The Earth is connected to each and every human being, but what about the people who go through out their daily lives and do not realize this connection? Is the connection truly complete until a person feels their connection to the earth?
Every human being continues to live their lives whether they realize this connection or not. But every minute thing that lives and exists on this planet strives to achieve this. All things are connected with or without the realization of such. In physics, a particle on one side of our universe feels the gravity of another particle on the other side. Although it may be such an infinitesimally small tug, all things in the universe are subconsciously aware of everything else in the universe.
In that subconscious awareness of everything in the universe lies a grand and beautiful thing. Within and in between everything that exists or does not exist, lies the Tao. The Tao can be translated to mean The Way, and what a beautifully simple way to describe something so correctly.
The Tao is ‘concept of movement’, and as such, is concurrent with everything that is in motion. The Tao exists everywhere and nowhere. The Tao is within the leaf falling from a tree. The leaf itself is the Tao, but without an understanding and a certain form of sense, the true essence of the Tao is lost. The Tao is not simply ’the universe in motion”. The universe is the Tao, but the Tao that can be grasped is not the true Tao.
A flower contains the Tao and is also the Tao at the same time, but by plucking and holding the flower you do not possess the Tao. The Tao is the essence of that flower. The Tao must be experienced. Everything that can be said about the Tao is not really the Tao itself but only a part of it. The Tao is reached when understanding is reached.
The universe is always and will forever more be in motion. Whether it is expanding or contracting, the universe is following the Tao. What can be done then, to experience the true Tao in its most simple and most easily understood and experienced form?
It is done simply by doing nothing. A leaf will follow the wind and the wind will follow the way the earth spins. The earths spin will follow the gravity of our solar system. Our solar system will follow its path through its relationship to our galaxy. Our galaxy will follow its Tao throughout the universe by its relationship to other galaxies and the universe as a whole.
This leaves not even the most remote hydrogen atom out of the grand scheme that the Tao holds for our universe. Once you realize that you are not just a human being that was born by chance on a planet in which life was permitted to thrive by chance, then you can begin to see that the Tao is you and has always been with you.
The Tao is always sin motion through you and I. The Tao moves through me and through time so as long as I continue to move through time I feel connected to the entire universe. Everything in the universe speaks to everything else. This conversation is not done by words alone, but also through conveyance of the state of being in which a person is. If you kick a tree in anger that tree will feel that pain and that anger and the entire universe will eventually feel it. If my conversations with everything I experience throughout my day are done in a positive manner, then everything that I talk to positively will exude positive vibes throughout the rest of the universe.
Although my conversations with nature aren't always great meditational moments or lasting for long periods of time, simply talking to a tree as I would a person brings me closer to the Tao that the tree has felt. A tree that has been around for a hundred years more than I have has experienced many more things than I have. If I can build a connection to all pieces of nature, then I have built a connection to all things that have ever happened and all things that are to come in the future. That tree may live a few hundred more years than I will, but it will also carry the memory of my conversations with it.
We should all feel that reflection on how we talk to each other and how we talk to nature should be done positively and frequently. Why would a tree not enjoy someone walking by and saying hello or thank you for the shade? For me to be one with the Earth and embrace Gaian ideals, I need to feel that all things are equally important and so my conversations with nature are done the same as I converse with other humans.
The emotion I put intomy conversation with nature should be the same as the level I put into everyday conversation. I keep the grass I walk on and the air I breathe as close to me as I would keep a family member or friend through repetition of deep conversation. The wind I whisper to today will go to all corners of the earth and talk to trees I may never see, but that tree will also produce air that I may breathe in 60 years.
So when I am an old man sitting in a rocking chair watching the grass grow I might just hear a tree whisper to me an answer to a question I whispered to the wind in ages past. Even after I have withered away and our sun dies, the material that created the world I existed in will continue to exist.
Eventually, all the things that made my body will perhaps become part of a new star. Maybe by chance that material that was me may make up a tree similar to the one that whispered to me in a past life. Such is the Tao. The Tao is always moving and will forever more be moving.