I read this book a few years ago but it just popped back into my head today as I scrolled through Earth Day posts on Instagram. I'll definitely be giving it a re-read in the next couple of days!
Love Letter to the Earth was published in 2012 by Thích Nhat Hanh, a well-known Vietnamese zen teacher. In this book he offers a prayer of praise and gratitude for our planet. He argues that we need to stop viewing people and the Earth as two separate entities. We must move past seeing the planet only in terms of what it can do for us.
"We must stop seeing the Earth as a resource to be used up, and that we must start a revolution in consciousness to consider the Earth as a living, breathing organism that we can deeply connect with in meditation and in our daily lives."
This book is a refreshing shift from the conventional economic approach that most climate change activists take. Presenting society with the hard facts, data, and numerical statistics has not proved to be an effective method. Instead, Nhat Hanh shows that mindfulness and a spiritual revolution are needed to protect nature and limit climate change. He cites, "the lack of meaning and connection in peoples' lives as being the cause of our addiction to consumerism."
Love Letter to the Earth is is a call to humans to wake up and fall in love with Earth as our home and Mother. Whether you chose to read Thich Nhat Hanh's love letter or not, I encourage you to write your own!
An excerpt from Love Letter to the Earth: "We can take refuge in the Earth as our original mother. . . When we see her in this way, with all her many virtues, we will walk more gently on her and treat her and all her children more gently. We will want to protect her and not harm her or any of the myriad forms of life she has given birth to. We will stop wreaking destruction and violence on Mother Earth. We will resolve the question of what we mistakenly call “the environmental problem.” The Earth is not just the environment. The Earth is us. Everything depends on whether we have this insight or not."