Welcome to Practicing Terraphilia
What's in it for you?
Hello Friends,
Welcome to Practicing Terraphilia, your invitation to reconnect with the source of our strength, grounding and inspiration: nature and this amazing, animate planet. I’m glad you’re here!
terraphilia n. An intrinsic affection for and connection to the earth and its community of lives. Without this bond we are lonely, lacking, no longer whole.
Origin: terra, Latin, literally ‘earth’; philia, from the Greek, ‘fondness.’
What you’ll find here
Simple daily practices you can use to heal and revitalize your everyday life, no matter how fractured and frenzied, and in the doing, give back to our planet too, growing a reciprocal relationship with nature that will enrich you and this Earth.
Each week, I share inspiration to nurture our terraphilia and stimulate our knowledge, empathy and curiosity about the planet and the web of lives with which we all are intimately connected. Posts include reflections, nuggets from science, videos that introduce favorite more-than-human beings and natural phenomena, as well as photos and haiku. And actions to effect positive change within and without.
Rekindling our cell-deep bond with our unique planet and Earth’s diverse community of lives is not difficult. It’s something we can do every day, which doesn’t require special equipment or trekking to wild places. The invitation lives in every leaf of a nearby tree, the cooing of city pigeons, or the sight of a star pricking the darkness of the night sky.
Please explore what’s here!
Click the “Archive” button on tab bar below the title on the home page to take you to the library of posts. Here are two to get you started:
An introduction to what the practice of terraphilia gives us, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.
My “Year of Spiritual Thinking” project, which I began as a way to explore what practices and rituals might support my nature-based spirituality, with special emphasis on the Celtic beliefs and practices of my ancestors. (You can browse more posts from that project under the “Year of Spiritual Thinking” title on the home page).
Why terraphilia matters
To be human is to be part of nature: we are multitudes, as the science writer Ed Yong wrote; ecosystems, rather than individuals. As we have drifted farther from what Thoreau called “the actual world,” our physical, emotional and spiritual health has suffered.
Hence the growing research on how “nature exposure”—simply, time in nature—can remedy a whole range of ills, from high blood pressure and ADHD to lack of empathy and depression.
Simply put, terraphilia is essential to healthy humanity and a healthy planet.
The practice of terraphilia—the daily exercise of being mindful in a focused way—can return us to our essential humanity. Restore our sense of wonder and belonging, and our compassion for each other. It can assuage our loneliness, our hunger for something greater than the material trappings of this existence: connection, purpose, love.
Where did the idea of terraphilia come from?
The word terraphilia entered my life when Richard, my late husband, and I were searching for a term that would explain the motivation for our separate but parallel work, his abstract sculpture bringing local rocks into our everyday lives as “ambassadors of the earth,” and my writing and ecological restoration work.
We adopted ‘terraphilia,’ invented our own definition, and realized we had been practicing that affection for and connection to the earth and the planet’s living skin for decades without naming it.
Terraphilia explains my passion for writing about the community of the land (nature) and humans’ place in it, and also for “re-storying” unloved houses and blighted land. It’s all about healing and reconnecting.
The practice of terraphilia is what we need in these times. Which is why I want to share it with you.
What does it mean to practice our terraphilia?
Practicing terraphilia is not a prescription; it is an individual path of attentive and respectful daily living that issues from the learnings of head, heart and spirit. The work is an embodiment of our inheritance as human beings.
It’s about how we shape our daily lives, and the power of the decisions we make every day. It’s about choosing to live with love for this earth and our fellow passengers on the planet.
The practice of terraphilia, of honoring our part in the community of this earth, will be different for each of us. As different as our hair and skin color, our speech and language, the assemblages of genes we carry through life.
I envision this community as a safe and supportive space to explore the idea in our own unique and heartfelt ways.
Living our terraphilia leads us into a new, reciprocal relationship with this earth and all of the lives with whom we share this extraordinary planet. As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes,
“For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”
Can terraphilia make a difference?
The idea of practicing our terraphilia may at first seem inconsequential. But it is not navel gazing. What we each do in our individual lives affects others, and that change ripples outward. Practicing our terraphilia can bring out the best in us—individually and collectively. It can restore us, our fellow passengers on spaceship earth and the planet that gives us life.
Practicing terraphilia can, in fact, be what saves us all.
Blessings, Susan
