“Of all the creatures who had yet walked on Earth, the Man-apes were the first to look steadfastly at the Moon. And though he could not remember it, when he was very young Moon-Watcher would sometimes reach out and try to touch that ghostly face rising above the hills. He has never succeeded, and now he was old enough to understand why. For first, of course, He must find a high enough tree to climb.”

- Arthur C. Clarke

2001 A Space Odyssey

Well, we Earthling Moon-Watchers built ourselves some really tall trees so that we could get to the moon. Rocket-propelled trees to carry us through space. And so we got to the moon.

No sooner did we land there than we set about trashing it. In the short time that we have been visiting our attendance upon it, we have left over twenty tons of debris — biological, atmospheric and manufactured — on the surface of our once pristine satellite. 

Here are just some of things we left to litter Lady Luna: flags and dedication plaques from each moon mission, video cameras at the launch sites, sensitometers, the launch legs for the lunar module, geologic tools, laser reflecting mirrors, the lunar rovers, a gold plated extreme ultraviolet telescope, a Tesco super market shopping cart, several Apollo backpacks, and three golf balls.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, we have reached new highs in our lows. At 7:30AM EDT on Friday, October 9, 2009 the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, will fire a Centaur rocket into a crater at the South Pole of the moon which will act as a “heavy impactor” crashing into the lunar surface at nearly 6,000 mph sending a debris plume of 300,000 to 350,000 tons of material from the crater floor over 30 miles high.

 A second sensor satellite will then drop down into this plume analyzing its contents in the hope of finding water. The result of this search will ultimately determine how realistic a full-time base on moon can be.

After the booster rocket hits the crater, blasting out a hole 90 feet deep, the shepherd will follow through the plume. After analyzing the plume, the shepherd craft will itself slam into the crater four minutes later, creating a second hole 60 feet deep.

According to NASA, this crash will be so big that we on Earth may be able to view the resulting plume of material it ejects with a good amateur telescope. The operation will unfold live on the Internet, as well as under the watchful eyes of dozens of amateur and professional astronomers and orbiting observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope.

"Water on the moon has haunted us for years," said William Hartmann of the Planetary Science Institute. "It's all part of humanity's quest to understand our nearby cosmic environment." Yeah, right, understand it so we could rape it.

"Who (said the moon)

Do you think I am and precisely who

Pipsqueak, who are you

 

With your uncivil liberties

To do as you damn please?

Boo!

      

I am the serene

Moon (said the moon).

Don't touch me again.

 

To your poking telescopes,

Your peeking eyes

I have long been wise.

 

Science?  another word

For monkeyshine.

You heard me.

 

Get down, little man, go home,

Back where you come from,

Bah!

 

Or my gold will be turning green

On me (said the moon)

If you know what I mean."

- Robert Francis

                        

 

Yours with heartsick, heartfelt blessings for Mama Moon,

 

xxQMD

 

September 11, 2001 found me far, far from home in a picture-book cabin on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. I had been making my long-anticipated way to the Gaspé when the horrific news crashed in upon my idyll, turning that perfect piece of paradise into a surreal hell, a fantastically gorgeous jail house cell from which I helplessly watched my city being destroyed live on Quebequois TV. “Etats Unis Attacqué,” it screamed. “C’est la Guerre.”

The phone lines were down. There was no internet access. The borders were sealed. I couldn’t call. I couldn’t help. I couldn’t come home. I couldn’t do anything. But I desperately needed to do something. Something positive. So I decided to create a memorial altar.

I borrowed my landlady Claudette’s large white plastic Our Lady who was normally employed to block the small dirt road that ran through Cabines Sur Mér property yard. I took Her to the edge of the land and placed Her among the ancient gray rocks bordering the great river running by. Wild rose bushes, heavy with hips, bowed at Her feet.

I just happened to have a bottle of holy water with me which I had collected only two days before at the pilgrimage site of Sainte Anne de Beaupré north of Quebec City on the opposite shore. This water has been associated with thousands of healings over the centuries. An important component of my Healing Waters of the World collection that I use it in my ceremonies. The original purpose of this trip was to refill my depleted supplies.

I had a small traveling candle that Miriam had given me a couple of years before. I had carried this with me in my toiletry bag on several trips to Paris, but had never felt moved to light it. I put the fire into a glass and set it next to the glass of healing water. In a third glass I arranged a bouquet of the yellow, white, and purple wild flowers growing in the earth around the cabin.

The fourth glass on my makeshift altar was a container of a different sort. At the bottom of my amulet bag I found a small reflective crystal that had been part of the sunrise to sunset vigil for peace that I had organized at the World Trade Center on the Summer Solstice 1999. It had absorbed the solar energy of the longest, lightest day of the year. I always carry it to help me see the light when times are dark.

I had a very long ritual relationship with the World Trade Center. For a quarter of a century it was my own private/public shrine, an urban Stonehenge for an urban shaman. Eighteen of my 26 Spring Equinox Egg Standing events have been held there. That means that 6480 eggs have stood on end in the shadow the Twin Towers. About double the estimated number of presumed dead.

On that black day I wondered about the fates of all of the building staff people whose names I never knew who have helped to set up and facilitate our public seasonal ceremonies over the years, and I prayed that they were all safe. And I prayed for the thousands of people in those buildings who have added their energy to our celebrations.

Also in the medicine bag was the dog tag with the peace symbol on it that Tommy Sullivan, R.I.P, wore when he was serving as an unwilling sailor during the Viet Nam War. Last, I offered a shriveling red rose hip that was going to seed. May the seeds of the rose be those that we sow.

I sat on the rocks all day, the African River Orisha Oshun by my side, washing my fears away.

I chanted and chanted for peace.

Chant for Peace.
Chant for Peace.
For Peace on Earth.
For Peace on Earth.
Chant for Peace.
Chant for Earth.
For Peace on Earth.
For Peace of Mind.
Chant for Peace.
There’s a Chance for Peace.
A Chance for a Change.
For a Change for Peace.
For a Change for Earth.
Chant for Earth.
Chant for Peace.
Chant for Us.
Chant for Peace.
There’s a Chance for Peace.
Still a Chance for Peace. S
till a Chance for Earth.
Still a Chance.
Still.

There is still a chance for a change. We must be that chance.

With best blessings for reverence, respect and peace,

xxQMD

Fall always feels like New Year to me. It carries so much more significance than does January 1. The first crisp hint of a chill in September always shakes me out of my summer lethargy, wakes me, makes me more alert. It focuses and concentrates my attention. I can smell the possibilities of a fresh start in the air. 

Reinvigorated by the sunny days and laze of summer, life now begins again in earnest in schools, government agencies, cultural institutions and businesses across the country. There is an unmistakable aura of enthusiasm and energy in the air, a palpable sense of intensified determination. This annually renewed resolve seems so much more natural than the resolutions we make at the turn of the calendar year.

Fall jumpstarts everything, including itself. Labor Day has become the popular indicator of autumn, rather than the equinox, which occurs three weeks later. In the same way, Memorial Day, which predates the solstice by three weeks ushers in the civic summer season. By this reckoning, school starts in the fall.

Most of us have been indelibly imprinted with the excitement and optimism of the first day of school. There is nothing quite so inspiring as buying blank notebooks, pencils you have to sharpen yourself and some brand new white blouses. So clean, so fresh, so hopeful.

The Jewish New Year falls in the fall. My memories of the High Holy Days that I celebrated as a child with my family have little to do with organized religion. Rather, I remember a domestic sense of auspicious new beginnings: major house cleaning, usually a new outfit to wear to temple and best of all, we ate off of the good china with the real silverware.

I think of my birthday as being in the fall, but it is actually three or four days before the equinox. Our birthday is our own personal New Year. It is an annual reunion that we have with ourselves, and attendance is required. Our birthday is our periodic opportunity to take serious personal stock. “How am I doing?” as old Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, would always ask. Like any new beginning, our birthday is an ideal time to sharpen our priorities, realign our perspective and rededicate ourselves to living the very best life that we can. 

How old! and yet how far I am from being what I should be....I shall from this day take the firm resolution to study....to keep my attention always well fixed on whatever I am about, and strive everyday to become less trifling and more fit for what, if Heaven wils (sic) it, I’m someday to become!

- Princess (Queen-to-be) Victoria of Great Britain
  In her diary on her 18th birthday


Every Autumn I take time out of time to evaluate my past experiences and actions and to prepare myself mentally, physically and spiritually for the coming year. I usually retreat to some extent and fast to some degree during the two-week period surrounding my birthday. The new and full Harvest Moon, and the equinox usually coincide.

This experience is intended to center me and slow me down. It is my birthday gift to myself. During my fast/retreat I devote myself completely to cleansing and centering myself: body, mind and spirit in readiness for the future. I rinse my system with fresh water and teas, I clean my house and altars and I use yoga, meditation and t’ai chi to flush my mind clear of the mental detritus that I have accumulated.

Since the early 1980’s, I have kept a birthday book. Therein, I ritually record an accounting of the past year. I process my impressions and my life lessons. How have I grown? What have I learned? And what is it that I just can’t seem to get through my thick skull? I plot my progress. I ponder my possibilities. I pour over my problems. I plan my goals.
       
This civic fall also marks the eight-year anniversary of September 11. Let us mark this propitious time by reflecting honestly upon our vulnerability in today’s terrifying political/economic climate, our culpability in the deadly repercussions that arise from our own chauvinistic attitudes and deeds, as well as our impressive individual and communal capacity for extraordinary acts of courage and devotion.

May this new season signal the beginning of a new era of planetary peace and plenty for all.

With best blessings for a new beginning,

xxQMD

Summer has become intolerable for me. It is just too damn hot and I am miserable, sweaty and cranky, much of the time. But when my little pooch Poppy starts panting in the heat, her little pink tongue drooping out of her open mouth, I know the Dog Days of Summer have arrived.

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, summer is sizzling at its most intense right now. This is the horrid weather when, according to Noel Coward, only “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun.”

The term “dog days” was coined by the ancient Romans, who called these hot and humid days caniculares dies or “days of the dogs” after the star Sirius, Canis Majoris, the “Greater Dog,” which is one of the hunting dogs of Orion, the Hunter in the constellation that bears his name. The ancient Egyptians named Sirius the “dog star” after their god Osiris, who was often depicted as having the head of a dog.

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. In fact, it is so bright that it was once thought that it produced heat. In the summer, Sirius rises and sets with the sun, and beginning in July, the two stars are in conjunction. In the latitude of the Mediterranean region, this period coincided with sweltering days that were plagued with disease and discomfort.

The Dog Days are officially counted as 20 starting days before the conjunction and continuing to 20 days afterward which spans July and August, which are hottest and muggiest part of the season. The ancients believed that the heat from Sirius added to the heat of the sun during this period of conjunction, created a stretch of especially hot and sultry weather. Hence, Dog Days.

The conjunction of Sirius with the sun varies somewhat with latitude. And the “precession of the equinoxes” (a gradual drifting of the constellations over time) means that the constellations today are not in exactly the same place in the sky as they were in ancient Egypt and Rome. Today, the Dog Days occur during the period between July 3 and August 11.

Although the Dog Days are certainly the warmest period of the summer, the heat is not due to the added radiation from a far-away star, regardless of its brightness. Nor is summer’s heat in the Northern Hemisphere caused by our proximity to the sun. Earth is actually furthest away from the solar heat lamp in summer. But, because of the tilt of its axis in relation to the sun, we are blasted by a direct hit of fiery heat.

As I write this, the heat index is upward of 115 degrees. This summer is especially bad, with extreme heat waves sweeping much of North America. Our tempers are on boil and even the most innocuous disturbance is enough to send us over the emotional edge.

The entire planet is heating up right now. Literally. Global warming is playing havoc with weather patterns, which in turn, affects all plant and animal life. The debate about the greenhouse effect is also revved up to high.

In fact, all disagreements are reaching a boiling point, as is evidenced by the ever increasing and escalating geo-religious-cultural-political-economic conflicts around the globe. The world seems to be populated by a pack of wild rabid dogs fighting over scraps.

Time out!

Cool down!

Let us turn our attention to positive solutions and focus our thoughts and actions toward creating peace. Peace of Mind. Peace of
Heart. Peace on Earth. There is still a chance for peace.

With best blessings for keeping it cool,

xxQMD

August 2 is the exact halfway point of summer. The Summer Cross-Quarter Day was celebrated by the Saxons as Hlaf Mass, “Feast of Bread,” and by the Celts as Lughnasadh, Commemoration of Lugh. Lugh was the grain god, son of Mother Earth. Every August he was sacrificed with the reaping of the corn only to be born again in the new shoots of spring exactly as the Egyptian, Osiris, had been. At the moment of death, according to Egyptian scriptures, a person is also a kernel of grain, “which falls into the earth in order to draw from her bosom a new life.”

Loaf Mass and Lugh Mass evolved into Lammas, the Druid corn feast, one of the four cornerstone festivals around which their year revolved. When the Church adopted, co-opted, Lammas, it was referred to as Lamb's Mass in commemoration of St. Peter in Chains, and the practice of the offering of the first fruits on the altar remained exactly the same.

Traditional celebrations of the first corn were observed on August 1 or 2 in many cultures. Named for Juno Augusta of Rome, August was particularly sacred to the Goddess Who Gives All Life and Feeds It, Too. It was considered for this reason an especially propitious time to be born. To this day, when a Scot says that someone was born in August, it is a compliment in praise of skilled accomplishment, with absolutely no bearing on the person's actual birthday.

The Midsummer Cross-Quarter Day is the only one of the four, which is not still actively celebrated in our contemporary culture. Midsummer is celebrated in Europe, but there it refers to June 21, the first day of summer and not the middle at all. Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream” actually takes place on the Summer Solstice.

The only living vestige of Lammas in the United Stated is a rural holiday called Second Planting. But unless you read the Farmer's Almanac or belong to the Grange or 4H Clubs, you would have no reason to hear about it. It is celebrated exactly as Midsummer has always been celebrated. The first grain is harvested, threshed, milled, baked into bread and cake, and then shared in community. After a night of feasting and dancing, work starts again at first light planting the second crop of summer wheat, which will the mature by the fall harvest.

How can we, separated from the agricultural process by city and century, appreciate the atmosphere of the season which surrounds us, but which we cannot see? What is the Goddess of Good Grain to us of the boulangerie? The patisserie? We who buy our grain in bags, in boxes, premixed, pre-measured, prepackaged, prepared; sown, grown, harvested, hulled, milled, by someone else, somewhere else. How can we identify with the earth values taught by Terra Mater during this time of year from where we are held captive in the synthetic heart of the pop tart culture which claims us?

Well, we can behave, as they say, as if we were born in August. We can, in fact, become august — wise and generous and gloriously noble, each in our own chosen paths. We can hone our skills as the tenders of Mother Earth. We can hoe our row. We can carry our load. We can break bread together. We can feed the hungry.

We reap what we sow.

With best blessings of bountiful bread,

xxQMD

For a more detailed explanation, refer to my book, Celestially Auspicious Occasions: Seasons, Cycles and Celebrations. It is available on my website, www.donnahenes.net

Being an urban being, I have never had a garden where I grew food. My terrace is devoted exclusively to flowers, food for the soul, for sure, but with the exception of the day lilies they are not edible.

My container garden gives me immense pleasure. I love digging in the dirt with my bare hands. No gloves or trowels for this Queen, thank you very much. I cherish the feel of the earth on my skin and don’t mind getting it under my nails. That is why the Goddess invented scrub brushes and soap, after all. I even make my own rich fertile soil by composting dead leaves and food scraps in a garbage pail.

I can spend hours on end dead heading my plants and picking off the dry leaves one by one. I tend my garden with love and care and it cultivates me in return. My plants are my dear friends, my children, really. They have been with me, loyally flourishing and flowering for decades. All of my geraniums, for instance, are from cuttings from one small plant that I had on my windowsill in my Greenwich Village apartment in 1969!

My ceremonial space, Mama Donna’s Tea Garden & Healing Haven is an indoor garden paradise decorated with vintage yard furniture and filled with plants. Some of these I have had for 30 years or more. Some I have inherited from family and friends who have passed on. I am so glad to be the caretaker of these living memorials. Their spirit is alive in the plants that they loved and nurtured. And everyone who enters this sacred space feels the green healing energy.

Once upon a time I grew weed(s) for imbibing from the seeds in my stash. This crop, too, was food for my soul. But that was then and this is now. And now I am drawn to plant and raise some foodstuff. My options are limited by space constraints, but the time feels right to start with some herbs and maybe some berries or baby lettuces. Or maybe it is too late for this season. I don’t know. I will have to do some research. What I do know is that I want to taste what I grow.

With best blessings for nourishment from Mother Earth,

xxQMD

It is raining. Pouring. Again! For weeks now it has rained just about every day. The entire Northeast is inundated with more rain than we can possibly deal with.

In the best of times, precipitation is seen as beneficent, raining down life-sustaining liquids for our benefit. And then we are grateful, or ought to be.

But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. We are nearly drowning in the stuff. Saturated, soaked, sogged. Completely waterlogged. Rivers rushing down city streets, the drains overflowing. Towns, fields and highways flooded. Dams, bridges, houses and lives swept irrevocably away. And the predicted storms aren’t over yet.

People have long believed that bad weather is some kind of vengeful divine retribution. Punishment for our earthly misbehavior. Certainly in the face of extreme hardship, this is a tempting response, based, perhaps, on guilt. But, of course, weather is weather, a neutral force. Our perception of whether it is good or bad is based solely and myopically on our own immediate inconvenience.

But maybe this rain is not aimed at us. Maybe Mother Earth is engaged in a deep purification ritual, a much needed purging of Her soiled body and profound pain. Picture Her, like any rape victim standing under a pounding shower for hours, days and weeks, trying to wash away the dirt and degradation that we have heaped upon Her so mercilessly. 

Or maybe She is weeping, sobbing, down pouring tears of sad disappointment in us, Her errant, arrogant offspring, so rude and disrespectful. After all, just look at what we gave the Poor Old Dear for Mother’s Day in gratitude for all of Her great gifts to us: greenhouse gases, radiation, drilling, missile tests, oil spills and chemical trails.

Or this is a watery warning, perhaps. A reminder to appreciate the present and prepare for the future. To re-enforce our roofs, buy Wellington boots and build a safe, waterproof ark where we can collect, preserve and protect, two by two, all of our best intentions and human qualities: hope and love, charity and understanding, forgiveness and peace, compassion and reverence for all life.

Best blessings for keeping dry,

xxQMD

I killed another bird this week. That is to say, that I rescued an injured bird two weeks ago that I was not able to prevent from dying. Again. I do this every spring. Somehow every year I find a fallen baby bird. I take it home and nurse it, but the results are rarely good. On occasion I have raised one to the point when it can fly off on its own. But usually, the ending is not so happy.

In this case, it was a young pigeon still with some baby fuzz and fluffy rust-colored pinfeathers. You never see baby pigeons. The parents keep them totally out of sight until they can be independent. But here was one sitting on the pavement of the parking lot of my building. I had to move it, or it would have been run over. I could have just put it into some bushes, but it surely would have been eaten by the marauding night cats,

I noticed that it had a head wound and also a few on its chest. It had fallen from one of the ledges on the building where pigeons roost. It was very still, perhaps in shock, and let me pick it up. I took it home and cleaned its wounds with peroxide and put it in a box. I tended the cuts and abrasions often, and after a couple of days they were healed.

It became more alert and clearly stronger. The next thing was to feed it. But it refused the gruel that I made from pulverized cat food — the recommended food for baby birds. About five days passed with no food or water. And yet it kept getting better and better. Animals don’t eat when they are sick or injured, so I didn’t force-feed it.

Then I offered it some seeds and he pecked t them. Yea! I took the box outside onto my terrace. He (familiarity changed him from an it to a he) immediately discovered the pan of water that I keep out there for the birds and climbed in. He drank and waded, then pecked some more. Victory!

This went on for days. We had a routine. I took him in at night and covered the box with a dark cloth and then took him outside into the sunshine each day. He walked further and further everyday, exploring, pecking, flapping his wings. But he loved his box and spent most of his time nesting.

Poppy, my little dog was fascinated by him and followed him around. And visa versa. They bonded with each other and I am not sure who imprinted on whom. But they were a team. This was definitely Poppy’s pigeon. She had just had her fifth birthday and I couldn’t have gotten her a better or more beloved present.

All went well. He liked coming into the house and I would usher him back out, not wanting pigeon poop all over. One day I found him in my office. I picked him up and took him back outside. I threw him up a bit and he flew a little. So now it was just a matter of time and he would soon fly away into his adult life.

Two days ago I drank my morning tea on the terrace enjoying the dog and pigeon show. I needed to change clothes to go to the gym and called the dog inside and closed the door. But the two little lovers each ran to the glass door, trying to reach each other through the panes. So I let Poppy back out.

My fatal mistake. A stupid misjudgment. An idiotic lapse of vigilance.

I changed and when I came out to the terrace the bird was dead on the floor and Poppy was cowering under a chair. I couldn’t believe it. Poppy killed her pigeon. She did the deed but the blood is on my hands. It was totally my fault and the guilt is tormenting me. I was furious with her, but much angrier with myself. How could I have let this happen?

Poppy is devastated. Not by guilt. She doesn’t understand what happened, but by grief. She misses the bird and keeps looking for it. I don’t believe it was animal killer instinct. She is not a killer, but a Papillion/Shitzu mix, a lapdog breed. She literally loved him to death.

And I guess that is what I do. I mean well. I want to help, to heal, to rescue, to save, to love all life into health and happiness. And I always succeed, but just to a point and then something happens. I make a mistake of some sort and all is lost.

So what is the lesson? And when will I learn it? They say that one shouldn’t interfere with Nature. But aren’t we all part of Nature? Isn’t it up to each of us to try to save and heal each other? I don’t know the answer. But I do know that I will probably do it again. That is my nature.

Best blessings of healing,

xxQMD

Mercury, the planet of communication enters its three
times a year retrograde stage on May 6, 2009 and will remain
in a backward momentum, as it were, until May 30, 2009.

Mercury in retrograde has a very bad rap. I should know.
As a Virgo (which is ruled by Mercury) I am usually affected
quite profoundly. But over the years I have learned a thing
or two about how to survive in one piece, and how to use
this potentially frustrating phase in a fruitful manner.

When Mercury is moving direct, our minds tend to work on a
functional/forward level. Our actions match our intentions. Our
energy is invested in more assertive decision-making and action
with less emphasis on retrospection and reflection.

However, we are constantly picking up on unconscious intuitive
information, which will surface -- if we let it -- during the
retrograde cycle. And this is a very good thing. We need time to
rest and assimilation all the information that we are bombarded
with in our techno, multitasking world. A time for our inner wisdom
to manifest and guide us to reorganize, rethink, reevaluate, redo,
and reboot. This is a crucial and healthy part of the organic, natural
flow of life.

The clock and dollar orientation that our culture calls *the real
world* is comprised of schedules, deadlines, and to do lists,
which don't often accommodate a cycle of introspective reflection
and reevaluation. This is why this period can be so brutal for some of
us -- especially those of us with determined steely goals and agendas.

Mercury, as most of us know, tends to play havoc with the smooth
functioning of the technology upon which we depend for our
achievements and communication. It also tends to mix up face to face
communications and the best laid plans of wo/men. The results are
interruptions, snafus, misunderstandings, and mix-ups which interfere
with the simplest of projects.

During Mercury in Retrograde, we will need more caution, more
care, and a pinch more elbow grease to get things done. This is
not a good time to launch or initiate new projects. In trying to do so,
we will be pushing off, symbolically, just when the tide is going out,
and it will be more of a struggle to make headway with our plans. It
is far better to wait until the current is moving with us.

The degree to which we hold onto our need to keep to our schedules,
agendas, and plans often equates to the degree in which we find
ourselves going bonkers during this time. When we doggedly hold on
to our logical, rational structures, we court the *Trickster* element
of Mercury, which will fool and frustrate us to no end.

Now is the time that we must surrender our forward leaning push and
embrace the lessons of letting go. We must not underestimate the
degree to which our psyche can resist change. The abdication of our
will/ego to a deeper function of consciousness can be quite a challenge
as the retrograde cycle continues. But there is great reward if we
manage to do so.

This period is a great time to clear our minds. To go back and
complete unfinished projects. To work on reconciling old issues. To
tune into our dreams and unconscious thoughts. To listen to our
inner wisdom. To open to new ways of thinking and perceiving.

So rather than pushing against the cosmic current, let's take a
three week break from our hectic, breakneck speedy ways and
allow ourselves to slow down. To summon up and sort out the
past. To be in the moment. And to savor the NOW.

It can't hurt!

Best blessings of sanity,

XxQMD

Earth and woman share a correspondence of function, a facility for creativity and abundance, a worldly wisdom. Each is primary and potent. Even in appearance, are they the same. Just as the roundness of the earth and Her cyclical seasons resonate in every woman, the surface shapes and internal configurations of the earth are defined by the physical attributes of the female physique.

The soil, smoothly moist and rich, arid, cracked and parched, is Her skin; and the lush foliage, the fuzzy moss, the spindled grasses, are Her many splendid tresses. The trees are arms, legs, limbs, which reach out and dance in all directions. The roots, feet firm on the ground. Gems and crystalline minerals make Her strong skeletal system; and the rivers, creeks and streams are the blood that flows through Her veins.

The air is Her hot breath, Her holy exhalation. The seeds of plants are Her sacred monthly flow. Her pregnant belly is indicated in the rounded hills and Her mountainous breasts swell all the way to the sky. The valleys reflect the soft shapes of Her cradling elbows and comforting lap. The ocean is Her womb, the saline-rich source of all life. Rock clefts like labia, and vulvic caves are passageways into Her cavernous interior; the power of Her hallowed deep places, palpable.

Mother Earth, Mother Nature, has Her moods as well as any woman might. Her emotions, like the weather, are mutable and span the full spectrum. She rainbow-glows, radiant in health and beauty. She twinkles like the stars; sparkles with good humor. She grows overcast, gets dark, oblique, breezy and cool. She weeps with dew. She simmers and hisses on slow burn. She vents her steam. She quakes in anger. She rumbles and grumbles and tears the house down. She sparks, bursts, erupts, explodes, implodes in passion. She can be gentle, generous, humorous, dependable, destructive and very, very scary.  Hell, indeed, hath no fury like an earthy woman scorned.

Mother Earth, universally worshipped as the fertile, female provider, protector and parent, was always treated with great dignity and care. Cultivated fields were left to rest one year in seven lest they become worn out with the never ending work of producing food, and wars were routinely put on hold during the planting season. Woman was cherished as the incarnate daughter of the Great Cosmic Queen, because she embodied the same supreme capability of life. Her natural understanding was held in esteem, and her body, its terrestrial contours reminiscent of those of Mother Earth, was respected. Once upon a time, that is.

A rather bizarre form of pornography, known as pornotopia, was produced during the Victorian period in England. Mother Earth was personified as a voluptuous female landscape laid bare to the voyeuristic viewing pleasure of man who surveys the scene before him from the perspective of a fly promenading upon Her full-figured splendor. Her hills and caves, rises and recesses, were described in somewhat smarmy terms which were meant to elicit the fascinating, fearsome, forbidden Oedipal fantasy of a man mounting his own mother in lust. Where in the past, the Earth had once been revered, She was here reviled, defiled, desecrated. Stripped bare of Her powers, She was reduced to a passive sexual object, sacked and soiled.

Today the body of the Earth, our first mother, is routinely bruised and abused. Raped and burned; dug and dammed; dynamited and nuked. As many as one hundred distinct species of plants and animals are disappearing from existence each day, directly or indirectly due to human domination. And the bodies of women everywhere fare no better. 

How in the world did The Good Earth — the very material (from the Latin, mater, meaning, “mother”) of life itself — get to be a dirty word? Or Mutha, for that matter? According to the esteemed Oxford English Dictionary, dirt means, “grime,” “stain,” “smut.”  Dirty  is “lewd,” “defiled,” “contaminated,” “dingy,” “unsanitary,” “filthy,” “polluted,” “foul.” Not one mention of dirt as the flesh of the Goddess, as the source of the nutrients that nourish us, as the bosom of the Mother that will cradle us when we die. How did it come to pass that the Earth Mother whose grace we depend upon for absolutely everything has become so thoroughly sullied? And more important, how can we repair the damage?

We can begin by commemorating Earth Day in Her honor. Since 1971, Earth Day has been celebrated to remind the people of the world of the need for continuing care which is vital to Earth’s safety and our own. The vernal equinox was originally chosen as the official date to honor Earth for its symbolism — equilibrium and balance — in order to encourage and inspire a universal sense of interdependence, cooperation, and unity. Now we celebrate it on April 22, which has, heretofore, been Arbor Day.

The vernal equinox calls on all mankind to recognize and respect Earth’s beautiful systems of balance, between the presence of animals on land, the fish in the sea, birds in the air, mankind, water, air, and land. Most importantly there must always be awareness of the actions by people that can disturb this precious balance.
- Margaret Mead

On Earth Day the United Nations Peace Bell is rung to initiate a moment of global equipoise when people worldwide can join in a renewed heartfelt commitment to the protection and care of our planet. The United Nations Earth Day event is the centerpiece of an annual global holiday that strives to awaken a common objective of local and global harmony with nature and neighbors.

The original Earth Day proclamation states, “All individuals and institutions have a mutual responsibility to act as Trustees of Earth, seeking the choices in ecology, economics, and ethics that will eliminate pollution, poverty, and violence; foster peaceful progress; awaken the wonder of life; and realize the best potential for the future of the human adventure.”

Last month, two billion people worldwide participated in Earth Hour by turning off their lights as a visual demonstration of the dramatic difference made possible by each individual coupled with the efforts of others. But one hour, one day is barely a beginning. Let one hour, one day inspire two, twenty, two hundred. Let every day be Earth Day.

There is no social-change fairy. There is only change made by the hands of individuals.
- Winona LaDuke

 With every blessing from Mother Earth and every blessing for Her,

xxQMD