October 2016 | WHAT DOES EARTH-LOVE LOOK LIKE?

Dear friends,

I’d like to say a little about how Earth-love looks and feels. Indeed, with your help it could pass into daily usage, not as some trendy phrase, but a simple daily practice that we model for each other.

For me Earth-love starts with the breath. For you it may begin with a footstep, a bike ride, cooking, washing, gardening, any number of daily activities that you engage in.

At 28, while on holiday, I developed asthma. I didn’t know it was asthma. I only knew that I couldn’t breathe easily. Eventually, it dawned on me that I couldn’t even control a single breath. Much later came the realization of the absolute wonder of each and every inhalation and exhalation given to us so freely by this great Being who supports us every microsecond in so many ways.

How can I express my deep gratitude and appreciation to Her trees, sky, water? It may be with a sigh. It may be with a joyful word meeting a neighbor on a walk. The ways are countless and unique to each of us, and we can expand them!

Earth-love doesn’t require us to change what we do, but to simply bring some loving awareness to those moments.

Now, I would like to hear your contributions or questions, so that, if you are willing, we can together enrich our response to our Mother, our friend.

I feel that I’m one of thousands of seeds sprouted by the Earth in this time of need.
You, no doubt, are another such seed.

To Her Loveliness

each crinkly leaf
each trailing yellow shamrock
or clover crown

each floating spore
swallow swoop
canopy of thousands dancing to the wind

each set of see-through humming wings
open-throated quaver
bright-spiked shoot

each fledgling oak
tottering on
its slender stem

scarlet neckband
draped round
golden poppy

each pair of gold-rimmed coupling beetles
sunbathing mottled rock
swan-winged scented iris

binds us to her loveliness.