Author: Michael Tino

“Listen: There is no earth but this earth and we are its children. The Earth is our home, and there is only one. The ground beneath our feet was millions of years in the making. Each leaf, each blade, each wing, each petal, each hair on the flank of a red fox, each scale on the sturgeon, each mallard feather, each pine needle and fragment of sassafras bark took millions of years to become, and we ourselves are millions of years in the making.” -Aurora Levins Morales, from “Earth Sh’ma,” a reading for Sukkot in her book Rimonim: Ritual Poetry of Jewish Liberation

Breathe and move with intention today, noticing your place among the children of the Earth.

 

Carl Sagan famously said that we are all made of “star stuff.” All of what we know is made of the same elements that have for an unknowable amount of time combined and collided and exploded and collapsed upon each other.

How are you changed knowing your connection to all that is, including the stars?

“Have you ever taken the time to actually enjoy nature? To just go with the flow and rhythm of nature? Like hiking to a waterfall and then sitting down and watching it, listening to it, feeling its power in the vibrations of the ground. Or took some time to watch a squirrel playing in the park. You can get lost in time. You sit there for a few minutes, then realize that an hour has passed. But the other thing you realize is that your stress level is also much lower. Depression dissipates as a gentle calm takes over. That is when you know that you are one with nature. It’s like getting a hug from the Earth Mother.” -George P, a CLF member incarcerated in TN

Take some time to just enjoy nature wherever you are today.

“Our forebears never dreamed that honoring the inherent worth and dignity of every person would result in the hyper-individualism and disconnection of our current culture. It never occurred to them that human agency could create global warming or decimate local food sheds or destroy the relational fabric of our communities.” -Gail Lindsay Marriner

How does nature help you distinguish between intent and impact?

I try to be kind, understanding. loving, and helpful to all though the environment I am now in often sees emotions and actions as a sign of weakness. I believe this exhibits the exact opposite, a sign of strength in the face of the cruelty of the penal system. This certainly is reinforced when I look at nature and how it seeks to find a foothold no matter the environment, from a mouse in a concrete prison cell to the wild flowers that dot our prison yard. If life can simply be no matter the landscape it finds itself in then why can’t I be myself, be the man I want to be, what I endeavor to be with every fiber of my being? If nature knows no other way than to survive and be itself, why shouldn’t I do the same? Am I not a part of this greater force, after all? -Light, a CLF member incarcerated in SC

What are lessons you take from the tenacity of nature?