With an artist’s eye I view the world, the Earth, as a delicate, but resilient work of art. This never ending work-in-progress unwinds spools of life, threading them into brilliant expressions of creativity. The forests tower over me, like natural cathedrals, the canyons like amphitheaters, the seas and rivers, like undulating canvas of unimaginable colors.

As a child, I learned about the Creator through these tapestries, these murals of life. I still don’t understand the nature of this Creator, is it the Earth itself, is it a deity hidden behind pearly gates, is it just… everything? I decided a long time ago that I can’t know. 

That’s the great mystery, and I humbly accept the mystery as something unknown that waits for me.

But something out there drives this continuous expression of life that has nothing to do with the human world. The human world snags me daily into worlds of written word, images that poorly reflect the creative forces, and extensive mind-bending greed. I notice how the algorithms try to feed me a digital sustenance that only deepens the hunger for connection and belonging. 

Because as strange as humans are, and that so few of us can live deeply in this Creation, I find that the real sustenance is actually the natural world, and that humans do belong as much as they believe they are somehow above it all, somehow different, somehow better. Perhaps that’s the real challenge, recognizing we are nature, we are creation, and we are responsible for it all. 

I once found myself sitting in a room of environmental activists, all these people fighting for the protection of forests and waterways, together to express themselves instead of just having a meeting to discuss next steps in a never ending campaign. Instead they were playing music, reading poetry, telling stories. And I paused, listening to a poem of the awe that overcame the writer when he stood in the woods, acknowledging the beauty, the fecundity, the interconnection of all life, except… himself. He described all the amazing details of the forest, being overcome with appreciation and awe, then described himself as a trespasser. 

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As an herbalist, I’ve had many teachers from many backgrounds with different perspectives on what it means to develop an herbal practice. Some of them live deeply in the Creation their ancestors inhabited, sustaining themselves with food and fuel from the land they live on. Some of them live in cities, greeting weeds growing out of cracks in the sidewalks. And a few crossed over into the world of pharmaceuticals and medical tech. Others couldn’t identify a plant if their lives depended on it. 

The teachers that embedded themselves in the natural world, this mysterious creation, whether city-folk or country-folk, helped me find my place, among the trees, among the weeds, within the greater mystery. For we are not trespassers, even if, as some stories say, we came from the stars. We are so deeply woven into the story of Earth that it requires great imagination and manipulation to see ourselves outside of it. Some of us take up our responsibility to nature directly, others through healing each other. All of us need the galactic elements of fire, water, air, and earth to feed spirit, to feed creativity, to burrow deeper into the interconnection. 

Because connection to nature is our first responsibility. 

Here are 5 ways I connect. After I do these things, I often have a better sense of what I can do each day to acknowledge and act on my responsibility to Earth, to everything. 

1. Take 10 deep breaths, like drinking air
2. Drink a glass of water, slowly, feeling it trickle down, imagine the water coursing into the waterways of the body
3. Looking at the nuanced colors of trees, the vibrant colors of flowers. Really seeing, looking deep into the details.
4. Appreciating the warmth of fire, whether sunshine on my face or the electric or gas powered fire I cook with. 
5. Look to my heart, the organ that pounds in my chest and the metaphorical sense of compassion. I put my hands over my heart. Hold it in my mind’s eye, fill it with the seeds of exquisite flowers and watch them bloom and spread.