Healing the Earth; a bedtime story

“Ok River, it’s time for sleep,” Mom said, leaning over to kiss my head.

“But I’m not sleepy Mom!” I protested. “I’m wiiide awake!”

“Well it’s time to become sleepy River,” Mom said in that way of hers, like she winked without winking, moving toward the door.

“Wait Mom!  You said you would tell me a story tonight, since I fell asleep during story-time today.”

Mom stopped in the doorway and turned back to look at me.  The light from the hallway made a golden rectangle around her.  “Hmm.  You’re right.  A deal’s a deal.  Scootch over.”

Mom squeezed onto the bed next to me and said “Ok, which story do you want to hear?”

I thought about it for a second.  “Tell me the one about how the world got made.”

Mom smiled. “Ok,” she said.  Then she closed her eyes and took a very deep breath, and she breathed it out really slow, which made me feel relaxed even though I was excited to hear the story.  “In the beginning….” Mom began.

In the beginning, there was pure energy.  It was infinite, which means it went on forever, and it was formless–it was an endless, perfect energy.  No matter how hard we try, we probably can’t really picture what that energy looks like, because it’s so different from what our brains are used to imagining.  But if we try to picture it, what do we see?  Let’s close our eyes and try to imagine pure energy.

“It looks like nothing,” I said with my eyes closed. “Ok,” Mom replied, “Maybe that’s what it looks like.  To me it looks like light, but light that I can’t see with my eyes.  Ok…let’s continue the story.

The thing about this energy that is so special, besides its infinite nature, is: it is conscious.  

“That means it can think, right Mom?”

“Right River, very good,” Mom said smiling.  Then she went back to her magical story-telling voice.

So this energy began to think.  And it discovered that when it thought, its thoughts would become forms.  It thought about space, and space existed.  It thought about time, and time existed.    It thought about gravity, and light, and electricity, and all those things existed.  It thought of stars, and stars were created.  It thought of galaxies, and planets, and dust, and sunshine, and explosions, and all these things came to be.  And they were all made out of the energy that thought of them!  Since it was infinite energy, it would never run out.  The energy loved thinking its thoughts and seeing them become.  So it kept thinking more and more.  Every single thing that exists in our universe was thought by and made out of this energy.  Eventually, as it kept thinking more and more complex thoughts, the energy came to think about Earth.

“Is the energy God?” I asked.  

“Yes River, it’s God,” Mom replied.

“This is my favorite part of the story, Mom,” I told her, snuggling closer.

“Yes,” Mom agreed, “This is a really good part.  God loves this part of the story too.”

So God thought about the Earth.  They thought about all the complex wonderful things about Earth that make it so beautiful.  They thought about the atmosphere, they thought about the oceans, they thought about solid land.  They thought about the way Earth orbits around a star and how that would create night and day.  They started thinking about Life.  They thought about grasses, and trees, and bacteria, and fungus, and insects, and reptiles.

“The dinosaurs Mom,” I interrupted, “Don’t forget about them.”

And dinosaurs.  God put a lot of thought into all these things.  God’s way of thinking is so complicated our human brains can’t really understand it, but that’s ok.  The important thing is, God keeps thinking of things.  God thought about all kinds of creatures, and they were all beautiful and good.  But then God really had a great idea.  They had thought for so long and created so many forms, and they kept making more intricate ideas, until finally they thought of a living form that could create its own thoughts. God imagined their own unlimited consciousness living inside a finite physical body.  And since God thought of it, these kinds of living forms were created, and they were all made out of the energy that thought of them, and they could use the energy they were made out of too.  They could use it to turn their own thoughts into forms, just like God does, because their thoughts were actually God’s thoughts.    

“And those were humans, right Mom?”

“That’s right River,” Mom said, giving me a little squeeze.

Now here’s where God got really inventive.  They thought how interesting it would be if the humans couldn’t remember that they were made out of God-energy and their thoughts were God’s thoughts.  If they didn’t know they were all made out of the same stuff as everything else and all part of God, then they would believe that they were all different.  They would see themselves as individuals.  Then when they met each other, they wouldn’t realize they were meeting themselves in another body–they would be completely convinced they were meeting another being entirely!  Now this was really really cool to God, because God had been hanging out with only their own infinite self for a really long time at this point, and now they had found a way to experience being with others!  It was only an illusion of course

“That means it wasn’t real, right Mom?”

“Right honey.  It seemed to be real, but it was hiding something more true underneath.

“Was God lonely before they made humans?” 

“No River, God doesn’t get lonely.  God is perfectly complete.  But God also knows how beautiful and special it is to be innocent, and to be able to learn and grow.  That’s why God became people. 

So it was an illusion.  But pretty much all the humans believed it.  And gosh, it really was interesting for God!  It was so fun to forget that they knew absolutely everything!  It was so fun and beautiful to live in different kinds of bodies and have all kinds of different feelings and experiences.  See, God knows everything, because God is everything, but when God goes into a human form and forgets about being God, then there is so much to learn and discover!  Everything is new.  Everything is amazing.  You know how babies look around at the world with googly eyes and look so amazed all the time?  That is one of God’s favorite ways to be.  They can’t get enough of it.

Mom and I both laughed at this part thinking about babies with their googly eyes.  “You know Mom, this story is kind of confusing.”  Mom laughed her happiest laugh and hugged me.  “I know it is River.  It’s the kind of story you have to sit with in your mind for years and one day it will be absolutely crystal clear.  And it will feel great!  I promise.”

I thought about that for a little while.  That was alright with me.  This story made me feel good anyway, even though it was kind of confusing.  And it made Mom feel really good.  It was her favorite story, I could tell from how she told it.  

“And then what happened Mom?” I asked.  I wanted the story to keep going on.

Well what happened was humans were happy.  They loved looking at the world googly-eyed too.  And they loved thinking of things and making those things into forms–they made families, and boats, and tools, and huts, and love, and memories, and all kinds of things.  And because they had plenty of time to sit and be still and breathe deeply, or look up at the stars, or listen to the ocean or the river or the wind in the trees, or the birds singing, pretty quickly they would remember where they came from, and that they were made out of God’s thoughts, and all their thoughts were actually God’s thoughts.  And that was a wonderful way to be too!  The process of rediscovering that information was just as beautiful as being a googly-eyed baby who didn’t know.  It made the Earth even more amazing!  So God kept thinking it to be this way.

“Did you do that Mom?” 

“Did I do what River?”

“Did you…” I stopped to think for a second. “Did you rediscover it?”

“Yes honey.” Mom looked into my eyes and smiled. “Yes I did.”  We smiled at each other. “Ok keep telling the story,” I said.

But then something else started to happen.  Humans were so good at turning their thoughts into things that they started getting distracted.  They were so amazingly gifted at inventing and creating new things, technology and medicine and buildings and vehicles, that they started to only pay attention to these things.  Eventually, they forgot that the whole point was in creation, and began to believe the things themselves were most important.  They became so interested in acquiring these things, they stopped spending as much time listening to the sounds of the Earth.   They were too distracted to listen to the ocean, or look up at the stars, or walk out into the woods and sit still and listen to what was there.  They were too distracted to spend much time sitting still with their eyes closed and listening to the quiet place inside of them.  So they stopped remembering that they were made out of God.  They kept believing in the illusion that made them perceive themselves as separate, as individuals, all different and not connected.  They stopped remembering that the world is shaped by the way they perceive it.  They stopped remembering that they were creating the world, and believed they were simply in the world.  They saw the world as a thing.  They became careless about the way they were thinking and living.  

“Mom, what does perceive mean?”

“You know what it means River.”

“Tell me again.”

“It means to see, but not only with our eyes or our physical bodies: we perceive with our minds and hearts too.

The humans that were completely distracted by acquiring things began to take over the Earth.  They began to silence all the humans who still remembered where they came from.  You see, humans used to make up stories—like this one that I made up for you—to help themselves and each other remember what they really were, and they would pass the stories down from generation to generation.  But the distracted humans started to think those stories were stupid and meaningless; they thought the stories didn’t have anything to do with the real world—which was actually the illusion remember?  The distracted humans were so attached to the illusion of being separate that they would even kill other humans who did not agree with them that it was real.  So most humans began to live out their entire lives in a state of forgetfulness.  And because they couldn’t remember, they started to feel sick.  And because they were sick, the Earth got sick too.  All of creation got sick together, because God in their human form couldn’t remember themselves and go on creating the perfect beauty they had created before.  They began thinking imperfect thoughts, dark thoughts, because they had forgotten that everything they thought would come to be—and the Earth got sicker and sicker with the darkness of their thoughts and actions.  The Earth began to die.

“I don’t want the Earth to be sick Mom,” I sniffled.  Mom always got tears in her eyes at this part of the story, and it made me so sad.  It really hurt Mom that the Earth was sick, and since it hurt Mom it hurt me too.  Mom closed her eyes and took a deep breath and breathed it out really slow, and we both felt more relaxed. “Don’t worry River,” she told me, cuddling me close and smiling. “There’s hope.  This is the hopeful part of the story, remember?

God who exists in their infinite form realized it was time to adjust the experiment of forgetfulness.  They began to think of new humans who were less forgetful.  God didn’t think it all at once: they had already tried sending a couple humans who never forgot any of it and tried to tell the other humans what they knew, but it didn’t solve the problem, because the other humans didn’t really understand what they were being told, even the ones who really wanted to.  God knew the only way for humans to start remembering themselves again was for each and every human to begin to remember in their own way.  So they kept sending humans that were a little less forgetful, every generation, a little less forgetful and a little closer to the truth.

“Am I less forgetful Mom?” I asked her, even though I knew what she was going to say because she always said it.  This was my other favorite part of the story.

“Yes River, you are one of the less-forgetful humans being sent to Earth now.

You will never forget that you are made out of God, and that everything else is made out of God as well, and this planet Earth is made out of God, and it all exists just for God to play in—God which is you, and me, and everyone and everything we know.  You will never forget that you are here to be joyful in nature.  You are here to be compassionate to others—because there are no others; we are all one, we are all God’s yearning to experience Love.  Otherness is an illusion.  Love is real.  And if you ever start to forget, and you start to feel sick in your heart or your mind or your body, you will walk out into the forest and listen to the birds, or sit beside the ocean, or lie in the grass and look up at the stars, or if you can’t do any of those things, you will simply be still and close your eyes and listen to the quiet space within, and all of it will tell you exactly who you are and how you came to be.  You will always remember that to be alive in your body is one of God’s favorite ways to be.  You will always remember that you have a precious gift to bring to the world, which is the beauty that you create with your thoughts and ideas.  You will always remember that what you do matters.  You will always remember that you are significant.  You will always strive to think the thoughts that are the best for the Earth, and for yourself, and for all of creation.  And because of this, and because of all the less-forgetful humans like you all over the globe, the Earth will heal.  The Earth will heal, and we will live in harmony and joy, peace and truth, united in Love, forever and ever and ever. 

“Are you sleepy now River?” Mom asked.“Yes Mama,” I murmured sleepily.  She leaned over to kiss my head, and I fell asleep.