Click, click, click… My shoulder’s movement reels back in the memory like an old school film at the cinema. The thing is, my body didn’t get caught up to speed with the fact that these images on the big screen, the intrusive surround sound blaring through the speakers, are all but a distant memory being reintroduced for entertainment purposes. My body did not get ushered into a lousy movie theater seat and get told to enjoy the show. Instead, my body slept walked its way towards that big screen, Drowning itself in the imagery and the voices and the memory… Convincing itself that we were back in the same moment, where the fascia in my trapezius muscles uncomfortably squirmed themselves together in a sloppy pathetic knot that my body clings onto. You see? My body nonconsensually acted as my armor growing up. Reflecting as much of the impact from my childhood that it could. My body knew that my delicate developing brain could only handle so much, so it subconsciously acted as the hero of my own story as it sacrificed itself for the greater good. The creaking of my joints, the scars on my wrist and on my face, the urgency of my breath… They all act as bonus material that comes at the end of a movie. Reminding me that my story doesn’t have an ending just yet. The credits play and life goes on. The audience moves on… So why can’t the main character separate herself from the role that she played In that distant memory? Critics called it commitment. They called it art. They said that they had never seen something so tragically beautiful… I guess that’s what they call it? Tragically beautiful, when they see the shell of a woman laying soulless and empty on the floor after giving them the best version of herself she could ever offer. No matter how disconnected from herself she became in the process… I have learned the value of taking my body outside the limiting and triggering walls of the theater. To pull her away from the big screen and the surround sound. I plant my calloused and cracked feet in the soil, to ground. I sway with the ever-changing breeze, to free. I immerse myself in big bodies of water, to soothe. My body has earned her right to regulation long ago and Gaia offers her healing hand for help. Within her grasp my body feels safe enough to let my guard down and release the emotional experience my body has held onto for dear life. Since the development of the memory... Mother Earth holds me close and remains patient with my process. For she has all of the time in the world! …Or at least she did… Now I can’t help but notice that all of the advertisements and sneak peeks to the future that play before the beginning of the movie, they all foreshadow the same maltreatment that my body survived happening, too, towards Mother Earth’s expansive and lively form. Our planet acts as our very own magic wishing well. On a continuous loop humans throw random shit into her depths and wish for more. More, more, more… Because what we have now will never be enough. In exchange for the shit we give our magic supplier and restorer, Earth makes our dreams, our wildest wishes come true. Even if she must strip her own body, destroy herself in the process to give us what we want. Our planet, our home, our life force is dying because of the selfish wishes of humans. And we don’t care. Now when I tell you that this cold hard truth breaks my heart rips me open and causes me to live in an existential reality, you don’t understand the depths to the trauma bond I share with our planet. During the times in my life when I had disconnected from everyone and everything, Gaia beckoned me to rest on top her nurturing bosom. She gave me the time freedom regulation to purge myself of all the shit that was filling me up, weighing me down. Days on end I remained here until I had the strength to stay standing on my own two feet. Gaia taught me that as long as my feet stay planted on her soil I will have the power and magic needed to change our human world. That is how I repay her. I owe it to Mother Earth to bring people back to the innate roots that connect people to planet. She deserves that, Hell, even we deserve that! Everywhere I look I see deep suffering… 30 years, y’all. That’s what they say we have left. 30 years… And the credits will roll and we will all move on. -KN
