On walking with women, listening to the land, and remembering what it means to belong to the Earth
THE CREATIVE RETURN - where being human is the art.
An Earth Day reflection on reverence, relationship, and the simple medicine always available when we slow down enough to receive it.
We call this day Earth Day.
And I understand why. As humans, we name things in order to create relationship with them. We name what we love, what we fear, what we are trying to understand. Naming gives form to something vast. It helps us touch what might otherwise feel too immense.
And yet, every day is Earth Day.
Every breath, every morning, every night, every ordinary and miraculous moment of being alive happens here—on this planet, held by this living world. We are always in relationship with the Earth, whether we pause to acknowledge it or not.
Today I want to pause.
I want to drop in, as a fellow Earthling, and say thank you.
Thank you to this mother planet for her beauty, her intelligence, her patience, and her abundance. Thank you for the birds overhead, for the scent of sage on the air, for water moving through stone, for trees rooted in their place, for the quiet medicine available when we slow down enough to notice.
I hear the birds and watch them cross the sky and I am reminded of how little and young we are as humans in relation to this Earth.
There is humility in that.
And relief, too.
To remember that we are not above nature. We are of it.
Recently, I spent time walking in nature with an amazing community of women, guided by our dear Pippa, whose care and wonder always deepen the experience. She teaches in a way that feels less like instruction and more like invitation—an invitation to pay attention, to notice, to enter into relationship.
On this walk we met mugwort, horsetail, black sage, wild rose, Humboldt lily, chickweed, and so much more.
We smelled.
We tasted.
We listened.
We found the water.
At times we moved in silence, letting the land do what it does so well when we stop insisting on our own noise. We let ourselves gaze. We let ourselves sink in. We remembered that the medicine is here, and that it is readily available.
This, to me, is joy.
This is also how I know I am safe.
Not because life is always easy, or because the world is free of pain or consequence, but because the Earth keeps showing me that I belong. That there is a place for me here. That there is a rhythm larger than my mind. That beauty and nourishment continue to arise even in the midst of complexity.
This mother planet holds us so unconditionally.
And like any good mother, she also lets us know when we have crossed a boundary.
When we have taken too much.
When we have made a mess.
When it is time to step in with accountability and do better.
Earth Day can become sentimental if we let it. A soft appreciation without deeper reckoning. But real love asks something of us. Real relationship asks something of us. If we speak of blessings and privilege, then surely one response is reverence. And reverence, when lived, becomes action.
More gentleness.
More consideration.
More care in how we consume, how we speak, how we build, how we discard.
More kindness.
More generosity.
More attention to what is already being offered.
I was born and raised in South Africa. I now live in Los Angeles. I have traveled enough to know there are many ways of relating to land, to home, to belonging, to community. My lineage gives me glimpses into different ways of seeing and listening.
And still, underneath all identity, all location, all history, I am simply an Earthling.
Happy to be here.
In awe of life and the endless ways it expresses itself.
I think that is part of what I most want to remember and honor: that this life is not separate from the planet that holds it. The Earth is not a backdrop to our human story. She is the condition for it. The context for it. The great body in which all our smaller stories live.
So today, and hopefully tomorrow too, I am letting myself be taught again by what is simple.
A plant.
A bird.
The scent of black sage between my fingers.
The feeling of walking beside women who know how to listen.
The silence that is not empty, but full.
The abundance of this living world, always offering itself.
May this day, and every day, and every breath, remind us of the privilege of being here.
May that remembrance make us more reverent in how we relate to it all.
May we be more gentle.
More attentive.
More accountable.
And more willing to let the Earth teach us how to be.
Today, I share this with gratitude, appreciation, and awe.
And I hope, wherever you are, that you might find a small patch of land, a tree, a plant, a bird, a breeze—something alive—and let yourself simply be with it.
No agenda.
No performance.
Just relationship.
Just a moment of remembering that you, too, belong here.
Always in love,
Quinne.
Thank you Pippa Hansen @singinheart.herbalist
