Gaia, I am sorry, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...
Gaia feeds my soul, she feeds the soul of us and she feeds the soul of humanity. She is our life force and psyche. Moments of beauty, frightening strength, and peaceful calm. She feeds us with fresh water, food and amazing diversity. Yet industrialisation feels the need to rape and abuse her with no understanding or caring for her health and our own. We went in search of our relationship with mother nature, stripped bare of time and reminders of modern life. Naked we contemplate our inner selves with her.
We explore what each place brings. How she affects us. Our reaction to a sense of place. Are our reactions common or unique to each place? It can an extension of ourselves, a mirror reflecting us back at us. In one place we feel fear, scared and vulnerable. Another puts us on edge, what is out there? As we roll in the earth she feels warm and beautiful on our skin and nurtures our being. Here she grounds us once more.
As our thirst for greed and apparent comfort grows and letting our money hungry corporations steer our environmental futures. At a time when the right to protest and protect her is stripped from us. I lament the time when elections were won on the strength of saving a river and a beautiful portrait of her in a photograph. Not only do we need to separate religion from state, we also now need to separate media and corporations from the state. Change is more important now than ever, yet it feels so so distant.
Battles we thought we had won, are now threatened by mines and logging. We keep becoming further removed from her. And our psyche gets tired.
I fear for her life. We should fear for her life. I fear for my son's future. What are we doing? Where are we going? Why can't we see? Will we wake up in time? Gaia, I am sorry mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Mea Culpa with Gaia's fish bone ferns, Sydney Copyright © Len Metcalf
