First written August 14, 2012: Genesis Farm, Blairstown, New Jersey
What does the Earth want of us now? What does she call us to?

We are the story of ourselves. The story of ourselves is that we are a communion of subjects. Earth is primary– humans derivative. Nothing is itself without everthing else.

I have had a week of learning, practicing and honoring, breathing and drinking the earth of this place. My greatest understanding of this is yet to come and I know it will be in the communion of all those who are seeking the wisdom of Earth, our Mother.

I recall Allan Watts telling us long ago that we didn’t come into this world. We came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. We really aren’t strangers here. But I think we have built an estrangement around us that causes us daily sorrow and anger. I found a poem by Denise Levertov called To Speak.
To speak of sorrow
works upon it
moves it from its
crouched place barring
the way to and from to soul’s hall ….

The hard news comes from the sorrow of knowing that about two hundred years ago, a fairly recent piece of time, our ancestors made a choice of identity, a bad one, and it continues. People used to live in a mutually enhancing relationship with the Earth. Knowing what we know and keeping our old bad world view of constant industrial growth, polluting our ecosystem, killing our plants and wildlife, is a form of schizophrenia.

The water I drink each day in this place is so pure. It is from the same spring that feeds the Delaware River. It has been purified by ancient limestone, a gift, a grace from Earth. This same water is coursing through my blood and the blood of thousands of Earths’ creations, giving life and creativity to all she touches. We can see it, taste it, give love and gratitude as we speak and act. Earth has given us the gift of speech and action. She has shared her genes so that we can speak, sing, act from gratitude, compassion and love.

We can move through the sorrow and anger together. We can move and speak in communion. We can, as humans, working in institutions, professions, and programs, ask that we be judged by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.

To practice this we must learn to experience the universe as our Great Self, the individual self experiencing the energy that the universe has been creating through the centuries.

We have much to do and there is no time to waste.

Come and celebrate and let us act together.