"We need to pray," Elias said one afternoon. We both sat silent. Pray? What did that mean to us?...While we meditated regularly and valued times of silence and contemplation the notion of prayer  awakened in us a new desire - the desire for a communal liturgy directed toward healing human-Earth relations. We wanted to link our personal spiritual life with that of the entire biosphere. Perhaps everything prays - not only humans!...

This book is a call to prayer. Several years ago, as we began to grasp the extent of the damage being done to the Earth's life systems, we were filled with deep sadness. So much is being lost - so much richness and natural beauty that our children will never know, perhaps never even miss! How can we heal all that we have disrupted and polluted? Of course, our society and our daily lives have to change. Yet healing of our relationship with this planet needs to emerge from our hearts and our spirits...

Earth prayer is a tradition with a particular meaning for our time. Faced as we are now with the diminishing richness and vitality of life on Earth, we need to understand and re-experience our unity with the natural world. Fostering this transformation is the challenge and task of our generation....

 The beauty of Earth Prayer is that it reminds us that we are not alone in this task. In forest clearings, beneath star studded skies, in cathedrals, and before the hearth, men and women have always given voice to this impulse. In these prayers of the Earth we join our voice with theirs to call forth the healing that is so needed.

Listening to the Earth, an Australian perspective from Daly River, NT

 "Dadirri" is the inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness.
It recognises the deep spring that is inside us.
This is the gift that Australia is thirsting for.

When I experience "dadirri" I am made whole again.
I can sit on the river bank or walk through the trees;
Even if someone close to me has passed away,
I can find my peace in this silent awareness.
In this silent awareness, there is no need of words.

Our Aboriginal culture has taught us to be still and to wait.
We do not try to hurry things up.
 We let them follow their natural course - like the seasons.
We wait for the rain to fill our rivers and water the thirsty earth;
twilight comes, we prepare for the night...at dawn we rise with the sun.
We watch the bush foods
and wait for them to ripen before we gather them.
We wait for our young people as they grow,
 stage by stage through their initiation ceremonies.
When a relation dies, we wait a long time with the sorrow.
We own our grief and allow it to heal slowly...

We wait on God too.
His time is the right time.
We wait for him to make his Word clear to us.
We don't worry. We know that in time in the spirit of "dadirri"
his way will be clear.

In our Aboriginal way, we learn to listen from our earliest days...
This is the normal way for us to learn - not by asking questions.
We learnt by watching and listening, waiting then acting...
for 40,000 years.

We are River People.
We cannot hurry the river.
We have to move with its currents.

We are River people.
We have to move with its currents
and understand its ways.

Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann

Ngangiwumirr language group, Daly River, NT

for more on Dadirri, click here