Our mother, which art the earth,Above are the words which were used with the Earth Dance that I mentioned in my post two days ago (Dancing in the Footsteps of the Divine). They seemed worth sharing since they express a love-filled, non-judgmental, and cooperative view of life on Earth. If it could be so....
Nurturing are thy ways.
Thy web of life be woven
Thy way be found within,
As it is all around.
Thank you this day for our bread and sweat
and forgive us our misuse of you,
as we forgive others their misuse of us.
And lead us not into exploitation,
But deliver us
From lording it over you,
And over each other,
And over all our other fellow creatures.
For thine are the waters of life,
The hills, valleys, and plains of home,
The breeding, seeding, feeding ground,
For now, and for as close to forever
As we will ever come.
Ah, woman!
Karen Loveland's reworking of the Lord's Prayer
And it is. At least insofar as we make a commitment to engage in our individual and collective practices of T'ai Chi Chih or yoga, or T'ai Chi, or Dances of Universal Peace, or centering prayer, or seated meditation, or whatever method quiets the mind and softens the heart. I am a powerful, loving, and kind person who is connected to all of the other living beings on this Earth and my practice reminds me of that.
Day-to-day life can easily pull us out of our quiet, beneficent, compassionate natures. That's why it is important to keep practicing, practicing, practicing.
One of the reasons I mention the natural world so consistently in this blog is because my daily writing offers me the opportunity to center myself in the beauty and peace that surrounds me. I want to notice the earth, the sky, the waters. I want to breathe the air, smell the scents, listen to the sounds, feel the winds, float through the air with the snowflakes, and lift my eyes to the sunbeams. I want to recognize my part in all that is. And I want to grateful for it. All of it. Could it be that that's what Ms. Loveland was trying to express too?
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