We have all been impacted by non-empathic environments in our lives and so have suffered. This may seem a mild description, given the experience it tries to describe. To say it in another, more experiential way: we have all felt ourselves humiliated, discounted, and used as objects to serve the desperate needs of others; we have all been abandoned, left to disintegrate in the face of unknown horrors; we have all felt the gut-wrenching plummet toward personal non-existence. This may now seem overstated - but not to those aspects of us who bore the brunt of this wounding.

And we have all done whatever we needed to do in order to survive such degradation and annihilation - we have developed some amount of survival personality. That is, we have all had the life we were meant to live driven underground; we have all been entranced, brainwashed into forgetting our heights and our depths; we have all been forced to live a pretense, burying our true selves.

-  The Psychotherapy of Love,  Firman/Gila

Dear Mother Earth, we stand be­fore you, with aware­ness, grat­i­tude, and the deep as­pi­ration to live in har­mo­ny as a spir­i­tu­al fam­i­ly. We know that you are alive in us, and that we can al­ways take refuge in you.

Dear Moth­er Earth, we see that we and all our an­cestors are your chil­dren. With your pa­tience, sta­bil­i­ty, en­durance and cre­ativ­i­ty you have nour­ished us and guid­ed us through many life­times. You have giv­en birth to count­less Great Be­ings, Bud­dhas, Saints, and Bod­hisattvas. You are the great Earth, you are Ter­ra, you are Gaia, you are this beau­ti­ful blue plan­et. You are the Earth Re­fresh­ing Bod­hisatt­va—fra­grant, cool, and kind. We see that al­though we and our an­ces­tors have made many mis­takes, you have al­ways for­giv­en us. Each time we re­turn to you you are ready to open your arms and em­brace us.

Due to our wrong per­cep­tions and dis­crim­i­na­tion, we have lived a life of sep­a­ra­tion, ha­tred, lone­li­ness, suffer­ing, and de­spair. This year has brought new and un­fore­seen chal­lenges. The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic contin­ues to rage across the globe, and in its wake we strug­gle to re­main calm and free from delu­sion. We have al­lowed in­di­vid­u­al­ism to pre­vail, and it has caused se­vere dam­age and hard­ship to you and to our­selves. By con­tin­u­ing to run af­ter fame, wealth, pow­er, and sen­su­al plea­sures—for­get­ting that these pur­suits can nev­er bring us true hap­pi­ness—we neglect to heal and trans­form our own suf­fer­ing and the col­lec­tive suf­fer­ing. With­out such heal­ing and transfor­ma­tion, fear and racism in­grained deeply in the fab­ric of our so­ci­ety and its in­sti­tu­tions con­tin­ue to com­pound old wounds with fresh wounds.
  
Through many life­times we have been un­able to recog­nize you, Moth­er Earth, man­i­fest­ing as the Pure Land, as the King­dom of God, as the most won­drous home that we  have. We have con­tin­ued to run af­ter a dis­tant Promised Land in heav­en or in the fu­ture. This has caused us and you much suf­fer­ing. Tonight, as we touch the Earth, we stop grasp­ing at an imagined hap­pi­ness, and, in­stead, of­fer you and our an­cestors our true pres­ence. We have ar­rived. You are our home—our only home.

We have learned that only love and com­pas­sion can make our lives mean­ing­ful, al­low­ing us to pro­tect and pre­serve your beau­ty and to heal our­selves. We can learn to live as one fam­i­ly—as a com­mu­ni­ty of brothers and sis­ters, all chil­dren of the same Great Moth­er Earth— giv­ing our de­scen­dants a chance for a healthy and bright fu­ture. Dis­crim­i­na­tion, vi­o­lence and ha­tred, which have brought about sys­temic racism and the cli­mate cri­sis, will not con­tin­ue to per­sist if we learn to look at one an­oth­er with eyes of com­pas­sion and non-fear. We know that only through build­ing broth­er­hood and sis­ter­hood like that in the present mo­ment can we make this fu­ture a re­al­i­ty here and now.

Dear Moth­er Earth, we make the vow to learn to live in harmo­ny and peace in the very heart of our fam­i­ly and our com­mu­ni­ty—just as bees in the same bee­hive, and cells in the same body. We prom­ise to de­vel­op the ca­pac­i­ty to re­main open heart­ed in our com­muni­ca­tion with mem­bers of our fam­i­ly and our commu­ni­ty, and not to get caught in our own per­ceptions. We prom­ise to al­ways lis­ten deeply and to use the kind of peace­ful and lov­ing speech that can bring about real trans­for­ma­tion and heal­ing. We shall learn to lis­ten to your voice, Moth­er Earth, to un­der­stand you deeply, tak­ing to heart your guid­ance and the guid­ance of our an­ces­tors. Your voice of in­sight and wis­dom lives in­side of us. We also vow to lis­ten to our broth­ers, our sis­ters, our friends, and to our chil­dren—see­ing you in them—so that we may live in peace and har­mo­ny to­geth­er. We prom­ise to learn to see the hap­pi­ness and well-be­ing of our fam­i­ly and commu­ni­ty as our own hap­pi­ness and well-be­ing.

Dear Moth­er Earth, with great rev­er­ence we be­gin anew. We prom­ise to you and to our chil­dren that we shall learn to breathe and walk mind­ful­ly in each moment of our dai­ly life, to use the eyes and ears of the fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty in or­der to un­der­stand, to live sim­ply and to love with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion—as you do. You, Moth­er Earth, ac­cept all things: the rain, the sun, the de­cay­ing or­gan­ic mat­ter of our very bod­ies, as well as our trash, virus­es and dis­ease, and count­less poi­so­nous chem­i­cals and oth­er ma­te­ri­als—all without com­plaint. You coura­geous­ly work to trans­form every­thing giv­en to you—even if it takes mil­lions of years—so that life can con­tin­ue to man­i­fest in new forms. We prom­ise to learn from you to stop run­ning from our suf­fer­ing, and, in­stead, to rec­og­nize, embrace and trans­form it. Only by stop­ping to un­der stand our suf­fer­ing can we heal and touch true hap­piness, and, at the same time, restore your beau­ty and fresh­ness.

You have been call­ing to us, and some of us have heard your pain. You have been ask­ing us for many life­times whether you can count on us. Tonight, with palms joined and with one heart, we say, “Yes, Mother, you can count on us.” We shall prac­tice for you and for all our an­ces­tors so that joy, peace and harmo­ny will be­come pos­si­ble again.

- Thich Nhat Hanh, Plum Village, France

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

- John O'Donohue, abridged from For One Who Is Exhausted, A Blessing

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

- W. Blake

Adjustment and coping counseling efforts, as well as what I have termed self-renewal therapy, are chiefly concerned with deficiency  motivation. They are concerned with reducing negative experiences; essentially they seek to repair one's way of being in the world. In contrast, growth, emancipation, and transcendence are goals which are concerned with realizing more from one's being. They do not seek to return the person to some presumed better, former condition so much as to draw one forward to richness and meaningfulness of life, greater than that person has known before.

- James F. T. Bugental, PhD

Perhaps it is wise to pay respectful attention to all behavior. When we do we may become open to more and more possibilities of behavior. We might learn a great deal when we are open to everything and not just figuring out what pleases.

Perhaps style is no substitute for substance, that knowing certain facts is not more powerful than simple wisdom, that creating an impression is not more potent than acting from one's center.

Perhaps effective action arises out of silence and a clear sense of being. Perhaps this is a source of peace. We may discover the person who is down-to-earth can do what needs doing effectively.

Perhaps you would like to investigate for yourself.

- Heider, 1985, adapted

Deliberate,
nonjudgmental attention
to experience in the
present moment