8.8 - Another earthquake, another disaster, another chance

“I came here to count the bells,
live upon the surface of the sea,
that sound over the sea,
within the sea.

So, here I live.”

- Pablo Neruda (Chilean poet - Poem written overlooking the pacific from the coastline of Chile)

The Earth speaks, and we don’t listen. The Earth belts and we think we may have heard a faint noise. It happens again and again and few things change, very little is done to dialogue with the Earth. Last night, an 8.8 earthquake hit Chile, a country that i just came home from three weeks ago. Yes, the event is a disaster, it is a shocking societal event that has changed many lives from one moment to the next. And, like Haiti, it represents something besides the obvious, it represents something more than just the disastrous reality upon these places.
An earthquake is a physical manifestation of “the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves.” But, as we are coming to understand and investigate, not everything can simply be measured and dealt with through the sometimes limiting ‘eye’ of materialistic facts and realities. And yes, “Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of geological faults”, but again, this is only physical. So if the Earth does quake, and humanity is threatened, if societies are displaced, and infrastructures destroyed, what are other lessons to be learned besides the simple - ‘preparing better for the next one!’?
The Earth is more than ignored, it is more than forgotten, it is misused and abused. It is intentionally exploited and destroyed. And then this happens, another disaster, and we scramble to rescue our brothers and sisters, and rightly so, we fret over rebuilding the infrastructures that make it all seemingly smooth running, and we try to get back to the ‘norm’ again, with a little more caution of our own vulnerability. Of course, we have a duty to tend to the present moments of crisis, to give ourselves fully to harnessing the wildness of a disaster, but then, what is next? What comes after the dramatic storms of natural disasters have settled?
Maybe, a real change is needed. Maybe, things aren’t just Ok. Maybe we need to raise New questions and give attention to New possibilities, New callings. ‘Gaia’ is loudly trying to dialogue with us. Mother Earth is bellowing out for our tending, for our attention and care. How is the language of ‘Gaia’ meant to be understood? What is the meaning of these ambiguous events of our time? Chief Seattle said: “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” And similarly, “Carl Gustav Jung suggested that the archetypal mother was a part of the collective unconscious of all humans”. Maybe the web is the collective unconscious. Maybe ‘Gaia’ is an integral manifestation of our collective unconscious. I would suggest that there is a part of us deep inside that is trying to make us aware of what lies outside, but also more deeply at the center of, the mass of constructs of civilization, the manifest Mind. By neglecting our interface with the Earth, we are actually neglecting a deep and authentic part of ourselves that needs to be recognized - and more so, begun ‘acting’ from.
The Earth has an intention. We can have an intention. We can dialogue with the Earth to create shared intentions. We can continue our patterns of aggressiveness, of living somewhat ignorantly and disconnected, and of constantly facing despair, or we can take an active role in rebuilding and becoming the ‘healthy’ inhabitants of an Earth that doesn’t lie. Biodynamic Agriculture is an example of a practice - a discipline in living - that co-intends and co-creates a new Earth and Humanity out of the experience of Gaia’s Community. The Biodynamic preparations are medicinal remedies for Mother Earth (and all her years through indignity) that not only strengthen and sharpen her true maternal forces but also clarify and activate our Human Will to Create. Biodynamic agriculture is just one example of a practice that is engaging with Gaia in a new way, but there are many ways, simple and complex. A daily prayer of gratitude for the Earth - or a walk into nature, where we can again meet our spiritual resourcefulness, the source of creation, is all it takes in our beginning to authentically co-exist and Unify. And so I end with a poem of rilke.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.