I’m Sorry – An Open Letter to Mother Earth
Dear Mother Earth,
I am sorry. When I think about what we humans have done to you I feel ashamed and embarrassed. You have been in existence much longer than we have and yet we were foolish enough to take on the role of caretaker, so long ago, but we have proven to be unworthy of such a role. I guess I cannot take all the blame myself, nor should I really, as when I examine my life and how I have lived it, it has been one of conscience and care. I am sorry though for how I was misinformed in my upbringing, not by my parents mind you, as they were duped just as badly as I was, never giving thought to how you were treated. Although there were good people out there trying to correct the wrongs being perpetrated against you, I guess the message they were sending out did not reach everyone or affect them the same way.
I recall as a little boy the television commercials of the Native American man named Iron Eyes Cody looking upon your polluted land, water and air and crying. Those images and messages affected me very deeply and I have been careful ever since. Nonetheless, I am sorry for my lapses. I am sorry for my use of plastic. I know it never goes away and that it has been stuffed into your belly and chokes your waters. I am sorry that I never raised my voice against plastic and argued for your sake to my parents who thought nothing of it. Had I known it was so detrimental I would have. Now I am at a loss. Everything comes in plastic and I do not know what to do with it. No one ever told me that most of the plastic, even the recyclable type, never gets recycled. Nor was I told that the plastic that does get recycled is shipped off to Asian countries where poor people root through it and then remelt it into a toxic sludge that will get reused into something, but not before it poisons them and chokes the air with its noxious black smoke. For that I am sorry.
I am sorry that as I was being educated as an engineer that I did not connect the dots and see that in the course of using science to make life better for humanity it was making things worse for you. I am sorry that I did not realize that I could have directed my engineering fervor to find solutions that would make life better for us and at the same time not make it worse for you. I am sorry for not questioning my teachers about the technologies they were advancing if they would do harm rather than just worrying about how to make them function. I am sorry for not realizing that the engineering systems I studied were just smaller parts of the whole of your system and that they would affect the whole in ways that we never imagined. I am sorry that in the course of being an engineer resources were extracted from you to make machines that brought more harm to you than good. I am sorry that we scientists and engineers have forsaken you for the monetary gains that our technologies can bring. I am sorry that we scientists and engineers formed alliances with greedy financiers who would rather see a beneficial technology that would be safe for you be put to death if it meant that they could not make a profit from it. I am sorry that in our effort to extract clean energy from you we develop methods that pollute you beyond belief and that we keep how toxic those methods are to ourselves lest the public rage against us. I am sorry that we cannot seem to understand that polluting you will kill us before it kills you.
I am sorry that in my current profession as a nature and landscape photographer concerned about your preservation that I have to drive a vehicle to the places where I photograph and to the places where I display the photographs and try to educate people about your importance that consumes petroleum in obscene quantities. I am sorry that I even have to use petroleum as an energy source. When as I student, I and team of 30 other students designed and built a car that worked completely and cleanly on solar energy and used it to travel over 1000 miles across the United States that I did not champion such clean energy so that today it might be the norm. I am sorry that I have to pay taxes that help fund unjust wars against innocent people just so that the oil-thirsty nation I live in can continue to quench its thirst for oil.
I am sorry for the arrogant pursuit of poisonous radio-active alternate forms of energy that just continue to hurt you, us and all living things on your back. We have no clue how to properly contain its power, or how to dispose of its waste and in our sheer stupidity think that if it is out of sight it is out of mind and does not exist, so we bury it deep inside of you or dump it deep into your oceans. I cannot seem to understand why we seeing past our own noses into the future and realizing we are just digging our own graves eludes us, and for that stupidity, I am sorry. Worse yet, we turn to using the waste as ammunition for the guns that we turn on ourselves and spray it all over the land poisoning not only the water we drink but the food that we eat and the dust that inadvertently finds its way into our lungs. We kill our selves and sentence our offspring to gross and unjust deformities that will eventually exterminate all of us, and for that I am sorry. I find it ironically poetic that you, my dear Mother, will not clean up the mess that we make. I hope we get the message, but I must apologize once again for our lack of understanding in how to care for the place we live, on your back.
I am sorry for our hubris to think that we have unraveled the mysteries of the genetic code and think that we can change small things to alter our food without it harming the whole of creation. I am sorry that we produce seeds that do not reproduce themselves and then lay claim on the rights to own it so that we can profit from what the seeds produce one time. You give us seeds that produce for us over and over in manifold gain without cause or concern for profit. Your generosity shames us in comparison, and for that I am sorry. I am sorry for the use of chemicals that kill your life giving oxygen-producing plants and that kill the insects that feed on the crops we grow, teaching us how to share, because we deem them an annoyance. I am sorry that we use such toxins and fail to realize that once they breakdown into their constituent parts they cause an imbalance in the male-female populations that you so carefully crafted for millenia. I am sorry that we have failed to learn from your wisdom and generosity.
I am sorry for the insanity that we must exhibit in striving to reach other planets and pondering on ways for us to live there while we systematically are killing you. Maybe those madmen know we are driving in the last few nails into your coffin and they are looking for a means of escape, or a new place to destroy. I am sorry that we do not spend our wealth amongst ourselves in preserving the beautiful home you have already provided us. Maybe someday we will learn.
I am sorry for what we have done to you bringing you to your current state. You ail today, your fever is rising, and yet we turn a blind eye and deaf ear to your illness because the change will cost us too much financially. I am sorry for the nonsensical logic that we use to justify the status quo. It is hilariously-sad to me to see the wealthy trying to hold on to something they will never get to take with them once they die and they fail to use it for the benefit that it can bring before they return to you as dust. I am sorry for the sad state that humans have devolved to where greed above all else matters most even at the cost of severing their own lifeline so embedded in you. I am sorry that humans as a whole have not learned how to be as generous as you have been to us for all these eons. I am appalled that we cannot seem to understand the value of a seed over the value of the fruit bore from it. For each fruit is of its own, while in a seed lies 70 to 700 times its self in the fruit it will bear. I am sorry we do not give back to you in the like quantity that you give to us. It seems that everything on your back knows the meaning of balance except us and for that I am sorry.
I am frightened that as our Mother, you are ready to discipline us with your chastisement for our wrongs. We do not seem to hear your scolding and I fear it will not be long before the mulberry-switch comes out.
I know your chastisement will be stern, but please have mercy on us. We are fools and know not what we are doing.
Please accept this apology from me and from those who sign on to this letter as well. We do care and we are trying our best in a system that has gone completely wrong.
Sincerely,
Youssef M. Ismail ~ Organic Light Photography
Tim Gray
Guy Tal ~ Guy Tal Photography
Bret Edge ~ Bret Edge Photography
Michael E. Gordon ~ Michael E. Gordon Photography
Dali Delos Reyes
Mujtaba Ghouse
Alice Gray
Gary Crabbe ~ Enlightened Images
Mark Graf ~ Mark Graf Photography
Floris van Breugel ~ Art In Nature Photography
Terese Boeck
Rabbi Gershon Steinberg-Caudill ~ EcoRebbe
Nancy Schwalen
Mary Ann Donegan
Iskandar Soekardi
Ginny Kalila
David Leland Hyde ~ Landscape Photography Blogger
Larry Kimball ~ Pronghorn Wildlife Photography
PJ Finn ~ PhotoMontana.net
Brad Mangas ~ Nature & Wilderness Photography
John Strong ~ Visual Notebook
Mark Fenwick ~ Fascinating Photography
Greg Russell ~ Alpenglow Images
Patty Hankins ~ Beautiful Flower Pictures
Alexandra Mitchell
Tim Gray on 15 Jul 2012 at 9:28 pm #
Kyrie Eleison. Lord have Mercy.
Guy Tal on 16 Jul 2012 at 9:03 am #
Very well stated, Youssef. Sign me up.
Bret Edge on 16 Jul 2012 at 9:10 am #
Very moving letter, Youssef. I’m in.
Michael E. Gordon on 16 Jul 2012 at 9:39 am #
Well written, Youssef. I share your sorrow. Thanks for putting this out there.
Dali Delos Reyes on 16 Jul 2012 at 10:20 am #
To me a great prayer, thx for writing it Youssef!
Mujtaba on 16 Jul 2012 at 12:19 pm #
Well put,
thank you
Alice Gray on 16 Jul 2012 at 9:45 pm #
Thank you, Youssef. I, too share your sorrow.
Youssef Ismail on 16 Jul 2012 at 10:18 pm #
I want to thank all of you who have singed on so far. Please share this post with your friends, networks and circles. I am sure there are many who feel the same way.
Gary Crabbe / Enlightened Images on 16 Jul 2012 at 11:43 pm #
Amazingly touching and heartfelt words. All I can add is, “woof.”
Mark on 17 Jul 2012 at 5:42 am #
As I read this, I felt as if I was reading my own thoughts laid out before me. Thank you for the heartfelt essay. I might only add an additional apology to the species that suffer, sometimes to extinction, as a result of our foolishness.. You can add me to the list.
Floris van Breugel on 17 Jul 2012 at 2:51 pm #
A touching and heartfelt letter. As one from the “younger” generation it makes me feel like I should do something more. There’s lots of nascent ideas brewing in my head that mix engineering, science, nature photography, and conservation awareness, but time will tell how it all evolves.
Terese Boeck on 17 Jul 2012 at 2:53 pm #
I keep saying that Mother Earth is just going to shrug us off Her back!
Rabbi Gershon Steinberg-Caudill on 17 Jul 2012 at 7:41 pm #
Sign my name to this, please.
Nancy Schwalen on 17 Jul 2012 at 7:43 pm #
As a grandparent, I worry about the world we are leaving the next generation.
Mary Ann Donegan on 17 Jul 2012 at 7:49 pm #
Beautifully said.
Youssef Ismail on 17 Jul 2012 at 9:53 pm #
Let me know Floris when you think you have something that coalesces. I would be interested in hearing about it.
Iskandar on 19 Jul 2012 at 11:10 pm #
Peace
Ginny Kalila on 21 Jul 2012 at 5:56 am #
You’ve written a very sincere apology, close to my heart and the hearts of many. I pray That Holy Mother Earth accepts this apology ,and has mercy on us. How can we help repair this catastrophe ?
Youssef Ismail on 21 Jul 2012 at 10:44 am #
Thank you Ginny for responding. For starters we need to get EVERYONE at this stage of making an apology. So get this letter in front of everyone by sharing it. Pass it on so everyone you know can read it. Next we have to develop and foster a love for the Earth. We only care about the things that we love. I have some ideas about how to do that and I will post them soon. Thanks again.
David Leland Hyde on 21 Jul 2012 at 11:46 am #
Thank you for this from the heart expose-apology. The few are sorry now, but as time goes on and the effects of what we’ve done become more and more prevalent, everyone will be sorry. Please add my name to the list of signors.
Youssef Ismail on 22 Jul 2012 at 12:39 am #
David, Thank You for signing on. Coming from you, someone who has inherited such a legacy of appreciating nature and the Earth from your father’s work, is humbling. I do not know how “connected” you are with others via virtual means, but whoever you can share this with so that this message and sentiment can be spread in the hopes that a critical mass can be established so that a change can occur would be much appreciated. Thanks again.
Larry Kimball on 29 Jul 2012 at 5:10 pm #
Youssef, beautifully written and, as others have said, many feel the same. Of course, I too wish to have my name added. We lament the lack of concern for the very things that give us our life on this planet. We are the ones who have to change the direction all seems to be going and I don’t know how, but we must. Thank you for this.
Youssef Ismail on 30 Jul 2012 at 12:04 am #
Thank You Larry. As I have already said, I think the first step is getting this letter out there and signed by as many as we can, in the hopes that a critical mass of people is formed who will start to make the change happen. Share this letter with your network if you will.
pj on 04 Aug 2012 at 7:07 am #
Beautiful… I’d be proud to add my name to this, and to share it where I can. Thank you.
Brad Mangas on 06 Aug 2012 at 5:52 pm #
Thank you Youssef for putting into words what has been lost and forgot by too many for far to long.
Please add me to your list.
Youssef Ismail on 06 Aug 2012 at 7:56 pm #
Thanks for signing on Brad. Please share this letter with those in your networks. Hopefully we get many more to sign on and hopefully start making a change.
John - Visual Notebook on 07 Aug 2012 at 12:25 pm #
You’ve put into words thoughts and ideas I’ve had and observed over the years, and done so eloquently and with grace. Thanks for such a great post.
I’d be proud to be a signor as well.
Mark Fenwick on 23 Aug 2012 at 8:11 am #
Youssef, thank you for your heart-felt words. I’ve shared this important message with my friends.
Youssef Ismail on 23 Aug 2012 at 8:18 am #
Thank You Mark.
I Would Apologize Too: A Letter To Mother Earth » Landscape Photography Blogger on 23 Aug 2012 at 9:16 am #
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Greg Russell on 23 Aug 2012 at 8:01 pm #
This is very heartfelt and open, Youssef. Please add me to the list of signatures; I plan on sharing this widely…
Youssef Ismail on 23 Aug 2012 at 8:16 pm #
Thank you Greg. I really do want this idea to start spreading and can use all the help I can get in doing that. Its time has come.
Patty Hankins on 05 Oct 2012 at 3:19 am #
Youssef – thank you for expressing so beautifully what I and others feel. Please add me to the list
Youssef Ismail on 05 Oct 2012 at 11:39 am #
Thanks Patty. Please spread the word so that others might sign on as well and hopefully reach critical mass and a change actually starts to happen.
Andjelija on 21 Oct 2012 at 10:55 am #
Well said. Please add me to the list. I will definitely pass it along.
Katrina Culton on 09 Jan 2013 at 2:30 am #
Thanks for opening my eyes. I have a question for you. Out of all your photo taking what one picture do you have that you have taken reminds you of peace? if you can would you share this with me please. I would love to see it. Thanks Katrina
Alexandra Mitchell on 14 Feb 2013 at 4:24 am #
I am so very sorry.
Youssef Ismail on 15 Feb 2013 at 7:58 pm #
Alexandra,
Thanks for lending your voice. Please share this with others. Still trying to get a critical mass of people to sign on.
sugnankumar on 20 Feb 2014 at 9:19 am #
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anna on 13 Sep 2014 at 8:38 am #
Wow, I wish Mother Earth could see that. Well said.
Florence Magalefa on 17 Mar 2016 at 8:35 pm #
Thank you Youssef. Your words are from my heart. Hope we all awaken to Her truth. Love and respect for our Great Mother Earth!