Video: A message from Pachamama Alliance co-founder Bill Twist in honor of Earth Day.
Earth Day was established on April 22, 1970, launching the modern environmental movement and since then, this holiday has engaged the support of every country on the planet.
This day has been recognized as the largest environmental activist gathering on Earth with billions of people participating in past Earth Day celebrations and movements. Likewise, people the world over, come together to participate in conversations, rituals, and demonstrations for the entire month of April, known as Earth Month, to design ways to support Mother Earth.
Uniting Toward a Common Purpose
Earth Day and Earth Month are more than just a day or a month during the year for raising our consciousness and taking positive action toward creating an environmentally sustainable future for all life on Earth.
This Earth Day, and every day, let's unite toward a common purpose, that is, giving back to the Earth the fruits and gifts that she has so unconditionally given to us, especially love and compassion. It is time now to express love and compassion for the Earth through our prayers and actions of gratitude. Honoring the Earth is a daily practice that will help us step up to the responsibility of fostering a mutually enhancing human/Earth relationship.
A Daily Practice of Love and Gratitude for the Earth
1. Recognize that the Earth is a living being with a body, mind, and spirit just like us. Cherishing the Earth as a living being who deserves love, respect, and compassion can enable us to open our eyes to the pain we cause to the Earth each time we send a drill down into her core, cut down a tree, or kill one of her whales for profit.
2. Many Indigenous peoples practice daily rituals of reciprocity with the Earth to express their appreciation, to honor her benevolent spirit, and to maintain balance with Nature. They recognize that through the Earth's generosity, we receive all the necessities of life including food that sustains us, water that quenches our thirst, wood and metals that shelter and protect us from the cold, and the warmth of the sun that gives us light and energy. Practicing sacred reciprocity helps to keep life on earth in balance.
There are a myriad of ways to express gratitude—a prayer from the heart before a meal, cleaning up debris left on a beach, planting trees, conserving water, walking instead of driving—but always exchanging our living energy in some way to show gratitude and remembrance to the Earth for life itself.
3. Embrace our oneness with the Earth, there is no separation. We are the Earth and the Earth is us. The Earth's changes are our changes. The destruction of the Earth, is our destruction. So, as we become at peace and unify in love, compassion, and gratitude, the Earth also shifts in love and peace. This time of year can be a powerful galvanizing force in our evolution as humans toward unity consciousness. It’s all up to us.
4. We invite people the world over to join with us in saying this prayer from our hearts at the beginning of each day to remember that we are united in a common bond to support the Earth.
"My words are tied in one with the great mountains,
with the great rocks, with the great trees, in one with my body and heart.
All of you see me, one with this world."
-Yokuts Prayer
