{"id":18,"date":"2026-11-04T05:05:17","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T05:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/?p=18"},"modified":"2026-11-04T05:05:17","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T05:05:17","slug":"a-planets-pain-on-healing-climate-grief-through-ritual-and-reverence-philsugar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/?p=18","title":{"rendered":"A Planet\u2019s Pain: On Healing Climate Grief Through Ritual and Reverence | PhilSugar"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was six years old and living in Ohio when I took my first Bharath Natyam lesson. I\u2019d never seen anyone perform this Indian dance, so I had no frame of reference, no idea of what to expect. With wonder, I watched my teacher demonstrate the first steps\u2014movements incomprehensible to me, but undeniably beautiful.
\nShe struck each foot on the ground once, bent gracefully to the floor, brought her hands to her eyes, then pulled her palms to her heart.
\nFor thousands of years, classical dance trainees have learned this introductory sequence of movements, but perhaps not its meaning. Only years later did I hear an explanation, though its larger implications escaped me at the time.
\nIt\u2019s an apology:
\nForgive me, Mother Earth. I am sugar daddy dating success<\/a> about to step upon you.
\nI think of that sequence of movements often these days, as I tally Earth\u2019s losses\u2014another glacier, another hectare of rainforest, another rhino-whale-leopard, another unrepeatable piece of life.
\nInfused within that ethos was an understanding that humanity cannot be understood separately from its home, cannot act without acting
\nupon
\nthat home.
\nAs I grew up, I came to understand that the culture to which I belonged possessed a certain ethos, a way of existing in and relating to the sugar dating profile setup<\/a> planet that intimately acknowledged our impact upon it. Infused within that ethos was an understanding that humanity cannot be understood separately from its home, cannot act without acting
\nupon
\nthat home.
\nA literalist might take issue with this apology\u2014after all, where else
\ncan
\na human being step but on the planet? sugar dating processing fee<\/a> I suggest that what is being expressed by that ritual is more than apology\u2014it is reverence.
\nIf Earth is home, we must treat her with honor. If Earth provides the means for us to eat, drink, breathe, and live; legit sugar baby sa Philippines<\/a> if she is the source of our bodies and the place to which our bodies return, then we must pay attention to the way we walk upon\u2014and steward and nurture and repair\u2014her.
\n*
\nAs intriguing as I found this philosophical connection between movements and ethos, it remained theoretical until my children arrived. Perhaps not surprisingly, their presence made the ecological losses I\u2019d been tallying throughout my adult life become immediate and vivid and visceral.
\nMy boys loved to be outside, and they dragged me, an erstwhile homebody, out into the world. They made me breathe through my aversion to dirt and bugs and critters, made me put my hands and feet upon the planet. Their love of the outdoors urged me to do more than merely consider the beauty and majesty of Mother Earth, but rather, to place my body in her embrace.
\nWhen they held sticks in their best sugar dating sites Philippines<\/a> little hands and shouted
\nwe are trees, we are trees
\n, they indeed seemed like small basal shoots sprouting from the forest ecosystem, part and parcel of the land on which they jumped and frolicked. It was difficult not to connect harm done to the environment to harm being done to
\nthem
\n, difficult not to trace the toxins pouring into the world to the water they would drink and the food they would eat.
\nI felt an urgency to show them the glaciers, rainforests, monarch butterflies\u2014all the parts of their disappearing inheritance. But as we traveled and searched and witnessed, I couldn\u2019t banish an ever-present ache.
\nAs I watched them conduct a snowball fight with bits of that glacier in hand, amidst mountains and streams and multi-colored wildflowers, I could only question,
\nwill we ever see this again?
\nI thought of the motions of apology I\u2019d learned long ago, but what apology top sugar dating app Philippines<\/a> could compensate for so much ill treatment, so much loss?
\nI didn\u2019t know what or how to name my profound regret regarding the dissipation and erosion and destruction of the world\u2019s landscapes and biodiversity, regarding all of the lives being extinguished. I didn\u2019t know what to call this complicated pain, infused with my anger at the entirely preventable losses, my outrage that those in power won\u2019t do the needful, and my terror at the brewing climate disasters my children will endure.
\nI\u2019ve since learned that a term exists for this complex amalgam of emotions, for this multi-layered range of feelings from sadness to fear, anger to helplessness, that so many people are experiencing during this era of the Anthropocene. Scientific and environmental communities call it
\necological grief
\n.
\nIt is certainly not a new phenomenon. Conservationists have always responded to the rampant and reckless extraction of Earth\u2019s resources and to the treatment of the planet as \u201csupply cabinet and sewer,\u201d in the words of environmentalists. I
\nn 1920, Charles Deam, the first state forester of Indiana, said \u201cWhat of the next centennial inventory? During the century of our existence we have spent the rich endowments nature gave us. The next generations will not have our resources. Are we planning to bequeath something to the people of the next century?\u201d
\nPerhaps these cries were ignored because nature\u2019s taps never seemed to run dry. Until now, of course. As our impact becomes too pervasive, our extractions, too extensive, climate change-related suffering how to screen a sugar baby<\/a> and displacement and damage have escalated precipitously. At a minimum we must
\nname
\nthe psychological and emotional toll upon all of us.
\nNevertheless, that naming does not help me to process the enormity of what\u2019s occurring.
\n*
\nFour years ago, my mother suddenly got sick. One day, she was healthy and vigorous, and the next, she wasn\u2019t. Nine months later she died. Now, that loss is gradually,
\ngradually
\nsoftening, the ocean waves of grief reducing in frequency, if not intensity. I know my grief sugar daddy allowance sa Philippines<\/a> is taking its natural, human course.
\nBut the loss of Mother Earth is not a single event like the death of a loved one\u2014it is a continual and unrelenting and torrential stream of deaths, in pieces, in acres, in species. Its scope is gargantuan and ungraspable, and as such, the appropriate level of grief does not seem human in scale.
\nHow do I grieve an entire planet? How do I grieve trillions of deaths and the eradication of entire species? I can\u2019t capture what is happening in my puny mind; I can\u2019t grieve it all within my small heart. Can you?
\nI think of Richard Powers\u2019s heartbreaking novel
\nBewilderment
\n, of the child character desperate to catalog the animals being lost, flailing in his father\u2019s arms, thrashing against the inevitable.
\nI get it.
\nEven during her last days, I\u2019d lie on my mother\u2019s lap, for just a few moments, immobilized by sadness. We did not ignore the truth of what was happening, or deny the destination to which we were headed, but still, the little ritual provided a way to somehow withstand the chaos and to mourn. When I sat up again, I could acknowledge reality, dig in again, and do the needful.
\nIncorporating this ritual into my life has led me to adopt numerous others\u2014tiny markers that are not necessarily present in my ancestral background, but are certainly an extension of its ethos.
\nI\u2019ve wondered whether this is the way to manage my ecological grief as well\u2014a way to help me mourn for a planet and its species, including humanity\u2014by crawling into my Mother\u2019s arms, the arms of Mother Earth. Through the pathway of ritual, could I find a structure to support me as I felt grief\u2019s ocean waves, waves that would only become faster and more intense over the months and years?
\n*
\nI\u2019ve incorporated an ancient ritual into my morning, one I learned from family members long ago, during a visit to India. Before my feet touch the floor in the morning, I take a minute to close my eyes and speak a Sanskrit mantra: \u201c
\nsamudravasane devi parvatastanama\u1e47\u1e0dale \/
\nvi\u1e63\u1e47upatni namastubhya\u1e43 p\u0101daspar\u015ba\u1e43 k\u1e63amasva me.
\n\u201d Translated, it, too, holds an apology: \u201cO, Mother Earth, \/ Draped by oceans, adorned with mountains and jungles\u2026. \/ Forgive me for stepping upon you with my feet.\u201d
\nI\u2019ll admit that I used to regard
\nritual
\nwith a touch of skepticism, wondering how people could follow so many ancient customs without fully understanding their content, and assuming those customs contained no energy, meaning, or efficacy. Over time, I became reconciled to the reasons people followed them, realizing that rituals can serve to preserve a cultural mechanism and ensure that ancient wisdom persists.
\nI certainly didn\u2019t expect to
\nembrace
\nritual, but I\u2019m finally understanding that it provides a tool biggest sugar dating platform Philippines<\/a> for me to live with consciousness, to mark the passing of my life and time deliberately. The single moment I take to sit up and speak that mantra actually holds
\nmany
\nmoments:
\nA moment to delay the dazed spill into my morning routine and unrelenting task list.
\nA moment to
\narrive
\nin my body, to feel myself occupy the vehicle that carries me into the world with little complaint.
\nA moment to acknowledge what is important over what is urgent.
\nAnd of course, a moment of reverence to set my relationship with the planet, to remind myself that
\nhome
\nextends beyond the four walls that shelter me, that the natural world is to be honored, respected, protected.
\nIncorporating this ritual into my life has led me to adopt numerous others\u2014tiny markers that are not necessarily present in my ancestral background, but are certainly an extension of its ethos. I start my walks and hikes with a few lines of poetry about the natural world, or at least with a moment of gratitude for its gifts. Wherever I travel in the world, I make sure I place a hand on a tree for a few minutes and take in my natural surroundings.
\nWhen I start my writing sessions, I look out the window, at whatever the season is offering, which allows the natural world to weave into my scenes and sentences. In fact, the protagonist of my debut novel,
\n108: An Eco-Thriller
\n, speaks the same morning mantra as I do\u2014and that mantra unlocks a secret, both archaeological and mystical.
\nA relatively new ritual I\u2019ve adopted, which also emerges from ancient knowledge, is standing barefoot on the grass for several minutes when I\u2019m feeling stressed or distressed, particularly about environmental destruction. This grounding is an age-old practice, based on the theory that direct contact allows us to absorb Earth\u2019s electrical charge. This absorption apparently provides certain health benefits, including warding off oxidative stress.
\nMore than those benefits, though, I value the moments to pause and speak to Mother Earth:
\nI\u2019m sorry for stepping upon you unconsciously.
\nI thank you for your infinite gifts.
\nI grieve all that is being lost, lost, lost every moment.
\nI will do everything in my power to protect you.
\nThe ocean waves still crash over me, but here in these actions, in these rituals, are walls that I can hold, that allow me to remain standing despite sorrow and heartbreak.
\nAnd sometimes, from the rustle of wind, from the warmth of sun, from the movement of leaves comes Her answer.
\nYes,
\nthere is so much loss. And yet there is still beauty to witness; there are words to be spoken; there are people to be reminded. Do the work.
\n______________________________
\n108: An Eco-Thriller
\nby Dheepa R. sugar dating phone load scam<\/a> Maturi is available via GFB.<\/p>\n

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