Monday, December 28, 2009

Lighting the world...

Within me is a love song. It sings of loving winter, loving the snow, and especially loving the moon when it rises so fat and beautiful over the mountain and the whole dark world begins to glow!

And then I ask myself - how can I make the world glow too? What's mine to do, my calling, that place, (as Frederic Buechner describes it), “where my deep joy meets the world's deep need”... I love Buechner’s naming of the Holy at work within us. How generous is the Holy of Holies that our life-work can become known to us by the deep joy it elicits in our entire beings!

For me, this past year has been a time of greater and greater clarity about my own life-work. Urgency grows in me for the well-being of the earth, for our connection with this generosity of a planet that we lucked out to exist on! ‘Course it wasn’t really luck since there was the Creator behind it all, yet there is within me the sense of luck, of unlooked for blessing – would that be ‘grace’, maybe...?

Having received this incredible vulnerable gift of a human body to inhabit, and the equally incredible and equally vulnerable gift of a beautiful planet to dwell upon, I am continually seized with the intense desire to respond in kind. For me, this means offering retreats where people get to come and reconnect with that child’s delight we all once knew.

Remember what treasure it was when a day stretched before you with unlimited possibilities? When there was the prospect of climbing trees, playing in dirt or sand or snow, collecting rocks or leaves or insects, building roads or forts or faery grottos….. That was you living intimately with the earth. That was you in deep relationship with our beautiful planet. And that is what I dangle in front of people’s noses and hearts. Remember that feeling? Wasn’t it grand!

And the great thing is it’s not something that belongs only to children. It belongs to you as an adult too. So I dangle it not to torment or taunt, but to invite and affirm. This is your heritage, your inheritance, your legacy. And it is waiting for you to reclaim it, waiting for your home-coming.

We are all prodigal daughters and sons here on the earth and our home-coming will be celebrated because it will mean the end of neglecting the planet. It will mean the end of pretending we haven’t noticed the consequences of what we name ‘civilization’. It will mean the end of standing by, helplessly, as we see climate change accelerating.

When we love something or someone openly, we step into a place of accountability. When we have a relationship of unconcealed intimacy, we choose to be known for who and what we love. When we allow our hearts to be pierced with tenderness and enchantment, we will protect what we love with all we have.

I would. Wouldn’t you?

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Copenhagen - are they listening?

Pulling the blanket closer
trying to stay warm.
That doesn't work - ah! Only
a single layer. I refold to
double and notice
my night-gown is inside out.
The morning is bleak, clouded.
On the ground the skiff of snow
not thick enough to insulate
sleeping beasties in their tunnels
or rootlets of plants. The mercury drops,
the wind licks, nervous and
cruel, catching every corner.
We wait, all of us - earth,
plants, animals, humans -
wait to find out
what will come next,
wait to see if the foolish humans
have turned the world
inside-out. Or not.
And whether they'll
have the heart and wisdom
to put it right.

Gyllian Davies, Dec 2009.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Living on our earth!

Happy 3/4 Moon Day!
Did you see it last night where you live? Maybe a clear sky with the moon reigning over a realm of stars.... Maybe peeking a moment from behind some illuminated clouds... Or perhaps hidden totally from view and existing only in your imagination and memory.... do you know which it was?

Do you know which direction it was tilted? ~ cupping the light, holding the waters of night and mystery with a relaxed open-ness, a metaphor of trust... There's enough for everyone,... there's enough for my needs,... I am enough. There's a relieving thought!

Or was the lovely 3/4 moon tipped towards you, pouring abundance into the velvet night? And did you feel the night air against your cheek, a soft brush of an invisible presence, light as a kiss on your forehead.....

Maybe the wind was passing through where you live, grabbing your hair or any loose clothing, pressing your clothes against your skin, searching for a way into your core. What about rain - was it wet? misty? drenching? What did it feel like? What did you feel like?

How often we get caught up in the 'human' world, forgetting to remember our physical body that inhabits this physical earth. But what happens when you stop for a moment, release all thought, and reach out with your senses to feel what it's like to be you in this human body at this very moment....

I have always been deeply moved by Mary Oliver's poem Wild Geese. Here is an available doorway into this sensual world...
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees

a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

(http://tinyurl.com/yh7veuo for the full poem)
What could be simpler than that!

So I invite you ~ go out and look for the moon tonight. Feel the air. Taste it. Smell the fragrance of wetness or coldness. Give your body that moment it longs for, of BE-ing an earth creature!