Dear Earth, help me to stop reading the news.

I am being pulled in a thousand tiny directions.

The election. Brexit. Impeachment. He said. She said. What I think about what he said. What they think about what he said. And the Amazon is still burning.

Keeping up to date with these tiny details is an attempt at feeling less afraid, less out of control. Maybe if I know everything, I could prepare for what’s coming. Maybe I could do the single right thing that would save the world.

Dear Earth, I don’t think you fret over the details. You know that it took millennia to make this lump of flint, this fragrant rose. You know that the most sustainable kind of change is slow change. You know that this worm, this robin, this magnolia tree, are all playing their appropriate part in this cosmic play.

Beloved Earth, help me to remember your glacial ease. If I take my eye off the cacophonous torrent of news, I won’t become unsafe. If I watch the bird-feeder for a while, this coal tit stuffing his beak with fat, this gaudy magpie swaggering across the veg patch, I won’t miss out. The opposite.

Help me to see what role you’ve cast me in, dear Earth – not the director, just Satya – with writing to do, cats to feed, and dirty dishes to wash. It’s a wonderful role and, when I stick to my own lines, it’s perfect for me. It’s enough.

I’m enough. And so are we all.

Love, Satya <3

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Photo by Boris Baldinger on Unsplash, with gratitude