Occupy Gently

Before we invented the myth of mine and yours, we lived in the Sacred Garden. We were stewards of beauty, not owners of property. To occupy is not to own.

Let us return to the garden. Occupy the Earth. Plant it well. But do not say, "This belongs to me." How can I own the ground or what springs from it? How can you own a tree, or a single kernel of corn? Did I create the soil? Did you create the seed? Did our schools teach the buds how to blossom?

I plant here, and half a world away, you taste the fruit. You sow there, and I enjoy the harvest. We eat each others labor. No one can tell who planted this, and where the flower will blossom. Under the loam is a tangle of roots and indecipherable causes, known only by gratitude. Walk gently on the earth, for wherever we walk, we step on each others hearthstones.

At the harvest, leave the edges of your field ragged, unplucked, bending with fruit for the poor. Were you not a wanderer once too?

Occupy gently: the earth is a Sacred Garden.