Are we all connected?
Like many of us, I’ve heard quotes like Carl Sagan’s “we are made of star stuff,” and felt all warm inside. It’s nice to have affirmations like this floating around my brain especially when I feel wholly disconnected from the world and my fellow humans; like when I’m at a party and it feels like nobody cares about what I care about; or when I’ve lived in a big city for months and it’s hard to tell what season it is in the never-changing concrete landscape.
But what exactly does it mean that we’re connected to the universe? And how true is it?
I hold on to my comforting belief that we’re a part of nature when my 4 year old asks me about death (which seems to be more unsettling a topic for me than it is for her). I explain to her, vaguely and aspirational-ly, that nothing is really created or destroyed, but that we are brought into our bodies when we’re born, and released back into the universe with everyone and everything else when we die. She seems almost completely satisfied with this abstract answer. She likes the idea that her great grandmother, whom she never met, is somehow with her now. Alongside her and within her; vast and everywhere while flickering warm inside. She holds her hand to her heart and says “she’s in here,” and I get a tear in my eye.
My friend Merritt Juliano, a local therapist and co-founding president of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, was the first to say the words “we ARE nature” to me. She explained that the best way to heal the planet is to first heal ourselves and our relationship to the earth. I didn’t fully understand the scope of the message at the time. Our P+P mentor and resident philosopher, Lydia Picoli, expanded on this idea for me:
“Knowing ourselves as a microcosm of the Earth allows us to see that all around us is an extension of our body; our home. When we truly embody this knowing, we make aligned decisions, such as bringing a reusable mug instead of opting for single-use plastics, composting instead of putting food waste into landfills, and reducing our carbon footprint by swapping meat for plants. When we are out of alignment with knowing ourselves as a reflection of the Earth, we find ourselves partaking in actions that not only harm the Earth, but also our bodies. When we’re aligned, we see the Earth not as a resource, but as our dearest relative (as Hawaiian herbalist, Caitlin Duquette, offers), our Great Mother. It’s not about perfection, it’s about connection. Knowing everything has its own form of consciousness—its own form of intelligence—we shift our perspective to collective instead of dominant.”
Have I always intuitively sensed this? Probably. Do I always consciously know this? Probably not. I grew up eating Ring Dings and watching TRL. But as I got older, had a child, struggled more with stress… it was plant remedies prescribed to me by my Acupuncturist, Aimee Raupp, that helped my nervous and digestive system get back on track. Plants ACTUALLY worked. Eating right actually worked. Being outside and near the ocean actually worked. Which really makes me think, are we so connected to the planet that we grew and continue to grow alongside our own remedies? It’s a lot to take in.
Curious, I Googled why plants have medicinal properties, and the best answer I found was on Quora, from a Masters in Pharmacology named Tom:
“Although the metabolism of plants is hugely different from animals, we all work from the same basic molecular materials (amino acids, fatty acids, sugars and nucleic acids) and so they happen to produce as byproducts many molecules that resemble ones found in the bodies of humans and other animals.” Pretty cool.
Similarly, are we really made of stars, and does the whole story I tell my daughter actually make sense? For insight on that, I turned again to the inter-webs, which led me to the Natural History Museum website and planetary scientist and stardust expert, Dr Ashley King, which seems legit enough for me. “It is totally 100% true,” King says. “Nearly all the elements in the human body were made in a star and many have come through several supernovas.”
On the NHM site, it says “we think that the universe began 13 or 14 billion years ago, with the Big Bang. At that point only the lightest elements existed, such as hydrogen, helium and minuscule amounts of lithium. Elements are matter that cannot be broken down into simpler substances…
The first generation of stars formed as lumps of gas drew together and eventually began to combust. This would cause a nuclear reaction in the centre of a star.
Inside stars, a process takes place called nucleosynthesis, which is basically the making of elements.
The first stars burned their fuel quickly and were able to make only a few elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. When those stars went supernova—exploded powerfully—and expelled the elements they had produced, they seeded the next generation of stars.
The next generation of seeded stars were then able to produce other, heavier elements such as carbon, magnesium and nearly every element in the periodic table. Any element in your body that is heavier than iron has travelled through at least one supernova. So it's very likely that there are a whole bunch of different stars that have contributed the elements we see in our own solar system, our planet and those found within you.”
When I take all of that in, I’m struck by the enormity of the interconnected processes going on around us all the time of which I’m only vaguely aware. It’s easy to get so caught up in yummy manufactured dessert items and Carson Daly’s mysteriously painted pinky nails, that you forget that we are the products of a constantly shifting (always expanding) cosmic network that literally reincarnates the elements. We’re all really on this same journey together. Should we be, like, worshipping the elements? Suddenly it seems like the most important thing in the world. Now my mind is spinning.
In the name of re-grounding myself, I turn again to Lydia to ask how I can be reminded, when I really need to be, of the connection I have to the planet. She offers this sweet practice:
A practice to reconnect with the Earth: Breathing with the Trees
Embodied Experience
1. Sit down outside in front of a tree.
2. Take a deep breath in, feeling yourself rooting into the ground, seeing your roots growing from your body into the soil, connecting with the mycelial network, the other plants, and beings around you.
3. Deep exhale, feeling the land nourishing your being through your roots, maybe receiving messages or feeling into the vibration of Mother Earth through your sensitive roots.
4. For your next inhales, as you breathe, focus on the oxygen flowing out from the tree—the tree giving you oxygen for you to inhale and be nourished.
6. As you exhale, visualize the CO2 leaving your body—you giving the tree CO2 for the tree to inhale and be nourished.
7. Continue to breathe, watching each of you (the tree exhaling for you to inhale, you exhaling for the tree to inhale) breathe in service and support of each other.
8. When you feel content with your practice, take a few moments to put into words what you just experienced. As Caitlin reminds us, “Plants hold us as we navigate thresholds that can feel subtle, marvelous, maybe even earth shattering.” So move slowly, and making meaning of your experience.
9. Grab your journal and ask your tree, “Write to me and through me any messages I am meant to receive in this moment” and allow your writing to flow as a stream of consciousness (you can tell the difference between your brain at work and your intuition flowing). See what messages surface.
I know it'll never be perfect, and I'll forget time and time again, but I will continue to reconnect to the earth for me, for the earth itself, for my daughter, for my ancestors, and for the stars.
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Our mentor, Lydia will be hosting a Full Moon Circle Wednesday, May 3rd from 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM. Connecting with the lunar cycles is a powerful way to realign our own rhythms with the rhythms of nature. Click here to sign up.
