While it is true that one can put into place earth-conscious practices out of self-interest in order to preserve the planet so that it can continue to sustain life, and while this reason to do so is valid in itself and important, it is not as deep a motivator, nor can it be, as the motivation of love.  For out of love for the Earth can come a feeling that is comparable to what an ordinary good parent feels for their own children, namely, that their life is not separate from their child’s life, and that out of the deepest love they do not forget what matters to their children or what they need. 

This same feeling of inner necessity and inner responsibility, born out of love, can be felt toward the Earth.  For the Earth is not only a provider of all that sustains life for all kingdoms and species.  It is a Being of great love and beauty that exists not only on the physical level but on the spiritual level as well, as a manifestation of the One who is All.  To feel this Divine manifestation of the Earth is to feel love, and to feel love is to seek to honor the Being that one loves.

Out of such love can come an abiding feeling of relationship with what concerns the Earth, a deepening relationship which grows as one’s sense of inner connection grows - a relationship that is cognizant at all moments of the Earth’s life as one would be cognizant at all moments of one’s children.  They are not there in the forefront of one’s mind at all times through a process of active thought.  They are there in the foundation of relationship.

Wherever love opens, there caring and the desire to give to and bless another opens as well.  And so it can be in one’s caring for the Earth.  The opening of love can transform consciousness so that it becomes sensitive to things that it did not pay attention to before – things that bring wellbeing to the Earth and things that may detract from that.

At first, little may be known about this.  Some of it may be understood intuitively but little may be known.  And so one must experiment with the budding relationship to see what feels most real and whether information alone can help solidify a feeling of caring.  Information itself can do many things, but only if it changes the motivation of the heart will these things be based on love.  This motivation of the heart is the wellspring from which both personal and planetary change will take place.  It is the foundation for a new human consciousness.

What such love allows is the transformation of self-interest into a willingness to give up convenience, especially at the material level.  One does things for one’s children that are not convenient or even necessarily comfortable for the self.  One does things because the relationship of caring requires them.  In like manner, one can abandon the need to have things be personally convenient or comfortable in order that the welfare of the Earth exist alongside what one wishes for oneself, not less important than what one wishes for oneself.  This willingness to abandon convenience is based on love, for only love can uproot the long-standing roots of self-interest and self-protection that have caused human beings to make their lives as comfortable as possible, physically, in order to develop a feeling of greater security.  Now, the principle of Love asks that we make our lives not simply comfortable for ourselves, but comfortable for ourselves-in-relationship with the Earth, comfortable for the Earth as well.

The willingness to forego convenience in favor of love is the great transmutational principle that shall change things within human consciousness, and is an effect of the change itself.  It will permit the letting go of self-seeking in favor of seeking only that which serves the good of ourselves-in-relationship.

There is not one way to do this or to be this, just as there is not just one way to love.  All will come to the soul that is open to love, whether toward God or to the manifestation of God that is the Earth, and all can be revealed from within as to how love must be expressed,.  The important thing, the essential thing, is awakening to the consciousness of intimate relationship – to relationship with the Earth as one would relate to one’s own children – not forgetting this relationship even when doing other things, not thinking it alright to be unconcerned, not knowingly replacing convenience for love and the responsibility that love entails. So may it be for the inhabitants of the Earth.  May all awaken to the new day that is dawning and has dawned, and may all bless the Earth as the emanation and expression of the One whose love is beyond measure.  Amen.

Related Writings:

The Sacred Earth

Respect for Life

The Perspective of Oneness

Article Section -  Earth