🌱 Riotous, Rampant, Wild & Free
Kissing the Earth #13
We are now on day 13 of our month of Kissing the Earth. If you haven’t been getting the daily emails and you would like to catch up (your month can start any time!) you can do so here.
Invocation
Let me be buried in the rain
In a deep, dripping wood,
Under the warm wet breast of Earth
Where once a gnarled tree stood.
And paint a picture on my tomb
With dirt and a piece of bough
Of a girl and a boy beneath a round, ripe moon
Eating of love with an eager spoon
And vowing an eager vow.
And do not keep my plot mowed smooth
And clean as a spinster’s bed,
But let the weed, the flower, the tree,
Riotous, rampant, wild and free,
Grow high above my head.
~ Helene Johnson
Since last September, and until the end of August this year, I made a vow to read out a prayer to the Earth every day in my local town.
I take my yellow A4 sign, tie it to the railings, and read out a nature poem before sitting in meditation for ten minutes. This month I will be reading the poems that you are reading alongside me for Kissing the Earth.
Half the time someone or a few folk join me, half the time I am alone. Members of the public never stop to listen to me read the poem, but dear Earth hears every word!
I keep today’s poem in a clear waterproof folder in my rucksack, and I often read it out when I’m in the rain - not wanting to get my book wet, and enjoying the sound of the words as I say it over and over.
One of the joys of committing to being outside at a particular time is that I can’t avoid the weather. I get to remember how much I enjoy the kiss of rain on my cheeks. I get to remember how strong winds clear my mind. I get to remember the pleasure of warm mittens when sitting in the snow.
Do you avoid the weather, both externally or internally? What unexpected pleasures or benefits might you discover if you linger there for a little while?
Go gently,
Satya 💚
Featured piece: Here’s some beautiful writing by Jane - the kind of writing that is worth stopping for. Make a cup of tea and settle down with. It will reward you.
I’m not sure if I’ve read this piece by Jane, although I subscribe, so thank you for the signpost. This spell of unseasonably cold wet weather has not extended an invitation out to play, but on the walks I have made it’s been exhilarating to experience the rain, the changing light and sound, the reminder that we are not in charge.
Good morning to you, and what a lovely poem to open up to! (It reminds me of my "Bury Me Under a Lilac" title poem. I'll have to dig that up. I think it's on my old computer which is not plugged in right now. https://katherinegotthardt.com/bury-me-under-a-lilac/)
To address your question, I have never been one to avoid my feelings. They were unavoidable, even at a young age. (I'm probably what you call a "highly sensitive person." Some people have called me an "empath." I find that interesting.) I've learned to manage my emotions in a largely unfeeling world. Moods, feelings, emotions, whatever you would like to call them, can't take over forever, just like other entities of our being, such as intellect, logic, spirituality or practicality. It's about balance. We need it to survive as a species.
Back in community college, I took a world religions class. We studied the idea of Tao, the Yin and the Yang, balance and the middle way. On my left ankle, I have a tattoo of a tribal looking sun, a Yin Yang symbol in the center. The entirety is outlined in black, with ample gold around it (albeit it's all faded, and some people ask me if it's an octopus). I told the artist I wanted it to symbolize darkness and light coexisting, with the light always able to shine through.
To me, the light is our spirit or energy or the parts of us that are part of the whole. But as humans, we often forget that light, forget where we come from. This is partially by design so we can evolve in a human form. But we cannot allow ourselves to forget our origins entirely or we lose our humanity.
Denying the darkness has historically not been helpful. But letting it overcome the whole has not been, either. And so we continue in this quest for balance, for coexistence, until we return to the energy from which we came and it begins all over again.
Wow. Okay. I haven't even had coffee. Haha! As I said....good morning!