Why is a ‘wildscaped world’ a planet that is in love with every part of itself?

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I have found it very hard to write this section of the handbook without worrying about turning away readers who’ve bought this book for the practical ‘how to’ steps and don’t want to be distracted by seemingly pointless philosophy. Please bear with me as I try to explain how talking about ’love’ is actually a practical step and one of the most powerful tools that we can utilise to live wildly, freely and in harmony with our world (wildscaping our world)...

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What is love, really?

  

‘Love’ is a word that we have placed on our most comfortable, thriving, safe, default state of being. When we are present in our default loving nature, we care for ourselves and other beings (we experience a state of ecstasy) and we enable ourselves and other beings to thrive (and so our planet thrives).

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Our world is manifested and driven by ‘love’ (although it may not seem it, at times).

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If we close our eyes, empty our minds and allow the word ‘love’ to drift into our consciousness, we become very aware of a potent, powerful creative force (the creative force that IS our cosmos, itself, manifesting, nurturing, sustaining and recycling all of us, over and over). The state of being - that we call ‘love’ - is what we are made of and it keeps us all going. We ARE the creative and nurturing force - that we have labelled ‘love’ - itself, if we think about how our bodies run & heal ourselves as a constantly self renewing life force until we are recycled by the planet to become a new form of being.

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When we are present/aware in this ‘loving/ creative’ state of being, we are driven to act in what we have deemed a ‘loving’ manner, which ‘creates’ (birthing new life forms) and nurtures and helps all life forms to freely and lovingly sustain themselves: enabling the presence of the maximum number of life forms on our planet to exist at once.

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What we call ‘love’ is the state of being (our default state of being) that enables us to love ourselves - exactly as we are - which further enables us to love all of the world around us.

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It is the state of being that motivates us to play a part in enabling our planet to thrive. As ‘loving’ beings we are highly motivated to...

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- Help and lift up any other beings around us.

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- Experience resilience within/against the destructive forces of sadness, despair & fear (these are all just a feeling we experience when we are unaware of - too disconnected from - our default loving setting. More on that later).

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- Help other beings create life by helping them to seed or helping other beings bring life into the world (this is very different from the commercialisation of life - through farming - for our own human benefit). When we lovingly enable other beings to come into existence (like planting the seeds of a plant purely so that it can manifest its potential or putting food out for foxes/hedgehogs for them to take back to their young) we also acknowledge them as wild and equal to us and equally deserving of freedom, to live life on their own terms.

 

- Nurse other beings (humans or animals or even plants and more) through injury and illness and work with them (nurturing them) so that they can prosper again.

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- Find ways to cohabit and collaborate (over and above fighting for territory and resources).

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In short, ‘love’ is the enabler of a flourishing, harmonious planet where we all get to live in wild acceptance of one another & in much greater wonder and joy within one anothers’ presence.

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To remark briefly on the the previously mentioned ‘destructive’ forces (sadness, despair & fear)... I do not think that these emotions are the opposite of ‘love’. Rather, what makes the most sense to me is that they are an inbuilt trigger to call us back to our default setting as a ‘loving’ being. When we are afraid, sad and despairing it is because we are not feeling held enough and feeling loved enough. As we become aware that loving ourselves (and being loved by others) is a possibility, love washes away (and it can literally feel like that, internally) fear, despair and sadness, leaving no room for those feelings to be present.

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What about when we actively hurt another being, for sport or under the guise of laboratory work and the ‘greater good’, for example?

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We cannot harm another being without suffering ourselves, however deeply our suffering is suppressed, so that we may be unaware of it. When we deliberately hurt another being, we are hurting the planet and ultimately ourselves (as we are one and the same planet).

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If we do not love ourselves (do not know how to) and we feel unloved and unheld by the world in general, we harm other beings as a way of hurting ourselves: as we inflict suffering on another being we inflict suffering (ultimately) on ourselves and subconsciously we are aware of this.  Coming back into a state of loving being is our way to not inflict suffering on others.

 

When we truly love ourselves, we love and nurture others (we have no desire to cause suffering and it hurts

us badly - in that present moment - to cause suffering in another being).

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*[EXTRACT FROM THE HANDBOOK]