Who's yo' Mama?
thoughts on Earth Day
What do we actually mean when we say “Mother Earth?”
The term comes from indigenous wisdom. When you live close to the land, interdependence isn’t just a spiritual concept, it’s a practical reality. You wouldn’t poison the person who fed you. Caring for the Earth was as fundamental as caring for one’s own mother.
We seem to have lost that awareness. We act like restless teenagers who can’t wait to leave home the moment we graduate—blithely assuming we no longer need the parent who raised us.
There’s been a rift. We’re less aware of our connection, and way less respectful.
While our attitude has changed, our biology hasn’t.
Take a deep breath. Thank the ocean phytoplankton and land plants for “exhaling” so you can live!
Consider that every drop of water in your body has been recycled through the planet for billions of years. Where else has it been? Sipped from a puddle by a dinosaur in Antarctica?
Mind-boggling!
Once you start seeing and feeling these deep connections, it can change how you see your place in the world.
It can influence the choices you make in the grocery store. Like:
Eating closer to the source: Choose foods in their natural state over hyper-manufactured foods (energy, transport, packaging…).
Lightening your footprint: Choose foods that require less from the planet to produce. Lower land and water use, less pollution, and especially greenhouse gas emissions.
To mitigate climate change: more beans, less beef.
What’s good for the Earth is good for you, too.
You’re not just on this planet; you’re a walking patch of it. Each of us is an integral node in a vast web of life.
In celebration of Earth Day, let’s honor our origins and our interconnections.
Let’s look after ourselves in a way that supports not only our own health but also the health of the world that sustains us.
Be well, friends,
What’s good for the earth is good for us. So true!