Meditation on the Earth

Cynthia Eisho Morrow

July 2025

 

It is just past the summer solstice, and we are fully immersed in summer’s expansion…  long days of light, travel, social events, and the vigorous ripening of all that grows. This is also a time when as we tune into the news of our world, we might find a hundred reasons each day for our heart to break open. And a hundred more reasons to get angry, or to fear for ourselves, our families, friends, and the well-being of all who live on this precious earth of ours, our home. 

 

How do we stay present to the truth of our world when it is all too easy to choose to check out in the myriad ways that we do? How do we find peace within ourselves when all around we are faced with a poly-crisis (climate catastrophe, war, economic disparity, race and gender oppression, environmental destruction, the list goes on…)? Staying with ourselves is easier said than done when “the ten thousand things” are continuously drawing our attention outside of ourselves. Intellectually, we might know that finding true peace is an inside job, yet it takes courage, patience, and perseverance to let things be as they are and meet ourselves just as we are. Yes, peace must begin here, in the chaos. 

 

The Earth, for many of us, is a place of refuge and sanity, connection and grounding, beauty and inspiration. In our EarthWays community, earth-based ceremony can bring us profoundly into an aliveness that is full of heart and inter-connectedness. We re-member our kinship with those closest to us, all living beings of this earth, and maybe even our cosmos as a whole. Yet sustaining this sense of refuge and wholeness can be more than challenging. We all have to “come down off the mountain-top” and discover how to live in the world with its complexities.

 

Contemplative practices can help us navigate these daily life challenges. Sitting in meditation, we have the possibility of coming home to ourselves moment by moment. Breathing in, breathing out, we can meet ourselves just as we are. We meet not only our chaos but also our stillness, not only our distractibility but also our presence, not only our cravings but also our generosity, not only our outrage but also our love. Just as in a ceremonial wilderness fast, we meet our suffering. Our suffering is a good thing to meet in mindfulness, because this is how we can begin to transform it. When we meet our suffering consciously, we have the possibility of more understanding and compassion for ourselves. When we have even a little understanding and compassion for ourselves, perhaps we can have some understanding and compassion for others, and maybe then even for the world. Any action fueled by deep insight and love naturally transforms suffering, however big or small.

 

For the past few months, a small group of us have gathered on the first Saturday each month to meditate on the earth as a community. As an EarthWays offering, Peace of Wild Things is a meditation group that invites us to not turn away from difficulty, while opening to that which is life-affirming, life-sustaining. All are invited, everyone belongs.

 

In the words of the late venerable Thich Nhat Hanh:

 

“The next Buddha will not take the form of a person. The next Buddha will rather take the shape of a community, a community that practices understanding and loving kindness, a community that practices a way of conscious living. This may be the most important thing for earth's survival.”

 

What if we were each made for these times? Could there ever be a better time to wake up? Can we allow the power of community to support our journey of awakening?

 

In a quiet grove of redwood and oak, we are supported in waking up together. Sitting with ourselves as the birds sing to our spirit and the trees whisper our true name, we are reminded of our kinship with all beings.