Love and justice are terms often ascribed to human to human interactions and relationships. For me personally, love and justice contextualize how I relate to myself as well as my relationship with the Earth. Love is recognition of the inherent interconnectedness of all life and my capacity to be appreciative of the life I have been given. Each breath I take is a sacred communion with the Earth, the jubilant dance between receiving and giving. Justice is profound integrity and my capacity to honor the sacredness of all life. I honor the sanctity of life by giving voice to all living forms and living in right relation, Anyi, with myself and the Earth. If I am a Red-tailed Hawk, love and justice are the wings that I fly this world with, the balance of heart and integrity.
It is within the cauldron of Wilderness that my most honest heartfelt experiences of love and justice have alchemized. Wilderness, the vast untrammeled lands, the raw primal essence of life, is the great matriarch of love and justice. Nothing escapes her gaze or embrace, all is touched by her whether realized or not.
The solitude of Wilderness innately draws out the soul’s truth, invariably compels self-reflection, and pointedly demands honesty. Wilderness is a silent magician, how oft I have wandered into the rugged, isolated, narrow valleys, and steep talus mountains of Northwest Montana simply to escape the humdrum of society and subsequently returned utterly and irrevocably transformed. The nuance of the transformative process is always evolving. The synergy with the Earth is more apparent as I cultivate a greater awareness of my breath and body. Wilderness facilitates a harmonization with my body, I fully feel the aliveness emanating from the inside, the vibrant pulse of life. Summarily, I empathize everything being interwoven in a web of consciousness. Full embodiment, mindfulness of the present moment, enables stillness to reveal many secrets. Wilderness is a great magnifier.
In Wilderness, love enables me to recognize myself as the Red-tailed Hawk borne on the sweet thermals of a thunderstorm sweeping fast up the foothills to the towering mountains. I am the summer rainstorm, water laden clouds hugging the mountains, a nurturing lover bringing the gift of life to the alpine forests. I am a tree in the forest, my roots a dendritic web with my neighbors, communicating through mycorrhizae, and drinking of the raindrops. I am the weathered, barren, exposed Precambrian talus slope, silent observe for hundreds of millions of years in the slow decay to become soil. I am the Wolverine devoured carcass of a Mountain Goat that slipped on an ice sheathed ledge and plummeted a thousand feet to a tomb below, now only a sliver of bone bleached amongst the rocks. Love gifts me with a more encompassing perspective, love dissolves the individual identity, and envelops everything. I am the life, death, rebirth cycle.
In Wilderness, justice enables me to recognize that a life of integrity or Ayni means I honor the sacredness of all living forms. To be in Ayni with myself and the Earth I must give voice to the living forms that are being violated and disregarded. Cultivating awareness of the sacredness of the land means articulating the violence inflicted on the Earth by mineral and fossil fuel extraction. Justice means honoring the life blood of the Earth, the vitality of free-flowing rivers that are capable of bringing nutrients to the oceans and providing shelter for migrating Salmon. Integrity means recognizing there is inherent value in the bounty of the Earth beyond the immediate financial and material gain a few privileged individuals reap. Justice, the hallmark of integrity makes me accountable for my actions; whether they be thoughts, spoken words, or physical acts. I create ripples in this world that extend outwards to infinity and I cannot fathom all the impacts that may be precipitated from them. Justice accounts for rights of all living beings here and now as well as seven generations from now.
Wilderness; the howl of the wolf calling to its brethren, the howl of a February blizzard shrouding the Whitebark Pine in ice, and the melodic serenade of melting snow dancing across the rock hones the rhythm of my body to the Earth. The more embodied I am the more resonant the interconnectedness of life. I simultaneously see and feel life as a kaleidoscope; a unique individuated picture replicated over and over in a multitude of forms. The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm, and vice versa. Only my lack of awareness segregates me from the Earth and the pulsing of interconnectedness. My level of awareness determines the degree of conscious interaction with the Earth. My awareness determines if my flight is true with love and justice. When I recognize myself as the entirety of life, integrity and honesty compel me to acknowledge that what befalls the Earth befalls me.
When love ceases to be guided by justice and is borne of desiring then my course becomes errant and I succumb to grasping. Likewise, when justice ceases to be guided by love and is borne of self-righteousness then my course becomes errant and I succumb to judgement. When either love over powers justice or justice over powers love my flight is not true. For justice without love is retribution at its’ worst and malignant apathy at best. Concurrently, love without justice is grasping self-indulgence at best and perverse narcissism at its’ worst.
My life soars with the wind, the wings of love and justice enable my flight to take new heights. When I fly in Anyi, following my heart with utmost integrity the magic of the Earth infuses my life. The big picture emerges, my awareness is a stream in the consciousness of the Earth. I become the Earth and the Earth becomes me.