OUR MOTHER THE EARTH

Climate Change Essays (1)

Living in this day when “climate change” is coming to be recognized around the planet, or at least acknowledged by world-wide populations, it’s become common to refer to our planet Earth, as Mother Earth. And also acceptable to believe the planet is a living entity and that a positive role for humankind is to learn to “love our mother.”  

As Mother Earth bumper stickers make this pronouncement throughout byways and highways of the U.S., are we even able to imagine a planet world, as Mother?  Today’s global communication appears to mentally link humans closer together.  It’s described as “factual knowledge.” In this age of information, what is this information?  Many would agree information is a way to know things.  Some would point out that knowing things can become knowledge.  For myself, I’ve come to know and love people. Is this knowledge?  I’m not sure.  This is most likely why I’m attempting to share these ideas and stories electronically.  

Ideas are a primary connector for humans.  All humans have ideas. As children, we start out with the ideas we’re born with and with development the ideas can grow or become stunted.  For ideas to develop into their greatest good they must be shared.  This sharing develops through relationships that are personal.  Young children who are encouraged to express their natural artistic instincts develop into people who then hold common values and virtues that serve to set positive examples for the whole.  

There are still tribal communities around the world, who although severely oppressed and at the economic bottom, continue to be one of the richest repositories for tested human virtues and values that still serve people today. Tribal peoples are one the most studied People groups.  Anthropology, archeology, and ethnology, are all very recent fields of academic study that have collected vast amounts of clinical, scientific documented data. However, little interest is given to who we, as tribal people say we are today; where we understand ourselves to come from or believe ourselves to be. It’s sad and becomes true with each and every passing day. 

For me, this is why global climate shifts potentially hold ways for humans to make positive change toward one another. Learning to become a friend and humbly coming alongside another person is possibly one of the rarest attributes for any individual to personally experience today.  If the planet is truly a “mother” then it is a mother’s love which will endure and can bring about the nurturing attitudes needed during extreme hardships that must be faced in coming to understand effects of world-wide climate change.   

Credit: Painting by Larry Littlebird, courtesy of the family collection