Earth Touchings and Guided meditations on the environment

Index

• Meditation on Thich Nhat Hanh’s Paris climate summit statement
• Touching the Earth for ecological regeneration
• Spring meditation
• Guided meditation on the four elements 
• Gaia meditation

Meditation drawn from THICH NHAT HANH statement, published on the
UNFCCC website ahead of the Paris Climate Summit in September 2015.

Bell, Bell ,Bell

Breathing in I know I am in love with this beautiful, bounteous, life-giving planet we
call Mother Earth
Breathing out I know each one of us carries the Earth within every cell of our bodies.

In Love with Mother Earth
Earth is within every cell of our bodies.

Bell

Breathing in, I realise that the Earth is not just our environment. The Earth is
not something outside of me.
Breathing out, I know that the Earth and I are one.
Earth is not something outside of me.
The Earth and I are one

Bell

Breathing in with mindfulness, I contemplate my body and realise that I am the
Earth
Breathing out, I know my consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth.
Realise that I am the Earth

My consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth.

Bell
Breathing in, I know that cherishing Mother Earth is not an obligation.
Breathing out, I know it is a matter of personal and collective happiness and
survival for me and all beings.
Cherishing Mother Earth is not an obligation
A matter of personal and collective happiness and survival for all beings
Bell

Breathing in, I see that all that is needed for global healing is present within me and
all around me.
Breathing out, I feel immense gratitude for this miraculous power of transformation.
All that is needed for global healing is present within me
Feeling gratitude for this power of transformation present within me

Bell
Bell
Bell

Touching the Earth for Ecological Regeneration

By T. Ambrose Desmond

Touching the Earth, I open myself to this beautiful planet and all of the life that is here.

[BELL]

[ALL TOUCH THE EARTH]

With heart and mind open, I see that there is no separation between my body and the body of the Earth. Every mineral in this flesh and bone has been stone and soil and it will be again. Looking into one calcium molecule in my bone, I can see that it used to be part of the body of a green leaf. Before that, it was part of the living soil in a garden. Long before that, it was a shell in the sea. I see the continuation of this calcium molecule in so many forms and now in my bone. I can see that the Earth element in me will return to the soil and manifest as other forms of life in the future.

I know that every drop of my blood has been the rain, rivers, and ocean, and it will be again. I can see the life of a water molecule in my blood extending back to before the non-beginning. I can see the water I drink becoming part of my body. Looking back further, I can see that water has been part of every river and every ocean since the beginning of the Earth. I can see that the hydrogen and oxygen that make up this water have been in existence long before the Earth formed. Although my blood feels so much like a part of “me,” I know it will continue in many forms forever.

The air that gives life to every cell in my body has lived in trees and other animals and in the vast sky, and it will again. I see the air element in me—the air that I can feel going in and out of my lungs and the air that is carried throughout my body, keeping me alive. I know this air is part of the vast ocean of the atmosphere moving in and out of all people, animals, plants, and microorganisms. I see we are all breathing together.

The warmth of my body is the warmth of the sun. I see the sun’s warmth radiating through space to the Earth and connecting with a green leaf. That leaf miraculously transforms the energy into sugar. As I take that leaf into my body, I transform the sugar back into warmth. I can see that the sun is alive in me.

I can see clearly that the Earth is not my environment. It is my body and there is no separation.

[THREE BREATHS]

[BELL]

[ALL STAND UP]

Touching the Earth, I open myself to all of the suffering that is present in the Earth.

[BELL]

[ALL TOUCH THE EARTH]

With heart and mind open, I see clearly that the Earth and I are one body. With tenderness and love, I bring my awareness to the suffering that is present in this collective body. I see the mineral element that is stone becoming soil, becoming vegetation, becoming flesh and bone, becoming soil again. I also see the suffering that is present in the mineral element. I see the toxins we have made creating sickness and cancer in living beings, and the pesticides and fertilizers poisoning the soil. I know that the suffering of the mineral element is my suffering. I embrace this suffering with tenderness and love.

I see the water element. I see the ocean becoming cloud, becoming rain, becoming drinking water, becoming blood, and returning. I also see the suffering in the water element. I see thousands of children without clean water to drink, and the toxins we have allowed to be released in streams, aquifers and oceans, and all of the suffering they cause. I know the suffering of the water element is my suffering. I embrace this suffering with tenderness and love.

I see the air element. I see the one ocean of air circulating through all life and through the vast sky. I also see the suffering in the air element. I see pollution in the air and the sickness it causes. I know the suffering of the air element is my suffering. I embrace this suffering with tenderness and love.

I see the fire element. I see the energy of the sun warming the Earth, turning into sugars when it touches green leaves, and those leaves becoming my body. I see that the heat in my body is the heat of the sun. I also see the suffering in the fire element. I see the ocean levels rising, the polar ice caps melting, and all of the destruction caused by global climate change. I know the suffering of the fire element is my suffering. I embrace this suffering with tenderness and love.

[THREE BREATHS]

[BELL]

[ALL STAND UP]

Touching the Earth, I open myself to the enormous capacity for healing that is present in the ancestors and in the Earth.

[BELL]

[ALL TOUCH THE EARTH]

With heart and mind open, I see the Earth herself as a living body. I see her capacity to adapt and heal herself. I know that she is strong and that she has a miraculous capacity to transform a toxin into a resource in the same way I can transform suffering into compassion.

I can see the Earth billions of years ago, when she was covered with single-celled organisms that could breathe only carbon dioxide. These single-celled organisms produced oxygen as a waste, and the increasing amount of oxygen in the atmosphere threatened to end life on Earth. I see that in that moment, the Earth began to manifest new single-celled organisms that breathed oxygen and restored the balance in the atmosphere.

I see that this creativity is still alive in the Earth and in human beings. I know all of the solutions to our environmental problems already exist. I know my ancestors have discovered ways of harnessing the power of the wind and sun and water to provide for all of our needs. I see intentional communities, permaculture food forests, electric trains, and compassionate conflict resolution. I also see my own capacity to embrace suffering with mindfulness and love, transforming it into compassion.

Looking deeply, I see that all that is needed for global healing is present within me and all around me. I feel immense gratitude for this miraculous power of transformation.

[THREE BREATHS]

[TWO BELLS]

[ALL STAND UP]

Spring Meditation

Gaia meditation 

By Joanna Macy and John Seed

What are you?  What am I?  Intersecting cycles of water, earth, air and fire—that’s what I am, that’s what you are.

WATER– blood, lymph, mucus, sweat, tears, inner oceans tugged by the moon, tides within and tides without.  Streaming fluids floating our cells, washing and nourishing through endless riverways of gut and vein and capillary.  Moisture pouring in and through and out of you, of me, in the vast poem of the hydrological cycle.  You are that.  I am that.

EARTH– Matter made from rock and soil.  It too is pulled by the moon as the magma circulates through the planet heart and roots suck molecules into biology.  Earth pours through us, replacing each cell in the body every seven years.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we ingest, incorporate and excrete the earth, are made from earth.  I am that.  You are that.

AIR– the gaseous realm, the atmosphere, the planet’s membrane.  The inhale and the exhale.  Breathing out carbon dioxide to the trees and breathing in their fresh exudations.  Oxygen kissing each cell awake, atoms dancing in orderly metabolism, interpenetrating.  That dance of the air cycle, breathing the universe in and out again, is what you are, is what I am.

FIRE– Fire from our sun that fuels all life, drawing up plants and raising the waters to the sky to fall again replenishing.  The inner furnace of your metabolism burns with the fire that first sent matter-energy flaring out through space and time.  And the same fire as the lightning that flashed into the primordial soup, catalyzing the birth of organic life.

You were there, I was there, for each cell of our bodies is descended in an unbroken chain from that event.  Through the desire of atom for molecule, of molecule for cell, of cell for organism.  In that spawning of forms, death was born, born simultaneously with sex, before we divided from the plant realm.  So in our sexuality we can feel ancient stirrings that connect us with plant as well as animal life.  We come from them, an unbroken chain– through fish learning to walk the land, scales turning to wings, through migrations in the ages of life.

We have been but recently in human form.  If Earth’s whole history were compressed into twenty-four hours beginning at midnight, organic life would begin only at 5 pm… mammals emerge at 11:30… and from amongst them at only seconds to midnight, our species.

In our long planetary journey we have taken far more ancient forms than these we now wear.  Some of these forms we remember in our mother’s womb, take on vestigial tails and gills, grow fins that turn to hands.

Countless times in that journey we died to old forms, let go of old ways, allowing new ones to emerge.  But nothing is ever lost.  Though forms pass, all returns.  Each worn-out cell consumed, recycled… through mosses, leeches, birds of prey…

Think to your next death.  Give your flesh and bones back into the cycle.  Surrender.  Love the plump worms you will become.  Launder your weary being through the fountain of life.

Beholding you, I behold as well all the different creatures that compose you– the mitochondria in the cells, the intestinal bacteria, the life teeming on the surface of the skin.  The great symbiosis that is you.  The incredible coordination and cooperation of countless beings.  You are that, too, just as your body is part of a much larger symbiosis, living in wider reciprocities.  Be conscious of that give-and-take when you move among trees.  Breathe your carbon dioxide to a leaf and sense it breathing fresh oxygen back to you.

Remember again and again the old cycles of partnership.  Draw on them in this time of trouble.  By your very nature and the journey you have made, there is in you deep knowing of belonging.  Draw on it now in this time of fear.  You have earth-bred wisdom of your interexistence with all that is.  Take courage and power in it now, that we may help each other awaken in this time of peril.