mother earth

We tend to think…

“We tend to think of human beings as falling into two groups: those who are similar to us and those who are different. We allow political boundaries to obscure our interconnectedness. What we often refer to patriotism is actually a barrier the prevents us from seeing that we’re all children of the same mother. Every country calls its nation a motherland or a fatherland. Every country tries to show how it loves its mother. But in doing so, each country is contributing to the destruction of our larger mother, our collective mother, the Earth. In focusing our human-made boundaries, we forget that we are co-responsible for the whole planet. …

park-1web

Nikon D750   f/4.5   1/200    85mm    100 ISO

“Every one of us, regardless of nationality or religious faith, can experience a feeling of admiration and love when we see the beauty of the Earth and the beauty of the cosmos. This feeling of love and admiration has the power to unite the citizens of the Earth and remove all separation and discrimination. Caring about the the environment is not an obligation, but a matter of personal and collective happiness and survival. We will survive and thrive together with our Mother Earth, or we will not survive at all.”

~Thích Nhát Hanh (Love Letter to the Earth)

Dear Mother Earth

 

spider“Dear Mother Earth,

The Human Species is but one of your many children. Unfortunately, many of us have been blinded by greed, pride, and delusion, and only a few of us have been able to recognize you as our mother.  Not realizing this, we have done you great harm, compromising both your health and your beauty. Our deluded minds push us to exploit you and create more and more discord, putting you and all your forms of life under stress and strain. Looking deeply, we also recognize the you have enough patience, endurance and energy to embrace and transform all the damage we have caused, even if it takes you hundreds of millions of years.

…There are times when we have not loved you enough; times when we have forgotten your true nature; and times when we have discriminated and treated you as something other than ourselves. There have even been times the, through ignorance and unskillfulness, we have underestimated, exploited, wounded and polluted you.

…we have turned to you dear Mother, and asked whether or not we could count on you, on your stability and compassion.  You did not answer right away. And then beholding us a great compassion, you replied, ‘Yes, of course, you can count on your Mother.  I will always be there for you.’ But then you said, ‘Dear children, you must ask yourself, can your Mother Earth count on you?'”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, (Excerpts from Love Letter to the Earth)

weekly photo challenge: unlikely

For this week’s photo challenge, I am resharing a post that tells the story of the loneliest whale in the world.  It is one of my earliest post and still touches my heart today for I believe her story is not unlike so many people today. It is unlikely that her story doesn’t resonate with many of us, young and old.  

In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about how, since 1992, scientists have been tracking a baleen whale named, “The 52 Hertz Whale.”  She swims and sings alone in our earth’s vast ocean:

Not heard nor seen

She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one.

Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.

Apparently not only is her song indecipherable to other whales, she also doesn’t follow the typical migration pattern of its species, making it even less likely to connect with others.

Just imagine that massive mammal, floating alone and singing—too big to connect with any of the beings it passes, feeling paradoxically small in the vast stretches of empty, open ocean.

How many of us, because of our unique characteristics, walk alone on mother earth calling out for another, waiting for another?