The Time the Land Forgot My Voice

The Time the Land Forgot My Voice.

There was a time, far back in the quiet stretch of memory, when the land still carried my voice as though it were a part of its own heartbeat. I can almost feel it if I close my eyes long enough. A world where the fields breathed kindly, where the skies were steady, where the wind arrived like an old friend and not a warning. The seasons followed gentle paths back then, never rushing forward, never pushing too hard. They simply moved in harmony with the people who lived beneath them.

In those early days, the weather wasn’t an enemy or a threat. The rain came when the soil needed it, soaking the ground with patience and purpose. Sunlight settled across the earth like a blessing, warm but never cruel. Everything felt balanced, as if each day knew exactly what it was meant to bring. We planted seeds in peace, and they rose without hesitation, trusting us because we treated the land with a gratitude we didn’t have to force. Respect wasn’t a lesson then. It was a way of breathing.

We humans understood something that now feels almost forgotten. We knew our place. Not beneath the earth, not above it, but with it. We were caretakers, not owners. We lived as though every tree held a memory, every river carried a story, every hill listened when we spoke. And the land truly listened. When we whispered hopes into freshly turned soil, the earth seemed to hum back, holding our wishes, growing them into food, shelter, comfort.

My voice once travelled through those open fields, across the soft rise of hills, slipping into the deep veins of the soil. And the land remembered me. It remembered all of us. We were connected. Bound. A shared life.

As time moved on, something in us shifted. It wasn’t sudden. It was slow, like a shadow that stretches a little farther each day until you realise the whole room is dark. We built more quickly, dug more deeply, demanded more without asking. The world became a place of rush and numbers, not seasons and understanding. And the land, once patient, began to pull back. Not out of cruelty, not out of anger, but out of heartbreakNature began to rebel in ways we didn’t expect. Storms grew fierce, rains fell without thought for timing or tenderness, heat waves cut across fields with a sharp, unyielding edge. Rivers overflowed, mountains shook, forests burned. These weren’t punishments. They were warnings. Each one a cry for the care we lost, the respect we abandoned.

People ask now, Can it be put right?

The truth is complicated, yet simple.

Yes—but not if we continue as we are.

The land has not vanished. It has not given up. It has only grown tired of giving without receiving. It still waits for us to return to the old agreement, the unspoken promise that says: We protect you, and you protect us.Is it too late? No. Not yet. Although the time is running thin, like a rope frayed from years of pulling. What do we need to do?

We need to slow down. To plan ahead not for ourselves alone, but for the ones who will inherit everything we leave behind. Generations to come depend on choices made today. We must step back into the rhythm we once shared with the land—listening, tending, planting not just for harvest but for healing.

We must teach our children that the earth is not a background, not scenery, not something to use and forget. It is a living companion. It breathes. It remembers. It responds to how we treat it.

We must rebuild the bond with small acts—cleaning rivers, protecting forests, planting trees we may never sit beneath, speaking words of gratitude as though the land can hear us, because it can. It always could. It simply went quiet when we stopped speaking with honesty. And we need wisdom, not fear. Strength, not stubbornness. Love, not convenience.

The land once knew my voice. I hope, with all the faith left in me, that one day it will know it again—not only mine, but the voices of all who choose to respect the gift of life, the soil under their feet, and the unseen roots that hold us all upright. That is how we begin. That is how we heal. That is how we honour the world that has carried us since the first sunrise. And maybe then, the land will remember us once more.