Earth Stewardship – 2019

THE STEWARDSHIP GROUP: Calling like-minded musicians, writers, poets, artists, and other creatives who are VITALLY CONCERNED ABOUT THE EARTH and our current social environment.

EARTHSONG – INTIMACY WITH THE EARTH

“Our challenge is to create a new language, even a new sense of what it is to be human. It is to transcend not only national limitations, but even our species isolation, to enter into the larger community of living species. This brings about a completely new sense of reality and value.” (Thomas Berry, “The Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth, 42).

AFTER A THUNDERSTORM

I’m sitting looking at the trees after a long, vibrant thunderstorm; I am contemplating my thoughts of all the mystery in this event.

THE LIMITS OF OUR CONSCIOUS PERCEPTIONS

We think of the environment through the filter of our own limited conscious perceptions. What if there is much more to the Earth than is obvious. Thinking that’s all there is, what if there is more to all the plant and animal life than we see at casual glance?

ARE OTHER LIFE FORMS IN THE ENVIRONMENT DISCREETLY SEPARATE FROM US?

“Our relationship with the earth involves something more than pragmatic use, academic understanding, or aesthetic appreciation. A truly human intimacy with the earth and with the entire natural world is needed. Our children should be properly introduced to the world in which they live.” (Thomas Berry, “Human Presence,” in The Dream of the Earth, 13).

We think of other life forms as separate, discreet events from us; we don’t see them as part of a greater oneness and mystery, which is beyond our five senses. There are questions: do life forms communicate in their own ways, perhaps energetically, that we can’t perceive within the parameters of our closed off senses? Perhaps in our evolutionary space in time, there are many things in the environment that are much more mysterious and complex than many of us can fathom.

BEING IN HARMONY WITH THE DIVINE

If I just sit with this mystery in contemplative silence and let it speak to me in its own languages other than my own, then I can feel and be present to this “Peace that passes [my] understanding.” I can feel this intimacy that I call the Earthsong. I can be present and feel in harmony with what I call the Divine.

 

*** NOTE: I value your comments.  Please feel free to comment.

Expanding Your Sense of Time

EXPAND YOUR SENSE OF TIME

“I’ve never been satisfied with the mantra so common among spiritual people today: ‘Live in the moment.’

…teachers try to get people to do something that is not natural to them, and that they don’t really enjoy…

…I’d rather live more in the past and in the future. I’d prefer to expand the time frame in which I live rather than contract it into a moment.”

AGELESS SOUL – The Lifelong Journey Toward Meaning and Joy, Thomas Moore

It’s Only Rain

It rained all day
and through the night.
The wind was fierce
in the night,
seemed to moan,
and the flags outside
were whipping around.

All this rain,
is it Mother Earth crying
when she is loving us
with so much blessing?

Is she crying over
how we’re losing interest
in being her stewards,
wanting rather to explore
the unknown desert out there
in our universe?

Is she crying
or am I only imagining?

Because, get real,
It’s only rain.

RICHARD EVAN MACKAY
(from my forthcoming poetry book: EARTHSONG POETRY)

THE ENERGY SHIFT before us globally can be characterized as a shift from utilizing dinosaur droppings (coal and oil) to finding new ways to harness and utilize the energy of Mother Earth and of the Universe.

 

Earthrise

Did you see
the Earthrise this morning?
Or was it this evening?

Of course you didn’t see it.
It’s a visual image
in my mind’s eye
like a burning bush,
a musical song
in the silence,
an angelic harbinger
for a new story
in my heart.

Earthrise,
an image sent from Source.
An image sent from God
to remind me
we live in the universe –
We all live
in one sacred home.

If you can imagine it;
Mother Earth has declared
it’s our home.
How will I treat my
brothers and sisters?
How will I treat myself?

Earthrise

Earthsong – did you sense

Music in the silence?

Richard Evan MacKay

***The Swan Book…presents us with the Earth not as an idea, not as spectacle, but as a vital physical reality with its own stories, [songs] and knowledge, its own ontology.

I think in The Swan Book, Alexis Wright has written the first great novel of climate change. And perhaps the first truly planetary novel. I hope it goes viral.

SYDNEY REVIEW OF BOOKS – JANE GLEESON-WHITE

MAGICAL TIME-THE SUNDOWN PATH

I

This feeling of disdain
wells up in my chest.

Is it from others?
No, it’s from within,
And it’s not real.

Where is it coming from?
Yes, it’s a past coming back,
holding you back.

A VOICE:

“You don’t matter,
so ignore it and move on
in compromise or
over compensation.”

“Vanquish it because
you know it’s not real.
It’s holding you back
from living right now
in today’s possibilities
and Love.”

II

MY HEART:

“Take the Sundown Path
where the magenta
Crepe myrtle line
the way.”

The sundown sets
along the tree tops
in the distance

The trees, the houses,
the picnic shelter have all
been turned upside down
in the pond’s reflection.
Everything has turned
into wonder.

As I’m walking along
this sundown path,
It’s like a still life painting,
in what’s become
Magical time.

 

The Stranger in the Doorway

 I come into the lodge,
I’m startled,
seeing the reflection
in one of the glass panes
of the front door.

This stranger coming toward me,
looking at me,
looking like me.

Who are you?

Well, I know right away.
This is my reflection,
a part of me,
like a shadow
that seeks my attention,
that wants expression,
that wants exploration –
like a stranger
mirrored in this doorway.

Homer Free

HOMER FREE

Holiday inns and ways
to escape
the core of my being
the life in my days.

There’s dialogue with others.
There’s hope midst despair.
There’s love in my living
Not getting stuck in repair.

So, I’m singing my song
Painting my poem
There’s love in my living
when I am being home.

Walking across the brilliant white hot pavement in one side of Big Spring park behind my house, I happened upon this homeless guy who I’ve seen all over downtown Huntsville. I’ll call him Homer, though I’ve been reluctant to engage him in conversation and don’t know his name

He carries all of his goods in a kind of basket and shows up rolling it, walking or sitting on a park bench around town. I think he might be a vet who hasn’t recovered from PTSD because I saw him often at the VA clinic when it was downtown; they never kicked him out and he never caused trouble, though he sometimes talked to himself inaudibly.

This morning he was throwing something white on the ground near the park bench, and I thought, “He’s littering the park with waste”. When I got next to him, however, he was drying his wet socks on the hot pavement in the sun.

God Bless you Homer in your freedom to be and on your arduous journey.