Amor Mundi is a way of inhabiting the world.

An idea which you can lean on when moving through the world, navigating in uncertainty. It is the hypothesis or feeling  of being in a relationship with the world, not just consuming it, harvesting, indulging, eating, and leaving it behind. Sometimes better, often worse.

Making the world your lover.

If you imagined this for a fact, you might move around slightly different, a bit more careful or respectful. Maybe even make an effort, putting on something nice or trying to be honest when you actually just want to hide. If the world was your lover, you would feel concerned about it, be aroused by it, occupy yourself with it’s best interest, defend it in front of bullies, listen to it, talk to it, cherish it, please it, let it flourish and you would allow it to comfort you, touch you.

When space travellers returned to earth, they shared a common change in their behaviour, their character, a trait that wasn’t so present before they flew out. It was a profound love for the world. A feeling that they needed to care for this immensely beautiful and fragile thing. And that this gave them the most sustainable sense of belonging, of purpose they had ever experienced. When asked about this change, one of the old astronauts told a reporter that when your spaceship reaches a certain point, you get to leave your seats and float around. When he unbuckled, started floating and pulled himself towards the backside of the ship he was drawn to the small window in the far end of the ship. He reached for the window and drew himself closer. And for the first time, he could see the earth. The whole of it. And he was filled, flooded with this feeling of awe for what he saw was so beautiful, ingenious and generous.

We can see that too, we don’t need spaceships, we’ve got our imagination. And we know. How beautiful it is. And how it could be inhabited in a more gentle, more inclusive, honourable, sustainable and respectful way.

As if it was your lover.*

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