The Earth is Alive, and we are (Becoming) Lifeless

August of another summer, and once again I am drinking the sun and the lilies again are spread across the water - From the Pond: A Poem by Mary Oliver

My summer this year was spent almost entirely in the countryside. English, Welsh, Scottish. Living in suburban England all my life means that every holiday, a necessary trip to the countryside is taken - as many times as we can. All of us, extended family included, lugging picnic blankets and food dishes in multiple cars to the middle of nowhere to swim in a stream and lie on grass for a few hours until the sun goes down. And at the end, we pile into our respective cars, me and my cousins with rolled up jeans, barefoot, hoodies and jumpers thrown on after being in the stream for so long. Driving with the window down and tangling my hair. My skin never feels as soft as it does after playing in fresh running water, and I never feel as tired after that. It’s the best sort of tired.

Evidently, I have had a relationship with nature since I was a baby. Sure, I was afraid of sand (when I was really little) but I don’t know what my childhood would have been without all that time spent in the sun and on the grass in the middle of nowhere. My earliest memories are from those trips. But it is one thing to have a relationship with nature, to appreciate it and to love it, and another to accept that it is alive.

A photo I took this summer on one of said trips

One week this August, we were staying in a timid cottage on the top of Scottish cliffs. At 5am I rolled out of bed, threw on a jumper, and walked down the long path to the beach. I cannot explain to you how beautiful this sunrise was. It started off simply pink and glowing, that balmy morning light that we so often get only glimpses of. The sea was only rippling slightly. Flanked by green cliffs, I looked out to sea and saw nothing. It went on forever. That in itself is a dazzling fact. I could travel for days across its body, and never reach land. Just: nothing. Both terrifying and freeing. Above me, the half moon undressing herself, glowing, pale shell looking paler beside the pink of the sunrise. She has seen everything. Absolutely everything. Another overwhelming fact. 

And then the sun actually rose, like a round peach sitting on the sea, like the water was gently blowing a red bubble from gum, emerging from its gaping mouth. The waves crashed against the shore, sea spray thrown up every which way. Birds streaked in flocks across the horizon. I thought it was like a movie. And then I realised that nothing about it was like a movie. This, these sunrises, the birds, the sea spray, this had been happening for centuries, for aeons. This was here when humans weren’t there to see it. This was routine, this was everyday. To the birds, it is nothing miraculous. To us, who are fed disconnection from the earth, it is everything. I ventured into the sea in my pyjamas and the water was freezing, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Looking into the sun my chest felt heavy with the weight of it all. The air was raw like morning air always is. Dew soaked the earth behind me. This is everything. I came back to the cottage and fell asleep to the sound of the sea, the hem of my pyjama bottoms still damp.

Just one of the photos I got that evidence how beautiful it was

The sea: I didn’t lose myself in it, I found myself in it. - Albert Camus, Notebooks: 1942-51

The earth is so obviously alive and willing, you just have to open your eyes. The ones that cannot tell that are the ones who are blind, in a way. Their eyes are open, but they don’t see. It’s almost as if they’re asleep. All you have to do is put your hand over a tree’s bark and feel the movement underneath it. It’s as warm as our skin. It’s as magical as our bodies. It is its own body, its own organism. I touch a redwood tree and as well as its velvety body it has a living, breathing warmth. To realise that the earth is alive is to realise that we are part of it, with our bodies. When you are fed disconnection, the best thing you can do is to force yourself to be connected in the most natural way that our bodies know how. We have just as much claim to the land as every other living organism, we are made from the same mud that we step on, our cells and veins are mirrored in leaves and in lakes.

And when you realise that the earth is alive, it is easy to see what we are lacking day to day. We spend hours indoors. We hardly go out into fresh air. We aren’t made for a sedentary lifestyle. When do we ever touch the earth without shoes? It’s no wonder that in the past, people were prescribed sea air to get well. Instead of buying red light machines, we should be watching sunrises and sunsets. The light that the sun emits then is literal red light, the light that we are lacking. Bathing in fresh streams, no matter how cold they are - ice baths, cold plunges, you don’t need to pay money for these things. Walking pads? Grounding mats? Take your shoes off and walk around the grass in your garden for a little while. Each point on your foot resonates with an area within your body; each part of your feet pressing against earth grounds you. We are consistently fed disconnection, and hitherto sold connection to nature by capitalism, and the more you live like that, the more oppressive it becomes.

We, money-loving, product-buying, blistered, bruised, tired humans, hold a certain anathema or vague arrogance to what we are actually made for. You don’t need new tech or new clothes. You just need to remember your roots. Every cure that you crave is outside of your front door, but it seems that in this grim, listless society, you need to be some sort of brave to go out and find it.