Mother Earth – Page 8 – Feminism and Religion

Turning Towards the Light by Sara Wright

I won’t walk in this fog bound soup – the air is so toxic it’s literally not breathable – let’s hope this is not a prelude to the rest of the summer like it was last year. The solstice marks a turning of the wheel in ancient cultures – a process (more than an event) that is still celebrated by countryfolk and by those who are attached to the land.

As we move deeper into the first days of summer many (most) wildflowers are seeding up even as the sun’s heat intensifies around the longest, days of the year… As I walk through the woods and around my home, I note the first yellowing leaves dropping from fruit trees, others are shriveling, insect ridden. My beans are spiraling skyward … Overall, a vibrant deep green canopy appears to replace luminous lime, and for a moment luminous fireflies light up the night…gardens are overflowing. Tadpoles are birthing back legs, and within the month a radical transformation will have occurred as miniature froglets begin their adult lives in seeps, brooks. ponds or greenery… a miracle of Becoming. There is a poignancy to this turning for me. The birds are fledging, birdsong is somewhat muted. Summer heat and fierce thunderstorms mark the season ahead…cold clear waters and forests are calling…

Gift From the Beyond, part 2 by Sara Wright

Part 1 was posted yesterday

My friend Lise sent me some words on the eve of Davey’s birthday (unbeknown to me until the 6^th) that reminded me of how often I spoke to him during those months.

“The reason I pray to the dead is I trust their timing. They have all the time in the world, after all, and they also see the big picture and the long story. I pray to the dead because, I admit, how little I know, how little I can understand, and how vast the mystery is of the soul.

Let me circle myself with the living who can hold both, with the dead who can hold it all. We are entangled souls…. We are all praying together, with the flowers, the trees, with all that is.” (I substitute talk for pray because that is what I do)

Cymidei Cymeinfoll by Diane Finkle Perazzo

Carbon and quartz; granite and marble.
Her iron bones were forged in fire.
Her heavy body was carved from stone.

She rose up through black water and rocky soil,
up to the out and around, and born into
the green and growing ground.

As she walked, the ground rumbled and shook.
Rocks rolled and tumbled from the mountains
and Roman roads crumbled where she stepped.

She brought a gift they did not ask for; a vessel
forged in fire from the womb of the earth —
a life-giving cauldron of renewal and birth.

After the Crowning by Sara Wright

Emerald and lime
chartreuse lemon
burgundy
burnt umber
leafy green
breath
transformer
palms and
needles
raining light
magic bean
spirals skyward
star gazing
ferns feather
paths
pearls
at my feet
wild lilies
woodland
valley brook
scarlet
roots
hug
weeping
fruit trees
conversing
underground
pollinated
rose petals
nourish
moist earth
each tear
slips away
bowed
deep
gratitude, a
grieving moment
a thousand
bees hum
as One.
This cycle
ends even
as
another
has begun.

Mayflower Crowning by Sara Wright

I sit under the snowy crabapple as fragile flower petals drift one by one to the ground, covering my hair in white butterflies, soon to become the first mulch of the year. Our Lady is always nourishing new life…

The hum of a thousand bees is deafening – bumblebees – glorious golden rotund bodies swarming from one tree to another with so many relatives – everyone seeking sweet nectar.

The scent is beyond description – intoxicating – a poignant perfume lasting only a few days and keeping me rooted to my bench every single morning to soak in the sweetness under impossible heat. Heavily polluted air is thick and metallic but here I inhale a plethora of fragrances so intense they drown out poisoned air.

Refuge by Sara Wright

Refuge is a place I go to be with other forests. A blessed place…even when I have a dog that is dying. Two free writes from the field where Nature is Queen of May and June…

The Circle of Giving and Receiving by Sara Wright

Yesterday my Vet and I created our version of the Indigenous Tewa Seed Ceremony, something I have not done since living in New Mexico (except to honor the Seed Moon). We didn’t plan to make an exchange of plants and seeds on earth day because neither of us believe or thought about it – (either do Indigenous peoples) – every day is earth day – so it just ‘happened’ on the day before the Seed Moon becomes full.

After giving Gary a very special heirloom scarlet runner bean sprout of mine (and seeds) along with the rest of ‘his’ plants that I had been nurturing for months, we also split up a sedum to share, one that he had given me in the hospital last fall, closing another circle of giving and receiving.

It wasn’t until after we parted that I was struck by lightning. Visceral memories surfaced as I relived the Tewa Sacred Seed Ceremonies I had attended in NM, gradually coming to the realization that we had unwittingly participated in an ancient ceremonial exchange that may have originally extended back to Neolithic times.

‘Forget Me Not’ by Sara Wright

As if I could.

Almost three days of spring flooding seems so normal now that I expect it. Hard to believe it’s only been raining like this for less than a year. A warming climate creates torrential rain, three to five feet of snow at once, wildly fluctuating temperature shifts and who knows what else. After all, this is just the beginning. The end is out of sight.

One robin awakened me this morning with a symphony and kept up his chorale for an hour. It was still raining then but robin warbled on, harbinger of spring.

Today was the day I promised myself I’d tackle the cellar, now flooded even with a sump pump that runs around the clock. Our poor patch of northern earth is just too saturated.

Embrace Fearlessly this Burning World by Sara Wright

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”.
Barry Lopez

The older I get the more I realize that being able to pay attention is the greatest gift especially in what Lopez calls ‘this burning world’.

Every day there is an opportunity to engage with some aspect of the rest of nature, no matter how despondent I might feel. Because early spring is a difficult time for me, I try to discipline myself to open nature’s door daily because it is in these timeless moments, I get caught by the ephemeral Now.

Last week before the storm that would later drop another two feet of snow at my door I decided to visit and feed the two geese thinking that they might appreciate extra food. I also had a nagging sense they might be calling me.

Margins for Magic, by Molly Remer

My ritual today
is to forgive myself
and to begin again
with what I have….

A rite of renewal:
Step out under the sky
whether it holds thunder or sun.
Rest your hands against your heart.
Say: I am here.
I am grateful.
Open your arms to the sky.
Feel air soothe you
and wind bless you.
Say: I am radiant in my wholeness.
I am loved.
Sweep your arms down
to touch the Earth (or the floor.)
Say: I am connected.
I belong.
Settle your hands against your belly.
Say: I am centered.
I am powerful.
I am strong.
Return your hands to your heart.
Wait.
The sacred will meet you here.

We pause today in the middle of the road to listen to a mockingbird perched in a crabapple tree by an abandoned house. In clear and rapid succession, it runs through its impressive repertoire: Phoebe, cardinal, chickadee, titmouse, laser-gun, a few extra trills and beeps and back again. We stand, heads cocked and silent, to experience the performance before walking on with a smile, pausing again to inhale deeply as we pass the wild plum trees so sweet and fleeting. I have been preoccupied with projects, feeling bright, creative energy burgeon inside me as it does around me, so many things tug at the mind and ask for time, leaving my dreams restless, my eyes wild, and my mind awhirl with both pressure and possibility, a persistent urgency that calls me on and away and out of being where I am. On the way back home, we stop again because there are five red winged blackbirds, conversing by the neighbor’s pond and we circle through the grass to examine white flowers in the pear trees and to check for peach blossoms (none). I love spring in Missouri, it restores and nourishes me. It reminds me I am home. I sit with my tea listening to a distant chainsaw and the wild turkeys in their rites of spring, a light rustle of wind, and the clinking of my flattened spoon wind-chimes from years gone by. A lone crow glides in to alight on an oak tree beneath the sun. It tips back and forth briefly, wings a satin shimmer in the sunbeams and then drifts away like a black kite through the spring sunshine. I have joked that the description of my next book could be: “I sat. I saw these things.” And, this is true, for I did, and this is my news for today.