Dry watering holes and elephants…

My hands are becoming rough from the labors of gardening and carpentry, dirt smoothed into the creases, more distinct now as the years unfold. I love the look of them, the cracks along the sides of my index fingers showing a surface level dryness with the moist softness of flesh underneath.

I rolled my shoulders as I wrote that last sentence, feeling gratitude for the moistness and softness of our Earth bodies.

The dry cracks of my hands and fingers bare complete resemblance to a dry lakebed, a watering hole in the Serengeti parched from the baking sun. An elephant wanders by, smelling the soils for dig-able water sources, her skin a kaleidoscope of cracks and shapes, resembling the soils, resembling my hands.

I close my eyes and send a prayer of gratitude to all of the elephants throughout the world, African and Asian, forest and savannah, captive and wild.

Did you know that Sperm whales dive to depths so deep that humans have not yet been able to follow without being crushed by the pressure? They hunt in the dark and deep sea, their bodies evolved to withstand the pressure and their multi-sensory abilities allow them to thrive in the dark. What wonder! How marvelous we share the planet with such mystery.

I am grateful for the sun and for the movement ocean currents, the tilting of planets and the call of cardinals.

I am saddened by so much of our modern world.

I am filled with fury and rage, anger and disbelief routinely.

I am called back home to love.

Usually by my partner, as she saves me from some spiral of unproductive and judgmental narration of things that do not need to be said right now.

I am grateful for this.

For I love humanity so dearly.

I just hate what preys upon our sweet fears and motivations.

A simple question that feels huge right now….

Can we come together and create a world where we live intimately connected to nature, where we commune and consume, give and receive, steward and be stewarded, laugh and celebrate, call and be called for, by the elements which make up our soft and moist bodies?

I invite all who read these words to find one way tomorrow to share some space, be it a breath or a an hour, with a tree that you may easily pass by in your busy day to day. Smell its bark if you could. It may not smell like anything, but the bacteria present on this living being will aid in your health and wellbeing as they enter your body and diversify your biome.

Diversify our biome.

Diversify our biome.

Come back home.

Come back home.

Celebrate!!!

It ain’t too late!!!

What does the heart wish to share at this moment in time, spinning around on this paradise planet in the midst of black, fertile space?

I am grateful for the plants.

I am hopeful that the path I am walking will lead me to ever more abundance and peace, even thought it is rife with trap doors and quicksand around every corner it seems.

I wish for thriving health and vibrant wellbeing for all future generations.

I feel deep sadness.

I am alive.

I am learning.

I am luminous.