JULY & AUGUST\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
The entire planet is heating up right now. Global warming is playing havoc with weather patterns, which in turn affects all plant and animal life. Our emotions are fired up and disagreements are reaching a boiling point, as is evidenced by the ever-increasing and escalating geo-religious-political-economic conflicts around the globe.<\/em><\/p>\n
Time out!\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
Now is the time to turn our attention to positive solutions and focus our thoughts and actions creating peace. Peace of Mind. Peace of Heart. Peace on Earth. There is a chance for peace.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nBy Karen Ethelsdattar, from Earthwalking & other poems, <\/b>published February 2002 by Xlibris<\/em><\/p>\n
For years I have wondered how to tell,
\nhow to let speak,
\nthe wordless dream of one long-ago night.
\nThe ground of this dream
\nis like a ribbon uncoiling
\n& turning back on itself,
\na mobius strip.
\nAlternately I am a woman walking
\nbarefoot on the earth
\n& then the ribbon swerves, it turns over;
\nI am the earth,
\nmy body has become the earth.
\nI am being walked on by moccasined feet,
\nby unshod feet,
\nstepping, pressing on me
\nsoftly, quietly,
\nsensing their way along my paths lined with feathery pine needles,
\nsensing the stones in the beds of my creeks,
\nsharp as flint
\nor smooth as a shaven cheek.
\nMy soil is being turned over,
\nas in the past,
\nreverently.
\nThe hands of the people who turn over my skin
\n& plant seeds in me
\nare my hands;
\nthe feet of these people
\nare my feet.
\nThey bless me with prayers of thanksgiving,
\nwith sprinkled cornmeal.
\nTheir feet dance on me,
\nmaking footprints in my dust,
\nknowing they dance with their bodies
\non their own body\u2014
\nI am theirs
\n& they are mine.
\nThey warm me
\nlike the warmth of the sun.
\nThey heal me.
\nSwaying & returning with the wind,
\nthey cool me
\nlike the leafy branches of trees;
\nthey heal me.
\nWhen they eat the fish
\nof my lake & ocean & stream,
\ntheir hearts sing thanks to me
\nfor the lives
\nof the glittering, gleaming, leaping swimmers
\nthey take in,
\nwhich lend their lives
\nthe gift of flicker
\n& swiftness
\n& strength.
\nThey give thanks for the snake,
\nslithering through the grasses,
\ncaressing the dirt,
\ncaressing the skin of the earth,
\nshedding its own skin,
\nteaching them rebirth.
\nThey give thanks for the four-leggeds,
\nwhose paws on me feel
\nlike those of little kittens,
\nscampering along my body,
\npushing into & dimpling my flesh;
\nlike those of older cats who yet pad rhythmically
\non my knees & chest,
\nCreatures who show them how to walk on me,
\nhow to walk the earth.
\nBe they wolf, buffalo, antelope, bear, or deer,
\nbe they leopard, tiger, or lion;
\nbe they mud-loving, mud-rolling
\nelephant or hippopotamus.
\nBe they rhinoceros.
\nThanks too give the people for the tip tap of columns of ants,
\nof the caterpillar, of the beings of tiny feet
\nwho tickle me till I laugh foolishly
\neven as they model how to gather food
\n& store it,
\nhow work is play,
\nhow work is dancing
\nwith the rhythm of the seasons.
\nThanks they give for the flutter & sip
\nof butterfly & hummingbird & bee,
\nof all the winged ones,
\n& the winged waterfall
\nwho teach them how to sing
\nThey give thanks for the rain.
\nIt sprinkles me with quick little showers,
\nthen penetrates strong & deep.
\nThanks for the worms, breaking up my tough soil
\ninto handfuls of earth they can run
\nthrough their fingers.
\nFor everything
\nthat makes me a place
\nfor their bodies & spirits
\nto eat & drink.<\/p>\n*****<\/p>\n
I have been the earth.
\nBack I am to having been a child,
\nto being a woman
\nwith the imprint of grasses
\non the soles of my feet.
\nWalking on hot, sun-baked mud
\nOr hot grainy golden sand.
\nCool dark mud squishing up between my toes;
\ncool wet sand
\nholding the imprint
\nof heel & toe.
\nWhen I was nine, when I was ten,
\nwhen I was eleven,
\nI studies piano,
\nmy fingers smoothing
\n& stumbling over the keys.
\nToday I no longer play,
\nbut hear piano music
\nnot only as if it came out of my own fingertips,
\nbut as if the pianist
\nwere stroking the rhythm, the melody
\ndeep under my skin,
\ndeep into my muscles, my flesh, my bones.
\nTaking it in is like being the earth.
\nNow I begin to make music again on the skin of the drum,
\nwith my palms, with my fingertips,
\nthe rhythm shivering back through me,
\nthe beat entering
\n& reverberating
\nback up through the earth.
\nI walk with my fingers,
\nI walk with my feet.
\nI walk to earth\u2019s heartbeat.
\nAgain & again
\nI am a woman walking, walking to where she turns into the earth.
\nAgain & again I feel what it is
\nwhat it could be,
\nto be the earth,
\nthe earth we walk on.<\/p>\n***
\nDonna Henes is the author of The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife.<\/a> She offers counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity. Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n