This Land Is Our Land

Homeland

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we begin to see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

Aldo Leopold (www.geckoandfly.com)

          I am certain that some of you tire of hearing me rant about the environment, but I can’t help myself when I see with my own eyes the changes in climate and the loss of wildlife. Also, because just before waking today I dreamed this phrase: “biodiversity and belonging.” So that is what I googled this morning. Believe it or not, the quote above was the first thing I saw. When that sort of synchronicity occurs, I pay attention.

          A year or so ago, I read an article about the Galapagos Islands, about their tremendous diversity of wildlife including finches that are rapidly evolving to help themselves to survive the destruction of their habitat. But the wild animals there are also rapidly diminishing in numbers due to too much human contact. We humans don't mean to destroy things, we're just curious. We evolved to have this curious brain—one that wants to have everything, see everything, experience everything, and to know what makes everything tick and why. We have a million questions and constantly delve for answers.

          Our big brains are both blessing and curse. They make us want to travel to places like the Lucerne caves in France, where our breath is damaging the primitive art of our ancient ancestors, and to sacred sites like Stonehenge, where a fence has been erected to keep people from defacing the stones with carvings and graffeti. We pick up pebbles off beaches carved by alluvial glaciers and dig quartz out of the ground because we think they are pretty or have special powers. Because, along with our massive curiosity, we also feel it is our right to leave our mark, and to carry away pieces the earth for our own use. We cut down beach grasses that prevent erosion of our shorelines and fill in wetlands and waterways so we can build houses on them. For hundreds of years the earth could sustain this, but there is a critical balance, and we have exceeded it. We must stop. Not only are we destroying the habitat of the wildlife that once surrounded us, but we are quickly destroying our own. And just like the birds and animals, we will pay the price.

          I don’t want to always be doom and gloom in this blog. I would like to tell you that all is right with the world, and that we will continue to receive every blessing forever. I do not write about the environment because I want to shame everyone who reads my words, because I, myself, have done most of the things I just listed. But the time has come to stop. I want us to wake up and change the ways we are adding to and creating the problems—not because I hate humanity, but because I love it. We are a community. We are privileged to live on this beautiful planet. It is our homeland in every sense of the word. It is ours to love and protect. And only awake people can understand that.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane