This post is another one that I recorded in audio first. The following is a transcription of my verbal sharing. I wrote this after waking this morning from a restless sleep thinking and feeling for what is happening in the world at the moment. I am sure you are too. So I hope that you can relate to this sharing. You also may wonder why I am writing about such a topic. I do because I am passionate about people being true to self. Being a person who supports people in transition I also believe that as a collective whole we all need to support a lot of people in transition right now.

I write this from my heart and when I say that I really mean that I am feeling what I am saying to you. I have continually listened to and paid attention to the happenings in the world of late. And what strikes me is that almost every day we get touched by a natural disaster or a change in the way the Earth is experiencing living with us humans.

I am not an expert nor anyone who can even comment on the fragile relationship we have as man and Earth. What I can say though is as an observer, as a person who feels deeply, is that we are not paying attention. And the only way that the earth can actually say anything to us seems to be to yell and scream like a child having a tantrum. Only Earth isn't a child. Earth is our mother. Earth is akin to a mother. Earth protects us nurtures us and looks after us. Earth turns a blind eye when we abuse it when we crank up the terrible things we do to hurt it and says no matter what I'm still there just like a mother would do to a child.

© Jenn ShallveyI feel this so strongly because every day I walk around in nature. And as a person who enjoys nature and at the same time also uses things that probably hurt nature, I remember there's a balance. So I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not saying that I actually am an example or role model for you. What I am saying though is my conscious awareness is so full on right now about what is happening around us that I can't sit by and do nothing.

I look at something like a fish tank and I see the containment of that world. And I think we think that we can do that with our lives. We can put a glass wall around our life and pretend that everything we do just in our little world is enough. But it's not anymore because when Earth decides to yell, Earth doesn't affect just one little part anymore, Earth affects a lot more. And the ripple effect of the awareness that goes across the globe now through social media, through the news, means that we all know what's going on. And when it comes to nature it is one of those areas in life that we as human beings cannot control. We cannot manipulate the earth when it cracks. We cannot manipulate the ocean when it wants to rise up and come towards us. All we can do is react run away protect ourselves. I want to get into a place where we are not having to run away to protect ourselves in response to nature screaming out. I want a place where we're working with nature we understand nature and we are in balance with nature.

It's interesting, I watched the movie Avatar with my daughter only recently. And that [movie] really speaks to me even though it doesn't speak to everybody. In fact I had a conversation with a friend of mine, i guess it's a friend of my daughter's father, and he said "I can't watch that movie". He couldn't see anything except for the solution at the end, the action at the end. I said "Well you missed the point, the point wasn't about that, it was about what is our relationship with Earth and how we are abusing it and taking so much from it." So when I watch a movie like that I look at what message does it convey. But not just that I say who gets the message? We can do things like that and send subtle messages out, but the people who already get it, get it. What about those of us who don't get it still? Those of us who think it's still okay to manipulate nature for our own means on our own hands and believe we can get away with it.

To me it seems this time, well actually it has been a time in the past. Many indigenous cultures have respected and built their own ways around the symbiotic relationship of man and nature. They never saw them as separate in that nature and earth and the land we live on and the air that we breathe are part of who we are. So I'm not an indigenous person, but I really understand and respect the knowledge and wisdom that has been here way before I ever landed on this planet.

I think a lot of us forget, that all of us forget, that it takes time and it takes whole entire communities and societies and cultures to say 'how do we live together in this world?'. I admire the people out there who are doing their part to make a difference. I noticed the ones who say enough is enough. And the ones I admire of course are writers who get their voice out there and say something to people who need to listen to that story. But I also admire the leaders in movements to create change, people trying to look at sustainability. Looking at areas like permaculture, how are we going to get our food, how are we going to live in this world as it increasingly changes.

So I look at all those people that inspire me for doing what they're doing with the means and the capacity and the spirit they have for their passion around that cause. I am not those people. You are not those people. So I don't expect either of us to actually have the same thing as those do. However something inside of us must feel what is going on and can do something. For me it's to get a message out there perhaps to inspire some of you who can do something different to take action. I really wish I could do that. If I were sitting in a room with you I would say this to you "what are you actually doing?" You listen, you read, you know but what are you actually doing to change the way you relate to nature? How are you contributing to helping the planet, the Earth that we live on rather than take from it all the time.

We have to go through a transition in order to do that. We can't just suddenly stop the way we live. That's virtually impossible for most of us. Though interestingly as nature does stop us sometimes, doesn't it, and brings us back onto our knees to the basics of just simple survival. I don't want us to be in situations where the only way we actually learn is when we're brought down on our knees. I don't want the only way that we learn to be through tragedy and crisis. There must be a way before we ever get to crisis and tragedy. There must be a way for us to shift to change to really look at the way we live and operate in this world now before it's too late.

So my message is to really pay attention to how you live your life now, what changes you can make gradually but with intention and how they can have an impact. And through your example how can you influence and affect the people around you? How can you actually change by doing things and setting an example?

I say this and in the time that I've actually recorded this post, five cars have driven past me, an airplane has gone overhead, but the trees in front of me are still standing there peaceful, waving in the breeze, and creating the cycle of air that we so depend on. I hear the birds singing, I here nature around me, it is there all the time. I know that we need, that we want, there's probably both there, the modern developments the modern advances of our time. We enjoy that. How can we continue though, to add into our knowledge and our awareness of how to do that? How can we continue to improve? Surely we must know ways to continue to improve. I'm not advocating going back to times where we don't do anything anymore, where we don't live a life. But I certainly am advocating that we ask ourselves how can this be done better and how can I in the way that I contribute to this world contribute to making this a better place and a better place for not just me but future generations to live here and be happy about it.

Warmly,

Jenn

A plea for mother Earth