A way to be on this earth and not shy away from the pain

By Jen Peer Rich

Wow. Just wow! A wave of gratitude arriving on the shores of a radical earth based faith that is lived, a faith that is in and of itself, nature being natural. Nature engages constantly with itself like this.

I’ll share here that there is this heartbreak in me, a general sadness and despair I feel about many of the issues we face as a collective earth and as a human species. The suffering on this planet often overwhelms me. I sense along with many other animals that whether by natural events or by our own human hands, probably a convergence of both, this earth our home and everything that lives on it is in for massive changes and challenges in the next century and we will need new ways to engage on this planet if we are to make it without devolving into a big ugly mess. And yet life goes on! Even if nature shakes off the current natural inhabitants, life will go on in some new way and so we live on endlessly.

That’s pretty amazing.

But right now, here we are. And we have this one life to live. I for one plan to make this one a doozy! You know? Why not help out, shake shit up, why not wake up the sleeping giant we are that has been dreaming a lie of being cut off unnaturally from life?

Nature has never been cut off from nature.

What is on fire in me right now is a great faith that we are nature itself. Everything about us is natural and good. These minds are nature. The body is nature. We are meant to grow, think, reflect, learn and die again and again, this is natural. It’s even natural to pretend to be unnatural! These minds and all their wonky and creative expressions, even the most painful ones, are life being natural. What is also natural is instinct, our ability to adapt and evolve with changing situations and conditions. We are growing right now in our communal recognition that the time has come for a new way of being here on this planet that is more sustainable and compassionate with all of life. And not to do so because it’s the hip cause to be associated with, or because we feel guilty how things are or even if we feel paralyzed by fear of it all, but because it is an intrinsic movement within each of us to care for what we are. Who we are is nature. Taking care of the earth and others is the very same as taking care of our own body. We don’t drink poison so we don’t poison the earth. Same same. I treat my own system as I treat the system at large, this is personal sustainability.

We are all wild at heart, literally. But wildness has been stripped away from us in exchange for a modern bevy of mental sophistications, an extended hall of illusions that fail to bring real instinctual joy.

Being natural, assuming my wildness, this is about as spiritual as it gets for me. Suddenly I am home within this moment looking at the world not as something divided from me but as nature engaging as nature naturally. My mind is innocent, it is the same kind of instrument of nature as this goldfinch I see, it’s nimble and free as any bird. There is nothing to feel bad about and everything to celebrate in this emerging faith reflected back to me in everything natural. This is a way to be on this earth and not shy away from the pain, here I stand wildly open and prepared for what is.

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Jen Peer Rich is a friend in presence. She lives in Atlanta with 5 rescued weenie dogs and is married to her best friend. Presently she’s working towards a graduate degree in Ecopsychology. She has two books about Nonduality available for free download at Friends in Presence or on amazon kindle. You can also find Jen writing and sharing digital art on the Facebook machine, she’s always open to making new friends.