MOTHER EARTH IS SPEAKING — Field-Reading, week 44
How much more must we destroy before we remember who gives us life?
There is something deeply disturbing about the way humanity has learned to live on this planet. We call ourselves an advanced civilization, celebrate our intelligence and technological achievements, and speak proudly about progress, while systematically destroying the very foundation that makes our existence possible. We tear down ancient forests, exhaust the soil, pollute rivers and oceans, destroy natural habitats, and treat other living beings as though their existence matters only when they serve our interests. And somewhere along the way, we have become so accustomed to this destruction that we barely question it anymore.
This week, I have felt both an immense love for Mother Earth and a growing anger over the way we continue to treat her. Because how can we claim to be intelligent when we are destroying the very systems that sustain our lives? How can we speak about human advancement when countless species are losing their habitats, when animals are suffering because of our actions, and when economic growth continues to be celebrated even when it comes at the expense of the living world? We have become extraordinarily skilled at taking, yet we seem to have forgotten the responsibility that comes with receiving. And this brings me to something important: sacred reciprocity.
SACRED RECIPROCITY — THE RELATIONSHIP WE HAVE FORGOTTEN
Sacred reciprocity is an ancient understanding found in many Indigenous traditions, although expressed differently across cultures. It recognizes that life is sustained through relationships of mutual giving, receiving, respect, and responsibility. When we take something from the Earth, we acknowledge what has been given and consider how we can contribute to the continued wellbeing of the living systems that sustain us. This understanding once shaped the relationship many communities had with the land, the waters, the animals, and the plants. Nature was experienced as a living relationship rather than simply a collection of resources waiting to be exploited.
Today, we have largely replaced this relationship with ownership, consumption, and economic value. A forest becomes timber, a river becomes an industrial resource, an animal becomes a product, and land becomes something to develop and sell. We have become so focused on what nature can provide for us that we have forgotten to ask what our presence costs the other beings who share this planet. And sacred reciprocity reaches far beyond environmental protection. It concerns the way we treat all living beings, including one another.
In my video this week, I speak about the violence I have witnessed among young people, and how I have personally intervened several times when I have seen them physically attacking one another. Sometimes they become angry with me and tell me that I am not their mother, as though being someone’s mother is a requirement for caring about their wellbeing. But why should I need to be their mother to care that someone is being hurt? Why should any of us need a personal relationship with another human being before we feel responsible enough to respond to their suffering?
I find it deeply troubling that we have created societies where people can witness violence, humiliation, and cruelty and simply continue with their day. We see young people filming fights, sharing humiliation online, and turning the suffering of others into entertainment. And adults are certainly not exempt from this behavior. We have become frighteningly skilled at looking away, sometimes because we are afraid, sometimes because we do not want to become involved, and sometimes because we have simply stopped caring.
I understand that intervening requires judgment and that our own safety matters. But there is a profound difference between being unable to intervene physically and choosing to remain indifferent. We can speak up, call for help, report abuse, and refuse to participate in the humiliation of another living being.
WHEN CRUELTY BECOMES ENTERTAINMENT
This summer my daughters witnessed something that illustrates just how disconnected we can become from this understanding. A child was deliberately tormenting a beautiful peacock, pulling at its magnificent feathers and frightening the bird while several adults stood around watching. Instead of protecting the animal or teaching the child to treat it with respect, the adults laughed.
My daughters could not remain silent. They spoke up and challenged what was happening because they recognized that the peacock was a living creature capable of experiencing distress. Yet instead of appreciating their concern, the adults questioned which country they came from, almost as though their compassion was something strange or inappropriate. My daughters were made to feel ridiculous for defending an animal that could not defend itself.
I find this deeply upsetting, because what does it say about us when the people who speak up against cruelty become the ones who are questioned, while those who cause suffering are allowed to continue? What are we teaching our children when adults laugh at the mistreatment of an animal? And what kind of civilization are we building when compassion is treated as an inconvenience?
This is how cruelty becomes normalized, through the small moments when we decide that another being’s suffering is insignificant. We see it when animals are kicked, frightened, neglected, or deliberately harmed for amusement. We see it when living creatures are treated as disposable because they cannot speak our language or demand their rights in ways that human beings understand. The peacock did not need to explain its suffering for that suffering to matter. Its distress should have been enough.
And I believe this is something we urgently need to teach our children, because the way we respond to vulnerable living beings reveals something fundamental about our relationship with life itself. A child who learns to recognize the suffering of an animal is also learning empathy, responsibility, and respect. A child who witnesses adults laughing at cruelty is receiving an entirely different lesson.
MOTHER EARTH IS SPEAKING THROUGH THE LIVING WORLD
Across the planet, we are witnessing the consequences of our increasingly destructive relationship with nature. Bird populations have declined dramatically in many parts of the world, numerous species have disappeared, and countless others are threatened by habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, and human exploitation. Forests that once supported extraordinary biodiversity are disappearing, while rivers, oceans, and freshwater ecosystems are struggling under the pressure of our activities.
Here in Norway, reports about salmon affected by fungal infections and other diseases have raised concerns about the health of our fish populations and aquatic environments. The causes of individual outbreaks require scientific investigation, but we already know that human activities place enormous pressure on aquatic ecosystems. Pollution, habitat alteration, warming waters, and intensive exploitation all contribute to the challenges many species face.
And I keep returning to the same question: how much more do we need to witness before we recognize that our way of living must change? We have somehow convinced ourselves that humanity exists separately from nature, as though we are standing above the living world rather than being completely dependent upon it. Yet the water flowing through our bodies, the oxygen entering our lungs, the minerals forming our bones, and the food sustaining our organs all come from the Earth. Every civilization that has ever existed has depended upon the same fundamental relationship.
When we destroy the natural systems that sustain life, we are undermining the conditions of our own existence. And still we continue, often defending our actions through economic arguments, political interests, and the endless pursuit of convenience.
We have turned our Mother into a marketplace, and we call the destruction of her living body progress.
This week, I also want to recommend the documentary How to Live on Earth | Feature Documentary | Presented by Benedict Cumberbatch. It offers an opportunity to reflect upon our relationship with the natural world and the consequences of the choices humanity continues to make. I encourage you to watch it with an open mind and to consider how our everyday lives contribute to the larger systems shaping the future of this planet.
SACRED RECIPROCITY MUST BECOME SOMETHING WE LIVE
I believe we have reached a point where speaking about love for Mother Earth is no longer enough. We need to begin expressing that love through the way we actually live, through our decisions, our relationships, and our willingness to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions.
Sacred reciprocity can begin with something as simple as refusing to walk past another living being in distress. It can mean protecting an animal from mistreatment, standing up for someone who is being bullied, helping a person who has fallen, or teaching our children that compassion requires courage. It can mean entering a forest with respect for the life already present there, protecting nesting birds and their habitats, reducing unnecessary consumption, restoring damaged land, planting trees, or supporting practices that preserve clean water and healthy ecosystems.
It also means becoming more conscious of where our food comes from, how the things we purchase are produced, and what our comfort costs the natural world. We can choose to waste less, consume more thoughtfully, support responsible agriculture and conservation, and hold governments and industries accountable for the environmental consequences of their decisions.
Because responsibility belongs to all of us, although our power to create change is not equally distributed. Governments, corporations, and industries carry enormous responsibility for the systems they create and maintain, while each of us contributes through the choices we make and the values we pass on to the next generation. We cannot continue demanding change from others while refusing to examine our own participation in the very systems we criticize.
And we need to recover the capacity to feel connected to the living world again. To spend time in nature without needing to accomplish anything, to observe the animals and birds around us, to recognize the extraordinary intelligence within ecosystems, and to experience gratitude for the abundance that supports our existence.
Here in Northern Norway, I have noticed changes in the natural world around me, including several kinds of birds that have not previously been in my immediate surroundings. I have also experienced remarkable encounters with wild animals, including reindeer, moose, deer, and otters. These encounters invite me to pay closer attention, to become more present, and to reflect upon the relationship we share with the creatures around us.
The more time I spend in nature, the more deeply I experience the profound connection between all living things. And the more difficult it becomes to understand how humanity has allowed itself to become so disconnected from something so essential.
MOTHER EARTH — THE ONE WHO GIVES US LIFE
There is a reason the name Mother Earth carries such emotional meaning. A mother is associated with the giving and sustaining of life, with nourishment, protection, and the extraordinary capacity to support another being’s existence. And our Earth provides the conditions through which every human life becomes possible.
She gives us the water we drink, the food we eat, the plants from which most of our medicines originate, and the materials that make our homes and communities possible. Her ecosystems regulate the climate, purify water, sustain biodiversity, and maintain the delicate relationships upon which life depends. Yet we have treated this generosity as though it were an unlimited entitlement, taking more than ecosystems can regenerate and leaving behind damage that future generations will inherit.
How can we recognize the sacredness of a mother’s love while destroying Mother Earth, who gives life to us all?
I am deeply moved by this contradiction, and I refuse to accept that environmental destruction is simply the inevitable price of civilization. We have choices, and we have the knowledge, creativity, and capacity to make different ones. What we so often lack is the willingness to place the wellbeing of life above our immediate interests. Today, as I was preparing this Field-Reading, I created a song dedicated to Mother Earth, carrying the same message that has been moving through me throughout this week.
Mother Earth Is Speaking.
The song is my offering to her, an expression of gratitude for everything she gives and a call to remember the relationship we have neglected for far too long. Music can sometimes reach the places within us that words and arguments cannot, and I hope this song will encourage you to feel more deeply the extraordinary gift of belonging to this living planet.
We have spent generations teaching our children how to succeed in the world, how to build careers, acquire possessions, and secure their futures. Yet one of the most important things we can teach them is how to care for the world that makes their future possible.
How to recognize suffering and respond with compassion. How to respect the lives of animals and the habitats they depend upon. How to understand that every action has consequences, and that receiving from the Earth also carries a responsibility to protect and restore what sustains us.
I will continue to speak up when I witness violence, cruelty, and the mistreatment of living beings, even when others find it uncomfortable. I will continue to question the way we treat our planet, because silence has never protected those who suffer, and indifference has never restored what has been destroyed.
Mother Earth is speaking, and her message is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
We hear it in the warnings of scientists, in the disappearance of species, in the degradation of ecosystems, and in the growing recognition that humanity cannot continue indefinitely along the same destructive path. And an important question of our time is whether we are willing to listen deeply enough to change the way we live.
Because sacred reciprocity begins with the recognition that life is something we participate in, something we receive from, something we are responsible for, and something we must learn to protect.
We have spent far too long asking what more we can take from Mother Earth. It is time we begin asking what we are willing to give back.