Mother Earth’s great patterned flow

(This is an evolution of poem, My Dad’s Big Toe which I wrote in December 2021. I suspect it will always be a work in progress)

There’s so much we must change and learn
If we earthlings are to play our turn
Quickly and with conviction
To prevent our human extinction

The good news? 
Is that much of what we need to know, and to sow
Is etched within deep time’s truths and tales
At both macro and micro scales

Together, we must learn to go
With mother Earth’s great patterned flow
To follow evolutionary route maps
Avoiding extraction and distraction pits and traps

To trace a 13.7 billion year logic
Neither random or ideologic
An eco-logic stitched through time
With its own poetic rhythm and rhyme

Let nature be our guide
To help us navigate with a careful, pacy stride
Through this complex entangled web
To realise a future of collective enlivenment

Let’s not forget, in evolutionary scales 
Our human existence pales
We, like specks of moon dust, just briefly settled
Upon Earth’s open petals

If we wish to nestle down and stay 
Cast deeper roots and joyfully play
We need to learn to work and live within nature’s fractals
Those beautiful patterns and spirals

That repeat, renew and evolve
As sure as sun, moon and earth revolve
Distributive and diverse
In the twisting, turning dance of the universe

If we are to survive
We must end the capitalist, imperialist drive
Instead, we must strive
To flourish and thrive

As Earth’s first species
With the means and abilities
To consciously enquire into nature’s mysteries
We can chose to help life build on life

This is love work
Flexing our hearts
Making our art 
Moving our bodies

We can choose to follow and enhance
The planetary dance
And long romance
Of Earth’s staggered advance

Let’s use our capacity, for conscious
And intentional collective action
To change and challenge western extraction 
And materialist distraction

To end reductive, destructive narratives
That value life and nature below
A longing for capital to grow
And grow

To put an end to poverty and pain
To exploitation for personal gain
We can choose to build life affirming structures
To heal ruptures

To get to the root of adversity
To embrace and design for diversity
To enrich our ecology and study cosmology
To end oppression and dispossession

If the Anthropocene
Is the result of man-made greed and machine
Western values, beliefs and ego
That put man’s individual wealth and power before the eco

That detached logic from nature
Mind from body and soul
Science from art
And head from heart

To survive and thrive
We must now make way for the rise
Of women and the global south
And a logic that derives from nature’s mouth

Let's learn to look around and see
Where in the world and in history
Our species have learnt to live free
In health and in harmony 

With open hearts, hands and mind
We can intentionally learn to weave and bind
As integrated threads
In one glistening complex web

Realigning what we think, feel and do
Paying attention to the whole and the glue
We must redesign systems and structures 
To be less fragile to tears and ruptures

We can choose to nurture not neglect
Our interdependence as people, plant and insect
Bound to each other
As sister, brother, mother and lover

Not just bound, but as one
Inseparable part of the sum
Ingredients in nature’s batter
In mind and in matter

Investing in
Relationships as our our strongest currency
And in our collective wellbeing and health 
As the true source of power and wealth 

The machine, can turn green
Based on patterns more organic, than mechanic
Regenerative and resilient 
They’ll be brilliant!

Together, with love  
We can turn wounds to wisdom
And fear to freedom
Joy and hope

In short
Our compassion, curiosity and courage to be
Can set us free
This is our superpower
In this critical hour

As agents of Gaia
Our ancestral mother and life supplier
Let’s stand and act together, with solidarity and humanity

The alternative is just plain insanity!