A Conversation with Earthly Mother

October, 2019

I pray for you, my love, my human.

I hear through you the chipmunk who chirps out the rhythm of your footsteps.

I see the autumn colors of the leaves on the trees and the ground upon which you walk.

I smell the balsam tree, the acrid yet earthy smell of decaying leaves.

I feel the softness of the flowers, the weight of your backpack.

And I taste the fresh cool water that replenishes us.

Through your life, I live.

I have birthed you, and later I will hold your body when your soul departs.

I was created long before you – my love, my human – came to be.

I will survive long after you destroy yourselves.

And I will grieve.

But for now, I pray for you, my love, my human.

Oh Dear loving Mother, my earth, my physical being!

To you I owe my life!

From you I breathe, I eat, I be.

Yet upon you, I shit. I pollute. I waste.

I’m so sorry!

Please forgive me!

Thank you.

I love you.

I realize now that I am not destroying you;

I realize now that I hasten my death,

My love, my Mother, my earth.

How shall I live with this knowledge?

How shall I live with my suicide so imminent?

I shall do what little I can,

What I can do for my children, my children’s children and their children.

I shall pick up trash, refill bottles, eat less meat, recycle,

Be smaller.

I shall be grateful for the beauty, the bounty, and the lifeforce.

I shall share my earthly light and my heavenly light with all of life,

So that all earthly beings may live

For another day

Another week

Another year.

Our short time here is almost done

Our death is almost here

But for now

I live every day

As if it were my last, cherishing each moment.

I thank you, my Mother, for the insight, the love you give, and the inspiration to be;

To be all that I can right now, right here.

For if the single beat of a butterfly’s wing

Can influence the universe,

How powerful

Can I be?