When I was a child, I would lie on the ground with my face to the sky so I could feel the heartbeat of Earth. In those quiet moments I felt the gentle pulse of energy that radiates from the body of our planet rocking my cells, as I stared at the expanse of sky above me. It brought me peace and comfort, and, at the same time, filled me with an awe of my “small” place inside this vast womb we call home.

Some days you can still find my flat on my back, gazing into the atmosphere. Have you tried it? I hope you have. I hope you will. In our over-industrialized culture we often forget the source of our life force, choosing to drive through our days inside the fog of technology. We hardly stop to think of the impact on the Earth and ourselves as we strip the land of its resources to add speed and “comfort” to our days. We can do this because Earth is a forgiving mother. She keeps feeding us, she keeps offering her oxygen for our breath, and she continues to quench our thirst with her reservoirs of water.

Yet, when we allow ourselves to observe the body of Earth we see that we have stretched her belly to the extend that she has well-exceeded her capacity to carry a healthy womb of life. We have contaminated her waters, air and soil with our waste, so that not only is her health compromised, but the health of all of her children. Just as a fetus is affected by the nutrients (or lack of) a mother takes into her body, and by the toxins she ingests, so too are we affected by the conditions of this womb of Earth we live inside.

I didn’t set out to preach in this blog, really, I didn’t. Rather, I set out to make a plea for a collective understanding. You see, for me this is a love story. A love story between our planet and us. And some days, like today, I am reminded that it is still taking a very tragic turn. When I logged onto Facebook (no, I’m not denying that I am also slave to technology) this morning I was greeted by a wonderfully beautiful testament to Mother Nature in the form of a friend’s painting. And, I was also greeted by a shared video of an island filled with dying albatross, whose bellies are bloated by our indigestible waste. The bellies of some are so filled with junk that they cannot harbor viable life. How many more decades, I wondered, will I be looking at these heart-wrenching images? How many decades can we afford?

When will we collectively awaken? When will we heal this mother that gives us life, and, in doing so, heal ourselves? We can start by feeling her heartbeat inside our own. Everyday.