A Meditation on Earth Day

Today is Earth day, and a reverence for our blue planet is something I try to be cultivate all year long, not just once annually. In honor of the day, I spent some time in my garden after coming home from work. I took my dogs out into our woods for a romp. I made a dinner with fresh produce. All these things tie me to the rhythms and cycles of nature. The perennials in my garden come back as if on cue, heralding the arrival of spring and the progression of seasons. The trees in the woods are leafing out now, their barren silouhettes just a faded memory. Each year I spend a few weeks in awe of all the green around me. It is so thick it permeates my entire being. I am lucky to live in a part of the world that is so lush with plant life, and thus animal life. Every evening the barred owls in our woods call to one another in a warbly tongue. Tonight a gentle rain is falling, nourishing all life. As darkness falls, my thoughts become still. This poem from Mary Oliver strikes a chord:

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth

remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds. I slept

as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated

light as moths among branches

of the perfect trees. All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness. All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling

with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

Happy Earth Day, Everyone.

Until next time...

Anne