion is a blessed gift that we give to the world.  We give it to each other.  We give it to the Earth.  We give it to the Divine Creator of all who has made possible the very breath in our lungs and the life that we lead.  We give our devotion to the extent that we allow ourselves to love deeply, to commit ourselves deeply because we love, because we care, because we seek to give and to bless that which we are devoted to.

May all the inhabitants of the Earth understand the meaning of devotion and learn to replace fear with the desire to love.  May all come to know devotion as the natural state of each to all, and the natural state of the One who is All to all of Life.  Blessings.

Related Writings:

Loving the Earth

Selfhood, Surrender, and the Journey to Wholeness

Finding the Deepest Heart (Video)

The Nature of Unconditional Love

Article Section -  Earth