There’s a growing ache in me—something ancient and immediate. As I sit with the words of Dr. Vandana Shiva, I feel something in me awaken. Her voice, her presence, the way she speaks of physics as if it were Sufi poetry, of biodiversity as if it were sacred scripture. I recognize that space. It’s the same place where Ram Dass once led me: back into the heart of things.
She speaks of seeds, of soil, of breath, and suddenly I’m reminded that I am not separate from the Earth. I’m not just standing on it, I am it. Just like she says: “the breath of the trees is my breath. The decay of the soil is my renewal. The intelligence of water, microbes, fungi… these are not metaphors. They’re family.”
And yet… I feel under assault.
I feel the sacredness of life being bulldozed, steadily, under the guise of progress. I see the Politburo-like forces disregarding basic life support for profit. Even the liberty of sanctioned life now trembles beneath the weight of our forgetting. We’re dismantling systems meant to care for each other: health, education, nourishment of the body and soul. The very richness of life, the goodness that pulses in every being, is being stripped away for profit, for control, for some illusion of power. That same centralized, top-down control of resources (in the Politburo) is mirrored here by corporatization and profit-centric governance.
We aspire to leave the Earth—explorers, searching for life, colonizing new worlds—as if this one is already a lost cause. It’s madness. Why must we destroy this living miracle just to explore another? If we can’t get it together here, what makes us think we’ll get it together out there? If we’re neurotic on the East Coast, we’ll be neurotic on the West Coast.
If we can ravage the Earth in just a few short centuries, dismantle national care and education in a single term—how can we possibly feel worthy to invade the cosmos like a virus? The absurdity of escaping a mess we haven’t healed.
And yet, Dr. Shiva brings me back.
She reminds me that fearlessness isn’t bravado—it’s clarity. She says: “If you are fully aware of doing the right thing every day, there is no power on Earth that can make you afraid.” And in that moment, I feel my spine straighten. My heart settle. My breath return.
I remember the noble path, the cessation of suffering encompassing eight practices: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
I am walking that path. One step at a time. With a clear conscience—even when the world shakes. That kind of integrity—quiet, steady, present—is stronger than any policy, any regime, any chaos that tries to take root.
I admire and enjoy the curiosity of the stars, but I don’t need to destroy the home of our global community in pursuit of the next frontier or divinity. I find it here—in this Earth, in this work, in this breath.
How alien it seems for some of us to think that everything is interconnected. But that is the truth. Dr. Shiva speaks of nonseparability, interconnectedness, entanglement—and the way she delivers it, it’s so poetic, so beautiful. Dr. Dispenza talks about quantum potentials and shifting our energy. Ram Dass, formally Dr. Richard Alpert, talks about a loving compassionate Oneness. Buddha brought us the noble path. Jesus brought us Christ consciousness.
The idea that nothing exists in isolation, that reality itself is built on relationships, touches something deep in me. My own breath, my own choices, my own awareness, my own doing—they are part of the greater whole. Not separate. Never were.
I want to be part of something that honors this place. I want to live in a world where care is not revolutionary, but ordinary. Where education is not a privilege, but a birthright. Where nutrition is recognized as our sacred evolutionary life force, not a genetically modified or artificially produced commodity. Where Medicare and healthcare aren’t seen as burdens, but as proof of our shared humanity.
This moment is heavy, but I am not powerless.
My breath is still mine. My awareness still shines. My conscience is intact. And that, as Dr. Shiva says, is enough to walk without fear.
Because the cosmos isn’t out there. It’s here—in the interacting relationships with each other, in the soil beneath our feet, in the water’s microbes, in the fungi, in the stardust of our skin, and in the silent promise of every single seed.
Our consciousness is awakening, and we are at a precipice—not of destruction, but of remembrance. A chance to return to a right relationship with the Earth, with each other, and with the sacred intelligence that has always lived inside it all.