"If we cannot feel the rivers, the mountains, the air, the animals and other people from within their own perspective, the rivers will die and we will lose our chance for peace."
Thich Naht Hanh
Feel Like a River this Earth Day 2024---
Early Sunday morning I awoke to a startling beam of light hitting my still closed eyes.
Disoriented with sleep, I tried to make sense of where the light beam was coming from.
All of a sudden I awoke enough to realize it was not a flashlight nor a streetlight but a beam of moonlight streaming in from the west window at the head of my bed and reflected towards me via my mirror on the back of my bedroom door that I found myself gazing into from under my covers.
Startling awake my sleeping husband, I instinctively bounded out of bed to look upon the dazzling scene outside my window to see an almost full moon setting low in the western sky. So low it looked as though if I ran far enough and fast enough I might reach out and pull the bright orb lovingly into my arms.
As it was, the moonlight came calling on me and I was utterly helpless but to respond.
Moonstruck, awestruck, dumbstruck by the wonder of its beauty as it lay there so low it was nearly obscured by the tree cover in my yard, I tucked back into bed wondering How do I go back to sleep knowing this is there for the viewing? Why am I not always running into my lovers' arms? Why did I feel such communion with the moon as though it was a blessing I was receiving? A blessing I did not even ask for. What then, did it need me to know this night in the brief moments before it slipped beneath the clouds, behind the trees?
What it seems to come down to is we can't stumble into wonder or love if we do not walk outside the door of self... but the madness of the waking world wants to keep us bound in the idea that we are selves separate from the whole shebang.
Admittedly, by design, I am someone who slips outside the door of self and into the shebang more readily than some, but I still forget by times.
This false sense of separateness is a slumbering we need to awaken from.
This sense of separateness is threatening the living world itself. It is tied into my forgetting that being alive is a gift beyond measuring. That this lush and suffering living world is not something to take for granted. That we need to awaken to the wonder and the mystery and care for Earth and each other as though our very lives depend upon our doing so.
In being born we become part of a sacred covenant with our mother Earth...to care and be cared for. Companies and products cannot do this for us. Governments cannot do this for us. We must do this for each other and for all of Earth and its myriad wondrous beings.
From the wonderful collection of essays on female nature writers (and gifted to me by a dear friend...thanks G!) called Writing Wild:
These days, startling though the thought is, we control our own legacy. We're not passive, we're not helpless. We're earth movers. We can become Earth-restorers and Earth-guardians. We still have time and talent, and we have a great many choices...Our mistakes are legion, but our imagination is immeasurable. Diane Ackerman
Use your imagination well and remember this please, dear friends:
That we are made of stardust and of the Earth in every cell of our being.
We are all soil, air and waters in all of our living and our dying and being reborn.
That we cannot untangle ourselves from the web of life no matter how we try to deny our utter dependence on Earth, our mother.
Big Pond, PEI photo taken May 2020 by Lucas MacCormack
“We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations.”
And a totally, lovely looking children's book called Sometimes I Feel Like a River from House of Anansi Press...
And if you have another minute or two...a beautiful vision:
Thanks for making it this far...
Wishing you a sense of connection, wellness and joy!
May you too be wonder-struck!
Yours in Love of Earth,
Jill