Conversations with Gaia
Whether we know it or not, we are always in communion with the living earth. Each sip of water, each breath, every bite of food is a conversation waiting to begin. We drink cool water ~ and fresh rain is calling out to us. The tang of arugula on our tongue ~ and the whole garden smiles. The next inhalation brings a sweet elixir of sunlight, photosynthesis, and a branch of budding leaves.
Like conversation, litany is composed of call and response. An invitation bodies-forth into the world; will our embodied voices respond in harmony? This litany of wild graces ~ water, breath, food ~remains an invitation. Until our bodies reply with gratitude… melody … movement. Now the sacred dance begins. Let us reply to these everyday wild graces and move to the song inside our heart.
From A Litany of Wild Graces, Meditations on Sacred Ecology:
Ice Caps
Folding linen napkins
embroidered pears in corners
the ones used on Father’s Day
coleslaw, baked beans
children, grandchildren
parents, cousins
she listens.
Arctic ice falls
as summer rain
onto the kitchen garden;
birds sing
exhaling forest scents;
prehistoric ferns grow
to Pangean proportions.
Here is the world
of love and pathos.
This is the place
she touches daily.
In this place
her love listens,
and replies
her hands folding
while folded in prayer.
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