Earth Care Sangha: Touching in with the Earth – a practice of the heart

Indigenous people around the world speak directly to the Earth and all beings who live and breathe with her, animal, vegetable, mineral. Their replies are heard directly. A conversation takes place. Collaboration happens. Many of Thay’s books can be seen in this light too, perhaps especially Love Letters to the Earth. Using a form of communication known as reflective writing, here Roshni Parmar-Hill shares her highly personal experience of opening her heart to the Earth during recent time spent in Wales. Join the Earth Care Sangha on Monday 16 September from 7-8.30pm and on the third Monday of every month.

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I sit near the ocean. The waves are not in sight, nor can I hear the roar in my ear. But I know the ocean is there. The saltines in the air. Gull’s distant calls. The green leaves of buddleia silvering in the sun.I write with a shallow breath and a furrowed brow. For some reason, I can feel the weight of these words. Hanging on each loop and line. This act of translation and personal experience brings a feeling of friction. Do I have the right to write?

Red Crocosmia: Yes.

Me: I am tapping into what Andreas Weber calls the ‘poetic objective’. The meaningful expression and mutual sharing of all beings striving towards aliveness. Complex and embodied. Ineffable and participatory. Thich Nhat Hanh calls it interbeing.

Wind: I call it breathing.

Me: This is an act of the present tense. A ‘writing with’ all that is around me and within me. A story that is created in collaboration. It is a simple reflective piece. Close by, a chain saw chews away at wood and fills me with dissonance. I fidget with my dark brown hair.

Dandelion Seed: Where are you going?

Me: Sometimes, thoughts of the future scare me. I have visions of a cracked earth, lifeless and burnt. Only a few nights ago I smelt smoke in the air. Fire is closer than I care to admit. I am one of the majority of under 30s in the UK who experience climate anxiety. The crippling fear of the irreversible changes that are affecting our planet. Our home.

Birch Tree: It is loneliness that brings these thoughts. I am because Ivy is here, Cloud is here, Sun is here. My roots go far beyond my being.

Me: For a long time, I felt overwhelmed by these feelings. To some extent I still do. But things shifted when I started to garden. With the graceful guidance of my mother, I learnt to sow seeds, train tomatoes, and compost cut stems. While gardening I enter into reciprocity. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer says that tending to a garden is ‘a powerful way to belong’. Knee deep in squashes, their long limbs occupying the earth in weird and wonderful ways, I feel that I have arrived. I am home.

Dock Leaf: Not all of us are welcome.

Me: Despite all that holds us together, humans find a multitude of ways to keep us apart. As I participate in community gardens, I notice the lack of diversity among the growers. As I walk along Welsh lakes and Cumbrian fells, I recognise that access to these places of natural beauty is unequal. As I work in the environmental sector, there are hardly any people who look like me. It feels important to say that I see the climate movement is primarily white and middle-class. As Green Peace UK puts it: ‘climate breakdown is a race issue’. I only need to consider climate displacement to see that the global south will be disproportionately affected. I want to hear all voices in this movement. I want to see the way we campaign transformed.

Cirrus Cloud: Impermanence is metamorphosis.

Me: I have been on the front lines of climate marches. I shouted until my lungs hurt. I held aloft the wing of a giant avocet puppet through the streets of London to call for change. Protests are vital. But I cannot sustain the fight. I am propelled by fear and hate. Unless embraced and composted, these emotions will eat me up.

Roberts Geranium: There is life to be found within the stone.

Me: I sit here on the edge of something. A tender idea slowly coming into fruition. I do not know where it will go or what it will do, but I am holding it with love. I am helping to build a community, a sangha, for the Earth. It is imperfect. It is beautiful.

Buzzard flies east. The story carries onwards.

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You are invited to be part of building this imperfect, inclusive and – with your participation – beautiful sangha. Earth Care Sangha is the place for heart conversations, a safe space to bring your sorrows and joys, your aspirations and inspirations, your anger and your peace.

All are welcome. As Thay says, ‘If we wake up together, then we have a chance.’ Join the Earth Care Sangha on Monday 16 September from 7-8.30pm and on the third Monday of every month from then on. More information on the Plum Village UK website.

Photos by: Roshni Parmar-Hill