Earth,

I’m not sure when and where my love affair with you began, but your winds wrapped around me tightly and I was taken forever, always called to feel my body on your mosses and keep alert to your messages.

At this time in your history, as I walk amongst people that no longer hear your voice, feel your spirit, and understand you as a mother, I am filled with sorrow. Earth, I try to live as an example, but I feel I am failing. People are much more interested in glowing screens than flowing streams, and in making money than making life.

My heart aches and my head drops as I see people disrespect you by throwing plastic into your veins, to choke and kill your lifelines and your creatures; as people continually rip off your skin in misguided attempts to feed our species and create our shelters. Every day, I see people carelessly walk upon your body. They ignore your beauty and bounty.

I have come up with countless reasons to argue for you. I’ve tried to explain how protecting you will make us healthier and happier; why it will save us money; how it is essential to our well being and our future. But mostly, I just wish they could see you the way that I do. They would never need another reason to step more lightly upon you for they would see something so inexplicably divine that they would drop to their knees. They would realize that everything we do to the Earth we are doing to ourselves.

Earth, we are killing you and so we are killing ourselves. However, you will find a way to regenerate and go on. I’m not so sure about my kind. We’re a grain of rice in the oceans of your time, and we’ve forgotten how to live with you. Help us to learn before it is too late.

Love,
Me