EarthCraft

I had an epiphany over the holidays. Or rather an epiphany that has been growing all year has finally blossomed into full brilliant light. I finally made a new religion. There are no gods. Nor priests. I did decide that ordination would be good if only to officiate at life celebrations and to be better able to officially help those in need. But I am not a ruler. Perhaps a mother. That is what it most feels like. I have given birth to this being that is whole unto itself and not mine to order about. I do not feel like its my creation, more my charge. I am its care-taker in its infancy. I do not doubt that others have exactly the same ideas. But I feel that maybe my writing them down and openly sharing them is the way to bring them to light and life in this time of darkness and extinction. I hope that this religion, this binding rule, transcends me and that my role is utterly forgotten. I hope that it becomes The Way of Being, that it becomes the reflex mode of human life. And I hope that it brings the same hope to you as it brought to me over the Winter Holidays.

The Friendship of Earth

EarthCraft is a celebration of all life.

We are the Friendship of Earth, the Earthlings, the EarthCrafters, the EarthWorks. We are the carers and stewards. We are the lovers and children. We are those who live in abundance and wide-eyed wonder. We are the Friendship of Earth.

We are not a faith of words, but works. We are the doers and makers and beings. We are not oriented around transcending this life. We are living it fully and joyfully. We are a religion, a binding of praxis, rules for being human, rules for being Earth creatures. We do no harm. We aim to heal the sickness and salve the pain. We create no waste of life, no destruction of ways of being, including our own. We are the menders, and in that we are the creators of joy.

We do not fret about ontology. We know why we are here. We are alive. That is all there is. That is all we need. That is all we want. We are here to care for each other and our places. There is no higher purpose than that love in practice.

We are not concerned about eschatology. We are not living for some life beyond life. We do not want or need more than we are. We are living in this life from birth to death fully grounded and alive to our place. We are embodied and at home here where we belong. We are awake and aware of here and now and do not wish for anything more than this all we have been given at our birth.

We do not have deities prescribing and proscribing our actions and thoughts. We do not have hierarchies of humans who claim to have occult knowledge that places them above us. No, we follow none. We are the masters of ourselves and our fates. We are, all of us, responsible care-takers and home-makers. We are charged with being.

We may celebrate these beings that we can’t perceive with human senses. But they are not gods. Not omnipotent and omnipresent. They are people, albeit those whom we can not comprehend. But they are neither above or below. They are simply people of Earth, our neighbors and friends with different kinds of lives. They may appear to us as rocks and trees and rivers. They may not appear to us at all. But they are living beings with their own desires and needs and ways that are certainly more than they seem to us. We don’t need to imbue them with eternity and magical powers because we do not speak their language or live in their time and ways. We strive to live with them and appreciate them as they are, knowing that we may never perceive all they are and that is the way it should be.

We may celebrate other humans who have broken out of our limited ideas of individual selves and unlimited wants. But they are not gods either. Nor kings. They would not wish to be perceived as superior to others. In life they professed a desire to love and be loved, to care, to be friends to all. To work for the happiness of this world. To live fully and deeply. They do not want to be god-kings. They want to be our friends and helpers. They want to teach us to be our own selves fully embodied and richly imbued with this grounding love. They want us to do good works because in this practice is joy. They are not god-kings. They are us as we want to be.

We are not the only thinking beings on this planet. We may be the only thinking being on this planet that has not yet understood this. We may be the only thinking beings that think we are alone. Earthcraft strives to mend that isolation and anomie. We are a Friendship. A Gathering of all Ways. We are Earthlings together on this magnificent home planet — which we acknowledge also has her own ways and life. And thoughts and dreams. And bodily needs.

These are the words of Elizabeth Anker in 2022. They are free to grow and spread as they will.

The Friendship of Earth

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