Hannah McPherson
8/28/25
A Letter From The Earth
Could I tell you anything? A secret? I am older than you, but I am not the oldest thing there is. I am still new. I refresh in each succession. I shed layers, I reform them, I break into cycles. I die, I am reborn. Yet, I have never left you, and you have never left me.
We are dependent on one another. That balance in nature, is the balance in me. Though, nature is not limited to me or to you. Nature is larger than I, though I am quite large; unfathomably so. What is the weight of me? An astronomical number. What of my brothers and sisters? The planets of the cosmos.
You have many names for me, but your favorite is The Earth.
Not everyone feels the joy I have to offer, or finds the value in my stillness or my organized chaos. Those that do, may share with me the utmost peace. They see the magnitude of my gravity. It holds us together, literally and figuratively. We weather the changes of my being and yours in a simultaneous dance.
I provide the air you breathe with my flora, and you provide the air I breathe with your exhaling. If you’ve ever found yourself holding a breath, know that the breaths I hold are primordial. It is not to compare, for we are one. However, you must know that within this captured atmosphere, I have much knowledge to imbue. I have been watching the surface and the crevice all the same, and absorb all that touches me.
You decay, and become part of me. Your essence feeds my thriving. For all the destruction you may cause to me will someday be repaid in a price that bears more value to you than the finest gold. Speaking of minerals, I am the richest of you. You can acquire all the wealth under the sun, and you would still not surpass my value.
My perspective is humble – for even something such as I, as eternal as I seem, is truly ephemeral in the endlessness of the universe at large. At one point, I was formed, and as popular topics of conversation among those within my atmosphere, I will one day come to an end.
Fret not, as this will not likely happen in your lifetime. At least, not the lifetime in which you read this. Some iteration of you may find this relic in a millenia, and will be bemused at how inevitable it has always seemed. I am not bothered with the plights of endings, as I am well versed in these inevitabilities.
I do not mourn when winter comes for summer, or when night comes for day. I do not mourn when a species of animal or plant or mineral heaves its last breath. Before you ask, everything breathes. Perhaps not all take oxygen, like the mineral. In an expansive nature like mine, the breath of a mineral is a vibrational one. The breath is in the space it holds. The breath is in the gift of life, for all matter is living.
You would be very arrogant to assume your way of life is the only way. I host all forms of life, and I am not picky about what types to include, though getting the formula just right is a tad tricky; that secret, of how to get it just right, is between myself and the Creator. Yet, it comes as naturally to me as elemental shifting. It is instinctual and primal all the same. It is unyielding and cruel, the way that these cycles play out within me. You call it survival of the fittest, or even you were keen on that Darwin fellow.
You speak often of Natural Disasters. I truly find that offensive. Things such as hurricanes and volcanic explosions are truly some of my best masterpieces; the correcting course of my power. The timings of my preparation are impeccable. Everything happens for a reason, exactly at the time the reason is needed, regardless of my inhabitants’ opinions on the matter.
You also hold many opinions about my balance. I hold that equilibrium all on my own. You worry for my warming in this century, but in many others, like my icy ages, they worried I was too cold. Thankfully, I do not course correct based on the feeble squabbles of humans. Your presence here is appreciated and tolerated all the same as any other means of life, but you are still wholly insignificant to my upkeep. You can plant trees, you can cut them down, but you are no more than the ant bed in your front yard. You are a part of me.
You do, however, make things more interesting. Those of you that hold space for appreciating me, that have taken the time to create artistic musings about my nature, flatter me with your meek comparisons to my actual radiance. Your enduring organic mysticism is a bi-product of my aura. In fact, as is your entire existence.
How many of you fail to realize that we are so deeply intertwined? The irony in such a thought, is that there is a me without you, but there is no you without me. I believe you’ve heard from the Ocean, which is also just as intertwined into me as you, and while he is an old philosophical watery soul, I am a spirit kindred to Fire. We both create the hearth, the heart of our resonance.
You will have heard from all of us by the time this is through. I hope you learn something. I hope these words soak into every cell of you, that is every cell of me. We are made of the same materials, and the consciousness you hold reverberates through my kingdom. Every inch you travel across my crust is through the willingness of my nature to allow it. When you go places not meant for you, you suffer the consequences.
Bless the explorers. I admire those who seek without stopping to see every inch of me; to court death to push the limits of their bounds. Such movement is respectable, given my size. I was quite fond of Magellan. Those that survey me are also being surveyed. Lewis and Clark were great friends. Culture that thrives, like a petri dish of a particularly active bacteria, can make some of the greatest discoveries seem so simple.
You may feel minuscule, and in many ways you are, but that is not to discount your place here in my atmosphere. You are resilient, like myself. You will always find a way. I hope you seek your way within me, for when it is done, the essence of you will leave me, but your impact will linger. Energetically, you leave traces of your being wherever you go. You are felt in every morsel of my existence, through every atom of yours.
I have been given more than ample time to speak. I speak to you in the wind, in the rain, in the dirt between your toes, through the breath in your lungs. I am all of these elements, but most importantly, I am the ground beneath your feet, the force holding you to this mortal plane. While I have eroded only a small truth, over time you will hear me reveal many more.
I implore you to listen the next time you are in nature. You may hear me singing, you may hear me whisper, you may see me show you my beauty, my peace, but I hope above all, that you feel me within you. I will cradle you within my atmosphere, and raise the hairs on the back of your neck. I will shock you to your core, no matter how high above mine you stand.
My trees do grow rings, my plates layer and shift, my landscapes change, but I remain ever the same. I evolutionize and adapt despite all that encounters me. I am an unmovable and unshakable fixture. I am solid. I am your makeup, your container, your stage and your audience. I am all you know, and about everything else you wonder. Wherever you wander, there I will be.
I am the Earth, and this is my Story.
The secret I spoke of is this: You and I are symbiotic. Any further secrets you must wish to know can be found in the quiet presence of your participation in life on Earth.
The next time you think of me, think of this: I, Mother Earth, birthed you, will carry you in death, and love you more than you could ever comprehend.
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