Listen

Be part of the sunrise

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
~ecclesiastes 3:1

It’s the day after Easter, a year that Easter morning arrived with the first spring bits of green instead of a snow storm (like it often does when the holiday falls in March). Tomorrow is Earth Day, a day to celebrate the natural origins of the planet, all its diversity, and to promote taking care of it.

So today, a day sandwiched between a holiday celebrating new life, resurrection, and growth and a day dedicated to conserving the life that is necessary for the wellbeing of all inhabitants of Planet Earth seems like a good day to take some time to listen. To listen to what’s going on in the human collective (a lot, the understatement of the year); to listen to what’s going on in the wilds of the world, the outdoors, with the plants and animals and rocks and rivers; to listen to what’s going on within the wilds of our own minds. Here in Minnesota, birds are migrating through, returning to their northern posts for the summer months, frogs have woken up, and songs fill the air. There is joy in the notes, and jubilation and hallelujah. But there is lament present, some anger, and grief, too, depending on what’s going on in your personal sphere— and when you listen to the cry of the collective, and of the parts of the earth that are hurting. There is much to listen to.

The following is the last essay in Woodland Manitou (2017, Homebound Publications), and when I re-read it today, though I might write parts of it differently now, it speaks to the moment.

I look out the back door into the sunrise.

I listen.

There is a faint, yet unwavering beat spreading horizontally over the landscape. It has a rhythm like the powwows of the Lakota people, of a drumming circle, of a collective chanting and funneling of energy into a medium that can be felt and heard by all. This pulse is coming from Gaia, from the core of the earth, from the Being that is represented in all life on the planet. It cannot be ignored. It can be pushed aside and is by many, but it is persistent. The authentic earth is speaking.

What do we hear? What are we going to do with this pulse that is reminding us of who we are? What are we going to be as the ancient rhythm settles into our veins and spreads outward through our choices?

Through our choices, by the actions we take and because of the way we walk on the earth, we are part of the life that continues to unfold all around us. Nothing that is life— that has the capacity to love, that is the essence of something bigger than we can fully understand— can be contained by systems that are not peace centered and life giving. Though we have plenty of broken systems, we as a collective are an integral part of the unwavering beat —the pulse— and the energy that is propelling our world into something that we know is truth. To something that is more beautiful than we can imagine on the good days.

This forward motion, this horizontal push into the newness of what has always been at the core, is not without challenge. Change is hard for humans, even when the change is full of light and promise. It can be easy to hold on to what we know, even when it doesn’t serve who we truly are. Even while we welcome change, we don’t know what our reality will look like in the days to come, and we have a hard time with the unknowing. We want something concrete; we want dates to look forward to. We want to plan, and we want to see changes and energy shifts manifest in ways that we can understand and see in our daily lives.

We will get these things¹, even when it feels like we are still waiting for a sign that now we can truly live how we are meant to live. Because while we question, while we still feel like we are waiting, while we strive to exist in a way that is authentic, the pulse is still there. It has always been there. Many ears are still deaf to the realness of the beating, but it is getting louder with every intention to live as a part of the whole and to be as one with the heart of creation.

I look out the back door into the sunrise. I feel the pulse of the earth and the turning of the season. I hear the collective call to be a people of wholeness and of healing.

Listen.

Be part of the sunrise.

from Church of Shadow and Light

1. I mean, I hope we do. Part of me has faith that we will, even if the version of me that is on earth at this moment isn’t present to witness it fully.