Last week I was again giving massage to my ninety-seven-year-old client, and as I moved my thumb across muscle fibers, I realized that the piece I wrote about her and the butterflies which surround her was very much in alignment with my thoughts and feelings about our dear Earth. So I took the Betty of the Butterflies piece and changed it to reflect my love for our planet. Here is what came of that:
Earth
Full of Butterflies
Migrating to Mexico, flying flower to flower, embroidered on pillows, crocheted into blankets, captured in mason jars, bred in museums, and depicted in gold pins placed perfectly on lapels. Butterflies.
At almost five billion years old, seas and air no longer vibrant, land nearly depleted, our sweet Earth appears to be heading into a cocoon where it will transform into... what? Does the caterpillar have any idea what comes next after she crawls into the sleeping bag of chrysalisness?
The Earth recently suffered from radiation poisoning after a meltdown of nuclear reactors at Fukushima, the dumping of millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention the ongoing mountain top removal, deforestation, and the continued dumping of plastics into its seas. It asks me to love it and care for it every day. I reduce, reuse, and recycle. I patiently listen to find out what more I can do to bring health and peace.
I don't know what needs to happen here. The Earth keeps getting sicker, more polluted, and more reliant on us to change our ways. Does it need all of this damage to help it transform in its metamorphosis? Or can we turn things around so that it is healthy once again? These questions may be useful - I don't know. Most of all, I want to be here with the Earth and the life on it. Right here, right now. Just loving.
Today when I had finished watching a red-tailed hawk and pulling dandelions that neighbors don't appreciate, but bees do, I picked up The Earth Prayers book. Edited in 1991 by my teacher, Elias Amidon, and his wife before the above mentioned ecological catastrophes, but after many others, it is still relevant. In silence, I read the prayers to the Earth.
Prayers with gratitude. Prayers of petition. "In this moment, each moment, I give thanks." "Help us to protect these waters, these wild lands you open on; instill in us the powers to contain the ooze of mines, the excrement of need." I know this is my language and faith - and I want to live it more.
All over the Earth, butterflies drink nectar, fly freely, bring joy to our eyes.
A caterpillar knows how to become a butterfly; the Earth knows how to heal.
I have faith in these things.
Carol
April, 2015
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