When we speak the charming phrase “Mother Earth,” we are saying something of great significance. The Earth is indeed our mother. We are creatures born of the elements of which the Earth is composed, the same elements that make up plants, the other animals, the minerals, the natural chemicals and compounds of this heavenly body we know as our earth and our dear mother. The universe is a great thing, and we are just beginning to understand things about it. Scientists speculate that this universe started with a “big bang.” For we Easterners it was something like the “sound of One Hand clapping.” There were no creatures such as us to hear it...and the question is sometimes asked “if a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?” If the birthing of our universe was violent, is the preciousness and beauty of life any less for it? If life is brief is it any less meaningful or beautiful? If the self dies and becomes another part of nature should we be unhappy? We are all as God made us in that first “WORD.” The destiny of the universe and all of it’s parts was determined to the end of time until the expanding universe recedes and collapses upon itself to generate the inconceivable power for creation for the next universe. Every new universe created has infinite possibilities for new forms of being. There are an infinite number of universes created. We certainly will reappear in different forms in this universe or the next. The Buddhist says “When you hear someone knocking, go to the door and greet yourself.” In the same way, when you see a cat or a dog or a tree or a flower, remember that you are greeting what you have been or what you will become. We are all one thing, just a different aspect of it. And, we are all bonded together on this spaceship Earth: if the plants die we die, if the animals die, we die. Our aboriginal brothers and sisters speak of “the One Tree.” Their vision is right, we are all living in one tree, our home in the forest of the universe. Our Mother Earth, in her infinite silent wisdom through the billions of years of expansion through time knows how to balance her children for their greatest good. Malthus said that a population will expand to the limits of it’s resources. We see that in the Petri dish with bacteria. The bacteria grows in the center of the gelatin and expands outward. The bacteria in the center die from the poisons excreted by the living processes of the bacteria. The bacteria near the fresh gelatin on the outer ring have resources and live until they have expanded their population to the limit and all of the bacteria on the dish die. Although we think we are more aware and more considerate of our circumstance than mere bacteria, the human population continues to expand. We create much refuse by our activities and the cities such as New York are running out of places to dump the garbage. Some of our rivers in the 1960’s could not support life. We have temporarily slowed the progress of the poisoning of our environment, but the population continues to grow and so does the refuse. As with bacteria,