What if the earth was vengeful
What if she chose to rage against us all
whether we ignored her
loved her
turned from her
towards her
harmed her
cared for her
raped her
exploited her
ravaged her
tore from her
disappeared her children
extincting them
genociding them
or not
What if she fought back
said enough is enough
You
people
have betrayed my trust
violated our sacred pact
for the last time
You
my children
you are not welcome here anymore
I can't continue to support you
enable you
as you run blind on this path of destruction
I can't trust you anymore
Every time I welcome you back
you take and take
Take advantage of my love
of my desire
my yearning
my need
to see you well
and whole
and filled with the beauty of this life
Each time
you choose
to steal from me to fill some hole within
You choose
to forget yourself
You choose
to isolate
wall off and hide
I don't know
what makes you run so far from the good
I don't know
what makes you despair so
I don't know
what lured you away
and broke your heart
broke your spirit
broke your connection to me
to all that is
to yourself
I am and have always been here
My heart breaks to see you this way
to know I cannot fix this thing in you
without your help
You must choose to face it
to feel it
to hope for something you have lost hope for
But instead
you choose
to stay on this other path
demonstrating what you really want
demonstrating what you will kill
and die for
time and again
I will not wait anymore
I will not allow death and despair into my heart and home
I will no longer welcome you to the tender places
the delicate places
the sacred places
the places of wonder and mystery
What you have brought to me
I will return to you
What you have planted
I will let you reap
What you have made toxic
I will let you drink and eat from
What you have despoiled
I will let you dwell in it
What you have killed
I will let haunt you
I will not reach through the fog to pull you out
If you choose to come home to stay
you must prove your worth
for I cannot trust your words
You must show me the sacrifices you are willing to make
Offer them to me in thought, action, prayer, flesh and spirit
Show me
again and again
and then again
Maybe I will listen
But until then
you will be left to your own devices
I will wait
and watch
with a broken heart
as all that you have betrayed
turns against you
As all that cared for you
now brings pain and suffering
As all that you have hunted
hunts you
As all that you have held dear
is rent from your grasp
As every path
leads to a dead end
to a pit
to a place of darkness and despair
as your beloved are clear cut before you
as your relatives are strip mined
as your breath and body is poisoned
as you are shunned by all of creation
Your ears will hear no song
You tongue will taste no sweetness
You bodies find no softness
Your hearts will find no reflection
Your ancestors will have no place to rest
Your spirits will cry and cry and cry
in the deep silence of the life you have created
We will leave you alone
all alone
so you can be
sovereign
independent
free
And we shall see how you fare
without us
Goodbye
my child
What if the earth was vengeful
What if she chose to rage against us all
Let us bow down deeply
in thanks and gratitude
Let us bow down deeply
that she still loves us
Let us bow down deeply
again and again
and again
nature
The stillness of winter is gone
The stillness of winter is gone
Bursts of color
Audacious in their tenderness and declarations
Now reign
See me
Smell me
Pay attention
Birds call and feed and build nests and mate and soar and dive
They too declare
I'm here
Loud and proud
But there is stillness here too
The gliding of the hawk
The poise of the egret
The pause in between the doings
To notice all of this life
Unfurling of flowers
Hovering of bumblebees
Tender leaves bright and soft
Skin warming beneath a brilliant blue sky
A smile between friends
So much nourishment
So much available to be taken in
Yet living on whether we notice or not
Let us not rush past
With our ideas and tasks
Heads craned forward
Blinders on
Missing that which matters most
Only to mourn it when its gone
On this grey morning
On this grey morning
All seems bleak
All seems dead
Bare branches encased in ice
A slurry of snow coating the earth
Treacherous and slick
Hiding the hard ground
Life seems to have turned on itself
Some retreat and are able to stay inside
Cozy and warm though resentful
Others who have nowhere to go
Are battered
Burying hope
As the Earth is now buried
Such conditions we are all in
Winter is here in its fullness
But look deep
It has more to share
Its song crunches beneath feet
Crackles on branches in the shifting wind
Glistens in translucent magic
Highlighting the shapes and forms of tree limbs, bushes, evergreens
The wonder of icicles drip from everything
Cable wires, gutters and the bottoms of cars
Cold bites the face and tingles fingers and toes
Telling us
I’m here
Don’t run
Feel this too
There’s nowhere else to be
Embrace me too in this season of your life
Take care and stay warm of course
You’ll die otherwise
But don’t hate me
For I am this life too
It’s easy to rail against me
To be worried and afraid
When all seems harsh and unfair
Remember the seeming ease of other seasons
When life appeared abundant
Welcoming
Even then you needed to find your way
You still needed to be free
That hasn’t changed
Just the season
The weather
The conditions that await you
As you live day by day
Find ways to dance and smile
To love and sing
To wonder and connect
To help and get help
To tell your story and to listen to others
To build what is needed
Take down or let rot what is not
Look deep today and you’ll find the warmth you seek
Even in this season of the grey
The river was low clear and cold
The river was low clear and cold.
Its song trickled against my ears as a sharp wind pressed against my back.
The sun, shining through cloud and bare branches, warmed my face.
I heard the voice of a friend coming closer.
A trail of small people, aged 3 or 4, trailed behind her,
Holding tightly, though absentmindedly, to rings connected to a rainbow colored rope,
Keeping them together and safe.
They passed, and I got a heartful hug and lots of little waves, and hellos, and bright wide eyes, and smiling brown faces.
As soon as they got to the other side of the bridge
They stepped onto the snow covered field and my friend gathered the rope and looped the rings on her arm in a well practiced gesture.
They were off,
Screeching and running towards a super sized snow ball resting in the warming sun.
Across the field they ran and I took in the view:
Children running as much up and down as they were forward,
Boots tromping through softening snow,
Coats open and streaming behind them,
Laughing and falling, and going from here to there.
Above them, a mountain, with a rusty colored rockface stood solid.
Vultures and falcons, riding the updrafts, soared along its base and rose to its ridge line.
Their shadows dancing and flickering along the nooks and crannies of the bare rock.
Sun and clouds and wind and sky stretched over us all:
River,
Children,
Trees,
Friends.
And despite all the reasons to grieve and worry,
I laughed and my heart was filled.
Let us return to being curious about this life
Let us return to being curious about this life
Let us touch our hearts waiting patient and loving
Let us listen to the trees
to the birds
to the silence
Let us find our way home
Watch the squirrels
Follow the flight of the bluejay
Hear the calling of the crows
Feel the soft moss making a seat for you on the hard stone
Feel your face soften and the mask slowly slipping away
Take courage
Let it go
Grief is not subtle
Grief is not subtle
Pressing against my hearts doorway
I choose to feel it
I sit beneath you
Elder oak with wounds old and new
Still growing, like me
With my breath, you breathe
I open up, draw deep, like roots
My hearts cracks, tears flow
Grief shatters the world
Wind blows, leaves fall, hawks soar higher
How are these all true
We stood huddled in a semblance of a circle
We stood huddled in a semblance of a circle,
leaning against our neighbor or standing alone together,
honoring all that had died in her passing.
Rain wept from a gray shrouded sky,
and though we thought we were protected
beneath the thick canopy of maple and hemlock,
there was no solace to be had.
Heaven’s grief still reached us
with heavy drops touching shoulders, thighs and stone.
We were a mess.
Eyes blazed red.
White tissues were soaked with salty tears and mourning snot
or were twisted and wrung to keep fingers busy.
The world cried with us as we spoke to her,
to each other,
to ourselves.
Reluctantly, we buried a part of her with overturned trowels.
A small hole for a large spirit.
Finishing what we never wanted to start,
the circle tightened.
Hands and hearts and hips touched.
Heads bowed.
No one alone.
Singing of her gifts,
her spirit reminded us of our own wildness, courage, tenderness and presence,
and planted a seed in each of our hearts
to nourish.
The circle unfurled and we lived on.
Humans are so loud sometimes
Humans are so loud sometimes
Our billboards, notifications, LED lights
HDTVs, brand names, addictions and consumerings
Our cars, trucks, guns and houses
Our street lights, our highways
Our airplanes and airports and cities
Our poverty, pain and avoidance
Our wealth, desires, longings and emptiness
Invisible in their glaring audacity
Silent in their cacophony
Like the summer fan we no longer hear
in the relentless heat
Like the air we breathe
When we’re able
Like the soundtrack of our lives
thrumming in our speakers, headphones and earbuds
Drowning out the world around us
Insulating us
Imprisoning us
All this we choose
It makes the quiet hard to hear
Hard to find the still spaces where all things emerge
The beneath it all
The ground that's always there
Patient
Alive
Ready to sit with us
Walk with us
Run and lay down with us
Laugh and grieve with us
Love and be with us
Reveal to us
Our place in this dance
This song
Or at least the next step or breath to take
Let us sometimes choose this
To listen to the beneath it all
and see where we end up
Instead
There is a shakiness deep in my bones
There is a shakiness deep in my bones
As my feet touch the soil of my homeland
There is a press of ancestral bodies
Pulsing against the boundaries of my flesh and spirit
Crowding to feel into this life and time and place
And the River calls to me
Here I am
You know me
Don't be scared
You have been here before
Not in your dreams nor in places of dark fear
But in body and heart
Flesh and spirit
In your wholeness you were here
Let the reality of this place touch you and remind you
You are always home
Be here
Be bright
Let your spirit and being shine
In your fullness and love
Let words come and go
Let stories come and go
Freely and courageously
Naming fear and pain and violence
Naming care and connection
Of a love so deep
And a hurt so sharp
All in the same breath
All in the same touch
Let the yearning and longing flow freely my friend
Like the river
The one you come to again and again
The one who sings
Roar and be calm
Release and receive
Sing with us
With all the Rivers
These are our reminders of who you are
Storm clouds curl over dark green mountains
Storm clouds curl over dark green mountains.
Their soft ridges inked with evergreens and summer leaves.
Thunder rumbles, rambling over their edges and crashing into the valleys splayed out below.
In the distance, sheets of water rain down,
dancing and swirling,
making strands of beaded curtains dangling over the forests.
Closer still, a red tailed hawk circles gently on the shifting currents,
spiraling higher and higher over the expanse of golden tipped grasses.
“Over there is its nest.”
My friend stretches his arm and points across the field to a stand of spruce trees
The sky, and all of these beings, pull me from my thoughts that strain and tighten my brow.
It's so easy to get stuck inside.
But sometimes it's just as easy to soften and open, to look around and listen deeply,
remembering that my life also exists outside of my head.
Healing & Liberation Counseling 