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1 week ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello, Friends,I’m on the road today and was not going to post, but then… I received a gift out of the air and I want to share my gratitude, plus the lesson I take from it. As I say in the video above (which I made for social media, but it seems fitting to share it with you too), it’s been a super-difficult couple of weeks for me, both personally and in the world at large. I’ve really struggled to keep my light shining and to find positive ways to interact with daily life.
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2 weeks ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello Friends! It’s May Day, Beltane (behel-tin-eh) in the Celtic calendar, a day that here in the Northern Hemisphere marks the transition to “pastoral summer,”as Julia Swanson calls it in her Vedic astrology forecast for May. “Pastoral” because Beltane marks the day when the flocks and herds leave the home farm to graze more widely on summer pastures.
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3 weeks ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello Friends,How did you celebrate Earth Day? I played hooky, something I try to do once a month, and rode the rim of the Gunnison Gorge with a friend who is generous enough to share their horses. The weather was gloriously warm, with just enough breeze to keep the high-desert sun from feeling hot. The sere landscape spreads to the far horizon, revealing the very bones that shape canyon and mesa, cliff and wash. The snow-capped peaks in the distance were crisp against a bluebird-blue sky.
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3 weeks ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Welcome to Practicing Terraphilia, your invitation to reconnect with the source of our strength, grounding and inspiration: nature and this amazing, animate planet.I’m glad you’re here!terraphilia n. An intrinsic affection for and connection to the earth and its community of lives. Without this bond we are lonely, lacking, no longer whole.
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4 weeks ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello Friends,I am angry and anguished about what is going on in our country. The daily examples of greed and corruption; the lies, intimidation, racism and misogyny. This is not the America I thought I knew. And I am not going to pretend everything will be okay. I don’t know if it ever will be. But I do know if we don’t each speak up, act up and stand up for what is right, it’s going to get much worse.
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1 month ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
terraphilia n. An intrinsic affection for and connection to the earth and its community of lives. Without this bond we are lonely, lacking, no longer whole. Origin: terra, Latin, literally ‘earth’; philia, from the Greek, ‘fondness.’Hello Friends,We’re living in a time of chaos and uncertainty, when it seems as if all that many of us value—compassion, generosity, embracing those who are different, caring for this earth—is being destroyed.
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2 months ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello, Friends,I am writing you today because I am sad and angry. In the past two months, an estimated 3,400 employees of the US Forest Service and 2,300 US Department of Interior employees (including 1,000 National Park Service staff) have been fired. That’s on top of thousands more (2,700 in the Interior Department alone) who resigned following Elon Musk’s infamous “fork in the road” memo encouraging them to leave immediately rather than be fired later. I was once one of these employees.
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2 months ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello Friends,I feel like we’re living in a cyclone, all howling winds and fearful noise. The constant churn of change ratchets up our stress and anxiety, and makes it difficult to focus and take action, even to simply live. Which is why I am leaning in to terraphilia. Practicing that cell-level attachment to a world larger and more lasting than human concerns reminds us to live with love and care, to stay centered, connected and kind.
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2 months ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello Friends,I want to share a shining example of the practice of humans’ innate terraphilia, our species affection for and affiliation with this earth and the planet’s web of life. Meet Dr. Tim Cernak, a pharmaceutical chemist at the University of Michigan, who, after a career in Big Pharma developing drugs to fight cancer and other human diseases, pivoted to finding and testing medicines to help plants and non-human animals.
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2 months ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
When I am stuck and cannot dig myself out, I go home to nature. I head for someplace where I can hear myself think. —Susan J. Tweit, Walking Nature Home, A Life’s JourneyCreating chaos is a terrifyingly effective way to neutralize opposition. Chaos and confusion overwhelm the senses, flood the brain with too much information and render the body helpless, at least momentarily. There’s a whole field of research about how overstimulation shuts down our brains, our nervous systems and our bodies.
