The Mat and the Earth: Learning to Heal When Nature Suffers

The other morning, Putu, a farmer from a small village in Bali, told me he cried when the river near his rice fields turned brown again—polluted by plastic and waste from upstream. “The river is like our blood,” he said. “When it is poisoned, we are poisoned too.” His words stayed with me through my own yoga practice that day, reminding me that our grief is not only personal—it is also ecological.

Practicing yoga while nature suffers feels different. The mat is no longer just about personal healing—it becomes a place to listen to the Earth’s grief. In Bali, where sacred mountains are mined for sand and forests cut down for development, the body absorbs this pain too. We cannot separate our lungs from the air, our bones from the land, our heartbeat from the ocean tide. Tat tvam asi—you are that. In Balinese and Indian wisdom, this phrase is more than philosophy; it is a daily reminder of oneness. To harm the river is to harm our own veins. To care for the forest is to care for our own breath. Yoga, then, becomes a way of remembering this deep truth—not just moving the body, but embodying the Earth’s pulse within us.

Bali reminds us this interconnection. A simple breath (pranayama) becomes an offering back to the trees that give us oxygen. Moving gently through asanas can feel like honoring the rivers that bend and flow. Meditation becomes an act of sitting with the sorrow of the Earth, without turning away. At our eco yoga retreat, we hold space for this: yoga when nature suffers, yoga as remembrance.

In local Balinese wisdom, humans are guardians, not owners, of the land. Self-care is sacred guardianship. When we care for ourselves through yoga for mental health, yoga for healing, we also remember to care for the island that holds us. Trauma-informed yoga teaches us that pain must be felt, not denied. The same is true for ecological grief.

At Ubuntu Café, this spirit extends to the food we share—working together with local farmers, we serve meals sourced from nature, made and taken with deep respect for the land.

And often, we may feel helpless—like our small actions cannot heal what has been broken. But every step matters. Choosing to carry a reusable bottle, to join community clean-ups, to plant even a single tree is already an act of devotion. In yoga, we can dedicate our breath to the Earth, offer our practice as prayer, and move with intention to live more lightly. These small gestures are threads that weave into a larger fabric of healing.

The mat does not fix the rivers or forests...

But It awakens us—softens our hearts, steadies our breath, and strengthens our will to protect.

At Ubuntu Bali, our eco yoga retreat offerings create space to care, to heal, to remember, and to act. To breathe with the Earth, to rise for her, to love her back into balance.