All That Is: Gaia & the Empress

Today's Card of the Day posted on my Facebook page is Gaia, or The Empress, so I propped her up by my computer and thought about her meaning. Chrysalis Tarot alternatively titles her as Gaia, the goddess of Earth and nature, and here she is surrounded by beauty and abundance. Her keywords are in fact, abundance and nurturing and she is urging us to feel, hear, smell, touch, be in connection with all that is, all that surrounds us and is always beckoning. How do we really connect with her?
A quote in my email box today is a clue, I think: "Non-identification means that your sense of who you are is not fused with or defined by any limited set of emotions, sensations, or stories. When identification with the small self is loosened, we begin to intuit and live from the openness and love that express our natural awareness." —Tara Brach, "Finding True Refuge"
So maybe it's about letting go. Being in the moment. Easing up on judgements, criticisms, comparisons - all that stuff, and just BE. Opening, or being present to oneself and to others is nurturing. In being present, we can perceive the needs of the moment - BE the moment.
On a more mundane level, she is urging us to look around and see what needs nurturing, or connection - house plants maybe, garden, pet(s)? Reaching out to Gaia is in all her forms is really reaching in to ourselves. Recognizing the life out there is recognizing Gaia, or the Empress, in ourselves.