When did we become "outsiders" to our own world?
When did we start referring to nature as "out there"?
When did we become so unfathomably detached from everything outside our own front door?
When did we forget to properly feed ourselves?
When did we become so out of touch with our essential nature?
Something radical has changed in us and it's not good. We have strayed from our fundamental nature and we must find our way back. The truth is that we could not have lost contact with the "environment" had we not first lost contact with our own inner nature and its need to stay in contact with the simpler rhythms of life." - By Caroline Myss
Caroline Myss provided this forward in the book, REUNION: How to Heal our Broken Connection to the Earth, by Ellen Gunter and Ted Carter. According to Myss, "The book carries a sacred message as well a practical one: We must find our way back to our own nature as well as our way back to a rapport with this Earth because we are one and the same system of life."
This is an important message that gets left out of much of the environmental movement and sustainability discussions. We need to heal our connection to nature. It is only through a deep reverence for both our internal and external nature that we will be motivated to take the actions required to protect and heal the planet.
It will not be feelings of guilt (that we must recycle, for example) that will motivate us to make sustainable changes. Instead, it is through the love of our earth and life itself gained by connecting to nature, that will inspire us to go beyond, to make the real changes in our attitudes and behaviours needed to turn the environmental crisis around.
