I was born in a very small country town near the city of ChunAhn in Central, South Korea. Whenever I think of my hometown, the first thing that comes to my mind is the sound of cicadas chirping noisily, and nearby streams gurgling softly. These sounds are intermixed with the familiarity of memories, of the setting sun sinking behind the nearby hills, and of a parade of the familiar faces of my parents and neighbors. These create a warm, cozy feeling of home.
Memories of my hometown are very precious to me, Ilchi Lee says that as I am sure they are to you. Hometown to most of us is more than just a place, a stretch of land marked off on an impersonal map. Home is at the very core of our lives, regardless of whether our memories of home are happy or not. Whenever we think of home, we feel a certain wistfulness and seek to preserve its’ memories, pure and unsullied. When we see our hometown changed into the latest version of a cookie cutter development, filled with concrete convenience and automation in the name of modernity and economic prosperity, we feel a certain sense of loss at the lack of the original spirit of home. We unconsciously wonder if there was something more we could have done to keep our home pristine and intact. It would be complicated to try to explain the extent of the psychological and emotional investment that we have in the concept of home.
However, it is clear that we feel we have a great stake in, and kinship with our home, precisely because it is ‘our’ home, not yours or theirs. We have a sense of identity and a feeling of connectedness to others, that comes from sharing a common home.
I live in a place called Earth.
So do you.
We are Earth-Humans.
Say the following to yourselves out loud: “I am an
Earth-Human.” Do you like the sound of it? It might sound awkward at first, but soon you will realize how true it is and wonder why it sounded awkward in the first place. Did you ever feel awkward when you said to yourself, “I am an American”? No, you probably felt a conscious or an unconscious sense of pride about being an American. Rightfully so. Then why should it sound awkward, and why shouldn’t you feel the same sense of pride when you tell yourself that you are an ‘Earth-Human?’ Say it again, out loud. Now feel the meaning of the words. When you think of the Earth, do you think of it as your home? Is your awareness deep, or large enough to accept the reality of the Earth as your home? If so, do you feel up to accepting the love, pride, and responsibility that you hold for your home, the Earth?
