I am probably in a home about half of the year between my camping/land living, animal sitting, and visiting people. I often think about how my lifestyle and the various environments I experience put me in relationship to nature. Thus, this question naturally emerges…
How can we connect more to nature while in a city or a modern house (or considering building) and thus engage with life more sustainably? By doing as the heading says! We won’t be perfect and that is not what matters — make some choices about how we interact and acknowledge how often we engage and are interdependent with water, earth, air, and fire. Ether too! — which is really the spiritual backbone of all we encounter and brings an honoring of life around us no matter what form. Ether as spirit brings perceivable and experienceable animism to plants, animals, and elements so that we empathize with and listen to them and their needs as well as our own needs (needs that are incredibly entwined). Let’s engage some of the practical and spirit-tending suggestions below where and when we possibly can. There are big and little actions listed and all of them count! Feel free to think of, name below, and do other ideas not listed as well of course.
Water
- Thank the glass of water and the shower water and feel the nourishment and cleansing. Respect that water, especially clean water, is not a given. Be mindful of how long your shower is. Appreciate the water inside and outside of us.
- Use AI sparingly since its data centers use Uranium (along with renewables, natural gas, and coal) to run which contaminates water and land at uranium mining sites. Uranium radiation exposure and contaminated ingestion leads to cancer or kidney failure. AI centers also use tremendous amounts of water for cooling and unfortunately only some recycle that water.
- Use baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, and plant essential oils rather than chemicals for cleaning counters, sinks, floors, drains and tubs and feel good knowing that you are preventing toxic chemicals from cycling into our waterways and drinking water.
- Use clean and clear detergents and dish soaps if you have a washing machine or dishwasher.
- Use washing machine used grey water on hardy plants via a hose connection. Look into other options for grey water usage/recycling.
- Cultivate a variety of native, herb, or food plants for pollinators and for eating rather than waste water on large amounts of grass.
- Flush less. If it is a mellow yellow pee then don’t flush after just one use. If it is legal (or if you don’t care if it isn’t) and you have the land space and ability then consider a compost toilet or outhouse.
- Turn the faucet off when brushing teeth or cleaning dishes and the water is not directly in use. Clean dishes with soil, dirt, snow and a small dug sump if on acres.
- Boil foods with the amount of water that is actually necessary.
- If you live by a river or can visit one play an instrument or sing a song next to that river acknowledging that you see your relationship and interdependence with that river.
- Emotions are associated with water and tears so there is an invitation here to allow what we feel to exist and ebb and flow and inform us.
Earth
- Meditate and connect to the feeling of the earth beneath your feet and butt either directly outside or beneath your home’s foundation. Breathe and see how earth holds you and can support releasing stress.
- Give thanks to the soil at your home or nearby you for supporting being alive with bugs, fungi, plants, food, footsteps and more.
- Embrace plants and trees that naturally come into being even if they do not suit your aesthetic as they are likely quite hardy, often edible, and can provide CO2 and heat offsetting.
- Compost scraps and consider making hugelkulter beds with leaves and branches around. Don’t bag up leaves. Wait to cut back dead plant life until after bug critters have appreciated stems as warm winter homes.
- Have a bin of worms for munching your foods scraps. I have seen this in apartments and homes.
- Plant guilds and native plant-life that was sustained prior to colonization and the birth of your house.
- Volunteer on a farm or permaculture garden to learn more about what to grow at home and to exchange seeds.
- Save seeds from your plantlife and trees so that we have many that are not genetically modified.
- If not protecting domestic animals (dogs, sheep, etc.) then remove fencing to allow wild animals to roam freely on their native land. This is a big leap with current paradigms about which lifeforms are more valuable than others and also lived experiences around income and survival via livestock.
- Build with earth materials such as clay, sand, and straw as is done in adobe and Cobb homes. These homes insulate very well, don’t require toxic materials to exist, and essentially can compost back where they came from when no longer in use. They produce a lot less material waste relative to plastics, modern brick, metal, coal and the like.
- Re-use any plastic bags as dog poop bags or use composting bags. Recycle and re-use cardboard and bags for carrying things.
- Make and use baskets and glass jars for storing, harvesting, or carrying food.
- Give materials to thrift stores or folks you know rather than throw them out.
- Sew and thrift materials a bit more than buy products and clothes that have had to be extensively shipped or imported. Find ethically grown or sourced cotton and wool.
- Sleep on the ground where you live under the stars or in a hammock in a well rooted tree occasionally. Feel the grounding yet elevating and enlivening nature of doing so.
Air
- Do breath work exercises for clarity, insights, and nervous system resets and thank your lungs, body, and the air for supporting you.
- Appreciate the warmth or cooling of whatever system you have that works with air. Aim to use heating that does not contaminate and pollute as much as coal does.
- Look at the vast skyscape from a building, mountain, hill, or your yard. Give gratitude for the constant performance above and around us in the form of clouds moving, the stars revealing, and the sun rising and setting with glorious and soft coloring that awakens us and puts us to sleep.
- Drive less and bicycle, walk, bus or carpool more. Or use a form of transportation that does not require as much gas or oil and pollutes less.
- Ask for more research around the benefits of windmills to generate energy and also about what is required to make them and what that impact is like.
- Buy local foods and produce rather than solely be dependent on extensive transportation for sustenance since large trucks and lots of miles causes pollution and relying on them and infrastructure may not always be possible, especially in trying times.
- Dry herbs in not humid air hanging up in a dark room.
- Hang dry laundry outside.
- Don’t use perfumes/colognes, deodorants, hair sprays, or room scents that are chemical based (or aluminum) often or at all as many people are sensitive to them and our lungs and physical health generally appreciate the lack of exposure.
- Put your hand on your heart or belly and simply feel the rise and fall of your breath that is constantly naturally with you. Give thanks for this life force and your body.
- Thoughts and discernment are associated with air so there is an invitation here to embrace the power of thought, word, and action and pair those with our hearts and empathy.
Fire
- Give thanks to your heating system, blanket, clothing, blood and body, fire place, or fire pit for providing warmth.
- Give gratitude to the sun for lighting the day again and providing nourishment, life, and warmth to plants, people, and other animals.
- Be mindful of how firearms and other weapons are used and how they impact one another and landscapes. Notice in the news how bombs impact air and earth and all people as we are interconnected in our livelihoods on this planet.
- Use less artificial lighting and electricity in general since it requires fossil fuels which are not limitless.
- See if solar panels are a good option and how long the panels and batteries can last. Embrace a dark sky and don’t use artificial lighting when unnecessary.
- Bake goods with simple outdoor solar ovens.
- Dry fruit outside in the sun in a not humid place. Store it for snacks.
- Make sun tea in a glass jar and enjoy with a friend.
- Have a Winter Solstice of Imbolc fire ceremony or circle with intention to connect to others or burn ways of being no longer serving.
- Create something, make art, or make love as fire is associated with passion, will power, and creativity.
I hope you have some fun connecting day to day actions with the life around and in us! Let me know any thoughts or feels below if you like.
In care,
Jai
