My name is Sabin Bailey, and it’s a merging of my father’s family name, which is Bailey, and my mother’s family name, which is Sabin. I grew up being outdoors much of the time and with animals much of the time, both domestic animals like cows and horses, but wild animals, you know, it’s Texas. 

The animals were my guardian angels and they spoke to me. That stayed with me all my life. There are with me still animals come to me. I’ve had hummingbirds slammed in my hands because of that happening so early in my childhood that I recognized as a tiny child that human beings are not superior and we should not be in charge of this world because we don’t do a very good job of stewardship with it, and that every living beings experiences physical pain and suffering and every living being deserves honor and respect. 

I found a spirit in nature from my childhood and I always felt a connection with the mothering aspects of nature. There weren’t words for it back then, like Gaia, but I felt that. I felt it in my soul and I felt it in the cells of my body. I mean, I was at home on that land as long as I could be on that land all was well. They primarily preached hellfire and damnation and they were scary to me. I remember as a child I had nightmares about going to hell and it was very much the judgment all patriarchal, punishing, masculine God and everything in me said, That’s not who God is. I go into Sunday school class and on the wall I would say, God is love. And I say, That’s who got it’s. It’s love. You know, we’re so busy. They’re thinking me, me, me, and all about ourselves. Or we’re thinking judgment, judgment, judgment from some place of religion or politics or some external organizational system. What if we just say you’re a beautiful human being, I love you. I’m so happy to be here with you today.

It’s a great gift to me to share this time. What if we just give them? We don’t need to convert anyone to anything. I don’t think I’m smarter than you or better than you or this or that. I think I’m grateful to be exposed to you and your life and what you’ve learned and the wisdom you’ve acquired. And when I know we go around and is out with people and still want them to, scientists aside and I’m a nonconformist, obviously anyone. I don’t have to live my life the way this society teaches me I should, I’m going to live my life my way because it’s my life and I might get another one and I may have past ones But this is the one I’m living right now and it’s one that matters. Right? You know, what I do right now matters. Am I making it better or am I making it worse? And more. It’s our constant choice. And I want to be able to die and live feeling like I contributed.