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5 days 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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1 week 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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4 weeks 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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1 month 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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1 month 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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1 month 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.
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2 months ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedlittle vine, leaves lobed twines through fall-cured grass blooms shocking scarletThis little being is trans-Pecos morning glory, a native annual wildflower that sprouted on the roadside near my house after our late August rains, and is just beginning to bloom. Each vivid scarlet flower is barely the size of my thumbnail, and there are dozens of buds coming. Sadly, I think their hummingbird pollinators have already flown south.
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2 months ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello Friends! Last month life handed me lemons. Not just a few, a whole tree-full of the tart yellow citrus fruit. So I did what I normally do when I am surprised by something not so great: get quiet and think about it. I looked each of those metaphorical lemons over, sniffed them, squeezed one to taste that tongue-puckering juice and thought about the lemon-dump. We all have our own way of dealing with bad news.
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2 months ago | 
practicingterraphilia.substack.com | Susan J. Tweit
Hello Friends,We’re close to the autumnal equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere, when the days and nights are equal length. The word equinox is made up of equi for “equal,” and nox for “night”—as in when the nights are equal to the days.