Earth and Me

Everything that happens on this planet, even if it's on the other side of the earth and I'll never know about it, affects me. Sometimes I feel as if my body is the earth, or at least a micro-version of it. If I sustain an injury, or am bitten by a spider, I tend to wonder why it happened, rather than how, because the longer I live the more I'm convinced that there are no accidents or coincidences. I'm always certain that there is a message being conveyed to me, and that I should be paying attention to my body, which is the vehicle communicating the message. Most of the time the information I'm getting is about me specifically, of course. But sometimes I feel that the things I think about, which seem to have nothing to do with me and where I live, end up affecting my health and well-being.
I apologize if this particular ramble of mine seems rather obscure, but I don't wish to be specific right now. If I go into detail, it will probably send me into a tailspin. So I'm keeping this blurb very general. (I know that this opens me up to the sort of criticism that flaky, airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky, new-agey types are subject to when they blether about inter-connection and the unity of all life. Well too effing bad. I don't want to go there, and since this is my little web I can bloody well make unsubstantiated arguments if I want to. And use run on sentences, or end them in prepositions, or go off on tangents without ever coming back to my original thesis.)
But I digress.
Back to my body, my self, as a microcosm of Earth ...
I can't control everything that happens to me or around me or around the world. But I can control the way I react to them. I frequently feel as if my body is reacting before I have a chance to consciously respond. If that's true, then I should be able to somehow, in a teeny-weeny, nonetheless significant way (see previous entry), affect that which affects me. When I'm functioning at my best, and have all the crap that's bothering me under control, I feel powerful enough to exert some influence somewhere - preferably in the areas of my life and the planet that I believe need care. So that's what I've begun to do.
I've started to dedicate all the best of me to the life of this Earth I revere. It's my religion. It's my faith. Earth doesn't need my personal crap. She has enough to deal with. So I'm sacrificing my addiction to struggle and pain for the sake of Mother Earth. And it's one hell of a tough addiction to give up. But every time I choose to breathe deeply, slow down and take the moral high road in difficult situations, I experience some sort of immediate and positive result, usually on the side of peace and accord. That often comes with personal sacrifice - such as suppressing spontaneous, uncensored self-expression, which can be really hard for a drama queen like me. It means listening more than talking. Or turning the other cheek when fighting back seems so much more satisfying. It means focussing on what's right and good and beautiful when I'm overwhelmed with so much that isn't.
I've often wondered how I'm supposed to help others when I feel as if I can barely help myself. Now that I've discovered a way to actively worship Earth on a daily basis, i.e., keeping one infinitesimal part of the planet - me - the way I would like the entire planet to be, I don't feel so helpless and useless. Taking care of myself has become tantamount to taking care of everything that matters to me. I'll quote Gandhi again as I've done before - Be the change you wish to see. I've been using that quote as a moral guideline for quite some time, but now it's become a matter of faith. It makes me feel that even my personal, selfish needs and actions are somehow still serving the bigger picture. Okay, so that won't make me a saint. But I feel more closely connected to my deity, Mother Earth. And that empowers me.
- G.P.