VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 7, SECTION 1
What Earth Gives, Free: This Is Already Paradise
The last chapter settled the person in the human world. This section lifts the eyes from the person to the ground beneath the person, and asks what that ground is. It is Earth, the one and only paradise. Not paradise in a figure of speech, but in plain fact: Earth gives us, free and without asking, the things no wealth can buy and no tool can make. Reckon them one by one, and you see that this is already paradise, and that we have been standing in it all along without knowing.
First, the air. Every breath, drawn without a thought, without a coin. From the first breath at birth to the last at death, the air is there, given, free. No one is billed for it, no one runs short of it, no one must earn the right to breathe. Stop the air three minutes and a life is gone. This thing, without which no life lasts minutes, Earth gives to every living creature, free, always, asking nothing. Reckon its worth and no wealth on Earth could buy it. It is beyond price, and it is free. That alone is a gift past all giving.
Second, the water. The rain falls, the springs rise, the rivers run, the water that makes up the most of a living body, given by Earth, free. A person lives days without food and not many without water. This thing, the very stuff of life, flows down from the sky and up from the ground, given. Third, the soil. The ground underfoot, that grows the grain, holds the roots, bears all that lives, given. From it comes every mouthful of food, given by Earth through the soil, free. Fourth, the sunlight. The sun rises each day, pouring down warmth and light, free, on all alike, the rich man's roof and the poor man's field, asking nothing. Without it no grain would ripen, no life would warm, the whole Earth a frozen dark. This light and warmth, on which all life leans, given each day, free.
Fifth, the turning seasons. Spring to summer, autumn to winter, round without end, sowing and growing, reaping and storing, each in its time. This turning, that lets the grain ripen and life keep its rhythm, given by Earth, free, and steady past the reckoning of any calendar a person could keep. Sixth, the smoke and warmth of the human world. On this ground, under this sun, within these seasons, people gather into families and villages, light the evening fires, sit round the table, nod in the lane, raise the young and tend the old, and the whole warm, faithful round of human days rises up, the ordinary warmth of the human world. This too Earth bears and holds, the one place in all the vastness where such warmth can be. Seventh, life that renews itself without end. The grass withers and springs green again. One generation goes and the next is born. Life on this Earth does not run out. It renews itself, on and on, endless. This renewing, that a thing does not end when one life ends but rises again in the next, is the deepest gift of all, and Earth gives it, free.
Air, water, soil, sunlight, the turning seasons, the warmth of the human world, life that renews without end. Set these seven side by side and reckon them true. Not one can be made by any tool. Not one can be bought by any wealth. Not one can be found, so far as we have looked, anywhere else in all the reach of the heavens. And all seven, Earth gives us together, free, asking nothing in return. If this is not paradise, what is? People picture paradise as somewhere else, above the clouds, beyond the stars, a far place to be reached after long striving. They do not see that the paradise they picture is already here, under their feet, around them, in every breath. We were born into paradise and have lived in it all our days, and only for its being always there, always free, have we ceased to see it.
This not-seeing is itself a thing to be grieved, and a thing to wake from. What is always there, always free, the eye slides over, and the heart takes for nothing, no wonder in it. The air is not wondered at until it is foul. The water is not wondered at until it is fouled. The soil until it is poisoned, the seasons until they are thrown out of order. People wake to the worth of these gifts only when they begin to be lost. But the worth was there all along, unchanged. What changed is only whether the eye could see it. So this section is set here to say, before the loss, while the gifts are still whole: look, and see. See that you stand in paradise. See that Earth gives you, free, what no wealth could buy and no tool could make. To see this is the first turn of the heart: from taking the gift for nothing, to knowing it for the boundless gift it is, and from knowing it, to the wish to guard it. Only one who sees he stands in paradise will grieve to see it wounded, and move to keep it whole. The next section carries this on: if Earth is paradise, why does so much of this world look like a pit? Because heaven and hell are two faces of this one planet, and which face shows turns on the human heart.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.