We can’t always escape our obligations to sit by a mountain stream.
But we can close our eyes and remember that we are a mountain stream.
Our blood. Our bones. Our minds.
Dark water rushing through caverns.
Red, red iron carrying oxygen born of starlight and soft, green treetops.
The nature we long to visit is out there. 
But it is also in here. In us. 
Hold your own hand. 
See your thoughts for what they are, as natural a mechanism as photosynthesis.
Feel gravity wrap around your bones like ivy. 
We are this world. 
We are the spark. 
We are nature.

Jarod Anderson, @cryptonaturalist

On this day, I would ask you to try not to separate yourself from another person’s pain, not to say, but that wasn’t me, I didn’t do that. As uncomfortable as it is, try to be in the pain. Let it be your pain too.

You don’t have to stay stuck in that place. You don’t have to stay there forever.

The mountain stream doesn’t stay in one place forever.

But it is okay to step into that stream and the shock of it and say, ow, this hurts. This is shocking. This hurts.

Read this poem to yourself, out loud, even if it feels weird to talk out loud. Maybe add another line at the end:

We are each other.

We are this world. 
We are the spark. 
We are nature.

We are each other.

Write your own poem. Write your apology, your promise, your prayer. Tuck it under the earth, under some leaves, under some rocks. Let it be an offering. It’s a ritual. We need ritual, now, too. We need each other. We need prayers. We need poems. We need the Earth. We need ritual.