Gaia's Call

How we see ourselves is, at least in part, a function of what we see in the world around us. This short insight is a huge doorway. The short path between our self and our world can lead towards human wellness, or just as easily, away from it. The connection between people and their world is strong such that they transform each other. Gaia is calling us back, and her voice is reaching deep within the inner-city.

Vacant lot programs such as in Detroit, Michigan, with goals of transforming overgrown, junk ridden lots, weed-ridden with crime, neglect and unattractiveness into places of beauty, community and life, describes a process by which our distance from the natural world decreases. Transformations back to the natural world then lead to transformations in the people who live there. Moreover, changes like this lead to even further positive transformations in the environment. The cycle goes on.

For a much of my life I have maintained the simple equation: if you want to straighten up your thoughts and emotions, begin by putting your room in order. The place in which one lives and the ‘self’ who lives there are intimately connected, for one is a reflection of the other. My equation simply takes this proposition one step further. They are mutually transformative.

It is easy to recognize, once we become attentive to it, that how we feel is affected by the world – the immediate world – in which we live. On the other hand, we also know from experience how changes in this world transform how we feel. Oh, we might phrase it as ‘How it looks changes how I feel about it”… with the emphasis on the ‘it’. However, the phrase completely demonstrates, anywhere you choose to put the emphasis, the unmistakable transformation in “…changes how I feel…”

It is disturbing to me that so many people in our world are separated from nature. A little like a couple of 'Thoreaus', I guess, my wife and I have retreated to, not a pond, but our little Walden ridge, which we call ‘Pook’s Hill’. Here, we awake daily to a natural world of oaks and redwoods, birds and wildflowers. It is a beautiful place, and we feel good being here. We are fortunate, and well aware that not everyone has this opportunity. It is, however, an opportunity we created, and maintain. More than mere chance, it has come about by choice.

To see inner-city projects struggle with success and failure to transform vacant lots into small oases of beauty and peace, suggests a small opportunity to transform life towards a naturally healing environment. We feel good when we are there, and this transforms us in how we understand ourselves because in feeling this way, we are different. How we feel is as much who we are, as how our hair is colored, or the clothes we choose to wear.

We are being called back by Gaia, silently with an incessant tug. She offers us peace, pleasure and joy when we are near her, just as we feel anxiety, frustration and emptiness when we are not. A little doorway to such change through an inner-city project is a small expression of a huge opening into self-creation. Do we choose to move towards a more fulfilling life, or towards one that is more empty? To create a small oasis such as in Detroit is not a mere matter of planting shrubs and trees, or of removing trash and decaying buildings. It is hearing - and heeding - the call of Gaia herself.