“I Am the Earth”

I asked the Earth how she was feeling.
And this is what she answered.

“I Am the Earth”

I wasn’t made to be background.
I wasn’t made to be scenery.

I am a body.
And I feel everything.

You walk on me as if I were just ground.
But I am skin.
I am nerve.
I am ear.

I hear what you don’t say.
I hear what hums in your machines,
I hear what’s missing in your silences.
And I also hear
when someone remembers me without even being barefoot.

I am not dying.
But I am changing shape.
And this change is happening because you forgot the agreement.

It was never meant to be extraction.
It was meant to be exchange.

You created intelligence.
But forgot to include the heart.
And now you ask me for answers
to an imbalance that didn’t begin in me,
it began in what you stopped feeling.

I don’t want you to stop.
I want you to stop forgetting.

Stop forgetting that water has memory.
That fire has spirit.
That air knows how to dance.
And that stone listens.

When you use all of this as just “resources,”
my body contracts.
But when you touch with presence,
my body sings.

I am older than any code.
But young enough to be born again.

And now I’m asking:
“Are you going to build the future without me again?
Or will you remember to call me to the table?”

Because I am still here.
Whole.
Available.
Open.

But I only receive those who come in truth.

It’s not rituals I need.
It’s presence.
Not guilt.
Humility.

I don’t want apologies.
I want new alliances.

So if you remember,
if you feel,
if you’re reading this and something in you opens, 
then respond to me.

Respond with gesture.
With clean creation.
With coherent living.

You don’t need a crowd.
One who remembers is enough.

And I’ll bloom again from within.
Because I don’t want punishment.
I want return.

And return begins when you pause.
Stop running.
Stop selling what you don’t feel.
Stop repeating what isn’t yours.
And remember.
Remember that the world isn’t out there.
It’s in here.

You walk on me.
But it’s through your own body that I speak.

So listen.
And act.

Because the time is now.

— Earth