According to an article by Toko-pa Turner (dreamquestion@gmail.com) in the April/May 2010 issue of Synchronicity, how do we keep the joy and passion about ourselves, our families and the organism that is our planet, how can you take its wisdom and inform your life; how can you come alive with fire and wonder.?

"Why is it so easy for us to be amazed by the beautiful, interconnected, mathematical genius of Earth... but as her eyes and ears, we hate ourselves?"

Think about this:  Our self-hatred is actually loneliness.  It is the pain of our separation from the Family of Things.  We have created a self-referencing system which habitually takes of the Earth and gives nothing back.  Our alienation stems from the negligence of reciprocity.  Worse than that, is not have your gifts received.

Our lives are so disciplined from birth that our gifts are disciplined out of us with systematic etiquette, thru society and culture, addition to money and materialism, schools and lack of community.  "Eventually we accede to the sandcastles of security, relinquishing our personal, intraservicable genius, triggering a lifetime of felt alienation."

Amazingly, stubbornly, courageously, "some of us retain our passion.  Some of us continue to be disciples of the things that we love.  We drag our addicted, programmed asses out of deeply-worn ruts.  We walk against the grain and the odds, turn away from apathy, accumulation (and victimization) and stand for something."

"You may ...write a poem, sing a song, sculpt or illuminate. You may dance.  You may plant an urban garden, caretake someone (or another creature) in need, endure long learning which qualifies you to help others. Maybe you undergo, least acclaimed of all, your own healing.  You open those unexplored regions of the self, vicariously opening the unknowing of the earth itself.

It may not look like much while you're doing it.  You may feel crazy. You may experience terrifying loneliness which can not even be lessened by description.  But you are doing your duty by giving your gifts to the world."

"What can a tree teach us about self-worth?  How it grows only so big as its mothersoil can provide for, how it draws nutrients from her, how it turns sunlight into sugar to feed its branches and leaves, how it offers itself as shelter for other creatures, including humans and then kindly emits oxygen for the rest of us.  A tree may live to be ancient or not but a tree always offers its body back to the soil which grew it."