Requited Love

“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

The photo above was taken on a trail I walk nearly every day. The path takes me past a playground and tennis courts, along a lake and then into an area thick with trees, before turning me back along the water. It was in the wooded section that my eye was captured by this small, hand-painted stone set like a signpost along my route.

Naturally, I affirmed the sentiment and appreciated whoever had planted the message there. It gave me pause. I stopped walking and sent out love to the earth in the form of gratitude. I breathed in deeply, giving thanks for the cool air scented with pine and fallen leaves. I offered appreciation for the sunlight tilting through the branches and glinting off the water, for the water itself and its life-giving powers and for our elders, the trees, who know so much more than we do about how to live well in community. And in that long pause of gratitudes, I sensed something reciprocal, as if the earth were responding to my thanks. I felt held and seen and distinctly not alone, although I was the only human on that part of the trail. I felt loved in return.

Robin Wall Kimmerer asks: What would happen if we believed this crazy notion that the earth really does love us back?

It’s a provocative question. If we believed the earth loves us back, how would our relationship with her change? Perhaps we’d not only try to listen but we might trust the earth is listening to us as well. We’d express our gratitude and also experience Her gratefulness to us. And in our work to protect and save our home, this beautiful blue boat, we’d know we do it because She’s been nurturing and protecting us with her very being all along, offering Herself to us daily, sustaining us. Deep relationship would be the ground of our love.

“…when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.” 

Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants