What Is Your Earth Doing Today?

Earth Day arrives every year on the 22nd of April, and it got me thinking about how often we notice it, experience it, and let it move us.

I’m currently living in Western Australia, where there seems to be so much sky – it is a vast, vibrant blue, with more often than not hardly a cloud to be seen. I adore it. The beaches have stepped out of paradise with a turquoise ocean and white sand, and the heat prickles my skin with intensity that makes me feel so alive.

Then there are the magnificent sunsets, the native fauna, which is bold and brash, and the birds, which are noisy as hell, creating a multi-layered landscape far removed from my UK homeland. 

Conversely, on social media, I see images of the UK entering spring, and it reminds me of how much I love that season.

With the green returning, the spring flowers, and the blossoms, there is a softness that is so different from Western Australia yet equally as beautiful. It is a reminder that this earth of ours expresses itself in so many extraordinary forms, depending on where you happen to be standing.

I find myself in awe of our Earth. Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast, something that makes you feel both small and completely alive at the same time, and has been shown to reduce stress, quiet the relentless chatter of the mind, increase feelings of connection and generosity, and shift our perspective in ways that are genuinely difficult to replicate through anything else.

This makes the natural world available to us in some form wherever we are, making it one of the most consistently nourishing things we can turn to for our wellbeing.

One of my favourite practices, and one I have done in both hemispheres, is grounding, the simple act of walking barefoot on the earth.

Here in WA, it is the sand, warm and white beneath my feet, and in the UK, it was grass, cool and damp.

Something happens when you make actual contact with the ground beneath you: your nervous system, which is so often buzzing and braced, begins to soften, and you become quite literally present, connected to something much older and much larger than whatever was occupying your mind just moments before.

Earth Day asks us to consider how we protect and tend to our planet, which is a conversation worth having always, and perhaps it also offers us something more personal, alongside that, an invitation to tend to our own small patch of earth, to notice what is growing and changing in the particular piece of the world we happen to inhabit right now.

So go outside, look up, take your shoes off and let yourself be moved by it, because the earth is doing something remarkable out there every single day.

What is your earth doing today, and have you had a chance to notice it?

If you find yourself drawn to these kinds of pauses and reflections, there are more waiting for you on our blog here.