Dear Editor:
When I am home in Erin, if someone asks me where I live I define my address by street and number. When I travel in Ontario, by my town, Erin; in Canada by my province, Ontario, or if I go abroad, by my country, Canada. But it stops there.
Why? Because no one disputes your citizenship on Earth. But so often, we forget what this planet gives us. Everything you use, every beautiful mountain you see, every breath-catching view of the ocean is freely given by the planet, by Earth.
She will give you everything you ask for: a delicious dinner, an array of seasonal flowers, your bike, your clothing, Ontario Place … whatever you can think of, but we have taken so much more.
We have brutally extracted the things she has hidden under the Earth for safekeeping. We have used some of these things to create life saving medicines, but also nuclear warheads. We cut down vast areas of her lungs, the rain forest, to grow plants and animals where we shouldn’t, when they could be grown elsewhere.
We have made the horrific mistake of claiming that humans are at the top of the evolutionary process, as some interpreter of the Bible has mistakenly claimed: “man” has dominion over all the creatures on Earth. Sad. Mistaken.
Indigenous peoples who live in harmony with the Earth understand our interconnection. It has taken many billions of years for this planet’s wisdom to form an unimaginably interconnected and complex system that keeps everything in balance; from every gnat and bird to the huge sequoia, the giraffe and the butterfly. First Nations know this. Why doesn’t the modern world?
We are in a time that calls for hard choices: trying to resolve differences or reacting with hatred and suspicion, reaching out, cooperating and compromising when we can, or rushing to judgement and condemnation, which separates and destroys us.
We are entering a time when our address must be and is Earth, Mother Earth, because, like a mother, she gives and gives until she is exhausted. She wants to give us everything we need to thrive.
We need to pay attention to her, to find out what She needs and do that until She is well. Then we and all who live on her will be well, too.
Gerry Walsh,
Erin