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GLOBAL ORGASM . . . Say What?

Posted on Apr 1st, 2008 by Dryad : Coming Home Dryad

I added an “idea” to the Gaia list for the first time. I really think it would be lovely if we could add photographs and pictures to Pods and G-mail messages the same way we do to our Blog. It is so much easier. After I added my question, the writing inquired if I would like to see everyone else’s questions? Sure. I had never seen the conception of a “Cloud” for displaying data before coming to Zaadz. I’m still sort of fascinated by it. So. I looked at the cloud to see which questions were being asked by the most people . . . which words were the biggest. I was amazed, astounded and sort of delighted to find in REAL BIG words - actually bigger than ‘Let’s Change the World’ - GLOBAL ORGASM. 

Well! There wasn’t much description, but from reading some of the comments I discovered that I at least, had missed it (I think.) The time was Winter Solstice Day - Friday, December 22nd, 2006. If there is a new one on the way, it wasn’t announced there. The comments were interesting. They ranged from serious comments proscribing this as the way to save the world to - “giggles.” There were also several comments about “no faking.” Anybody want to guess from which sex these comments came? Oh, yawn, fella's, Y.A.W.N."

At any rate people did seem to be excited about the idea, to say the least. And I, of course, had a poem start climbing up my spine and into my head. I had to write it down. I didn’t have to post it and inflict it on others - but I did. After all, it is April Fool’s Day and I haven’t done a single obnoxious thing - yet.  Here it is. Mother Nature’s Divine Inspiration . . .



MOTHER NATURE’S  DIVINE INSPIRATION


Kick off creation with a Huge, Sweet ZING!
Wasn’t that the original reason for the thing?
Mother Nature said, “We’re going to make something new”
And  we’re going to do it with a little trick or two . . .

With a Huge, Sweet Zing, we’re going to kick off Creation
We’re going to do it smart with divine imagination
This orgasm thing is a brilliant inspiration
A neat, sweet, treat towards procreation
We’ll begin with flirtation, a little gyration
throw some animation into the celebration
From fascination right into infatuation
Anticipation will conquer hesitation
Some magnetic vibration, a growing sweet sensation . . .
Soon desperation becomes the motivation
then Manifestation of collaboration!
That hot, sweet hydration, exploding in elation!
And the world is whirled into sublime levitation!

Here’s where Mother Nature gets a standing Ovulation
For fertilization and then inpregnation
Next comes Gestation,  formation of cohabitation
Relation . . . lactation . . . and brand new generation
“Whoosh!” says Mother Nature, let’s have a celebration
My nifty little trick has created “Population!”

Every motivation needs a compensation
For this one Mother N. deserves Congratulation
If every act of creation had such divine fascination
think of all we could do with this kind of  inspiration!
If people got it off on kind consideration
On harmonization and true cooperation
The entire population of every single nation
Each organization and each denomination;
Perhaps we’d kiss goodbye unfair discrimination
Desperation, isolation, human devaluation;
Maybe even starvation and war’s annihilation.

If we got the Big “O” from Conservation
We might just see some stupendous transformation
Every big foundation and oily corporation
Would all  become concerned with vegetation reparation
Conservation would no longer be a low consideration
The good of the earth  would become their obligation
Reforestation would become their new fixation
Stopping global warming would be their dedication,
If they had the expectation of that whoope motivation.

If Congress could cum together with cooperation,
They might turn out to be a fit organization.
They might spend money on things like education.
The next generation might make graduation,
As well as learning how to think and use imagination
Creation, dedication, inspiration, motivation
Possibly together we could evade termination
Perhaps our glowing globe could escape annihilation
The next generation might hold the world’s salvation
If suddenly all the “me’s” had this mighty motivation . . .

Mother Nature said with sudden realization
“That’s exactly your problem, and here’s your explanation,
The reason for your present desperation situation
Is here in your last sentence - that tiny combination
The “M” and the “E” , in exactly that formation

Far too many of my worlds population
Think themselves the center of all creation
They forget about the “we” and about cooperation
They don’t give a damn about the next generation
Each one finds in “me” such fantastic fascination
Each one for his “me” has such sublime infatuation
So much admiration, adulation, adoration . . .”

Mother Nature’s brow furrowed in concentration
How to create another application
With a similar fascination to increase motivation?
One that would appeal to this self-centered population . . .
Who only cared about their own expectation . . .
Their own compensation, their own sensation . . .

Mother Nature laughed at her own imagination
“This may not work, but it’s worth examination
A whole new concept . . . we’ll call it masturbation . . .”


©Edwina Peterson Cross

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* I do not believe that masturbation is selfish in anyway, but really, given the rhyme . . . I couldn't help myself. (Uh hu, given the subject - that's what they ALL say.)


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Me . . . Without Words

Posted on Apr 13th, 2008 by Dryad : Coming Home Dryad

I have wondered from time to time what exactly a Blog is. What it is, what will it become? A Blog can be an essay, but it isn’t an essay. A Blog can contain a poem, but, of course, it isn’t a poem. One might say it is a public journal, but it isn’t even really that, it is structured differently than a journal and even people who ‘tell it all’ usually put much more thought and composition into a Blog. And, of course, a Blog isn’t a composition either. Will future English 101 classes require you to learn to Blog? Along the way, it seems to have become a verb as well.

I got lost somewhere between the noun and the verb. To me, my Blog is a thing, a noun, but more and more I hear it used as a verb. “I am going to Blog.”  I have never learned “To Blog” as such. I stick things on my Blog (noun) a poem, sometimes an actual essay, a short story (or more often a piece of a short story) a painting, sometimes just a thought. I came over to my Blog (noun) tonight to say something that I don’t think I have the words for. If you know me at all, you will know that this is an extremely strange state of being for me. I usually have far too many words. Yet here I am. I can’t make a poem, I tried. I can’t paint it, I tried that too. Perhaps if I knew how to Blog (verb) I could Blog it.

Late last December I broke my back. Well, late last December they discovered my back was broken. I had evidently been walking around for 4-6 weeks with a vertebra completely collapsed. The reason for this is that I have an advanced case of fibromyalgia and I am in so much pain normally, that I thought a broken back was a fibro flare. I did the same thing in 2006 when I had to have an emergency radical hysterectomy for a tumor that weighed 10 pounds. Anyone else would have been in agony. I was already in agony and, sure enough, I thought I was having a flare.

Between my diagnosis and my surgery the members of Gaia, through my PLAY-POD, sent me the most astonishing and wondrous out pouring of strength, wishes, prayers and light that I have ever witnessed. I was so overcome I couldn’t do anything but sit here in front of my computer and cry. My husband printed all the messages and the phenomenal healing images that had come and we put them in a notebook which I took to the hospital. Before surgery I showed it to the surgeon, he was amazed and touched. He kept asking me, “Who ARE all these people?” He couldn’t quite believe that I had never even seen any of you. He told me the book was too powerful to leave outside, that it was going into surgery with me and he tucked it under the Gurney and then under the table while he operated.

A lot of you reading this know this story. I wanted very much to do something to somehow let these people know how very much their care and light had meant to me. I thought up several somethings, but haven’t managed to do anything yet. My poor beautiful PLAY-POD is in the same state; I’ve thought up more than several somethings - and there are announcements along the lines of “Coming Soon!” but soon hasn’t come. Before the happenings of late December I was “almost” ready to put up several new boards that I’m very excited about. Most of them are still “almost” ready. I’ve managed to keep things rolling, to write to my friends, but not to get much else done. I’m frustrated with all of the swell ideas that are no where but in my brain!

I healed quickly from the surgery, but only to a point. There was still a horrendous amount of pain and there has evidently been some kind of a slippage in my back which has left one shoulder considerable below the other. About 10 days ago, I went back to bed a lot of the day because I just couldn’t handle the pain. If you know anyone with Fibro, you will know that you must keep moving, or you stop moving. It’s a huge thing. On my profile I’ve written “Vertical!” on ‘where I am’ and recently a damn! next to the word “Horizontal.” It’s about the worst fear. Ten years ago I was part of an Aqua aerobics class at the Hospital. There were eight of us, all of us near the same age, all in the same stage of Fibro. Today I am the only one who is still walking unaided. Three are completely bedridden, two in nursing homes; two can manage with wheeled walkers, the other two use motorized carts. Those of you who know me best, hear what is coming next, and probably the tears behind it . . . I am a dancer. The thought of immobility terrifies me. I don’t want that to be my future. I want to do yoga. I want to swim. I want to walk. I want to dance again.

Well, I’ve already managed quite a few words for someone who can’t find any - here comes the hard part. I’m not sure I even told people I wasn’t feeling well, I just sort of disappeared as I found it was too painful to sit to the computer. Then someone asked and I said, yes, I am not well. The next time I came back to check things at PLAY-POD I found that they had another thread of prayers and wishes going for me. It is here that I am utterly without words. I grew up in a loving family, in a nice community and for the most part people have treated me well my whole life. But I have never, never seen anything like this before. All I can do is cry, because I know that behind every entry of loving words, behind every beautiful image there is someone who really, genuinely cares for me - so much. Part of me cries and asks, “where did you come from?” “What have I done to deserve this?” It is in the answer to that question that the wonder lies. “Nothing. I have done nothing. I didn’t have to.”

There are so many here who work and think constantly and in advanced ways about changing the world, making it not only a better place, but a different place. I feel naive and unstudied next to much of what I see here. I only know that in that answer lies not only wonder and awe but hope and the possibility of the answer to a dream. Love. Unconditional love. Not because I am your mother, or your grandmother, or your teacher or your neighbor. Just because I am.

I have no words to answer this. “Thank you,” are two great words, they cover a lot, and ought to be said more often. I’ll say them to the several millionth power, but I don’t think it is enough. I suspect that the only thing that comes close at all is, “I love you too.” Which is true.

I had an MRI done last week, it will be Tuesday before I can have it read. Tomorrow we are taking some healing into our own hands and driving down to Northen California to the Redwoods. If I can’t sit up all the way, I’ll lay down. I won’t be able to walk far into the woods, but it doesn’t matter, I’m going in as far as I can and sit with the trees

Ode to a Nightingale ~ Keats
 
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains     
  My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,     
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains     
  One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:     
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,           
  But being too happy in thine happiness,     
    That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,     
          In some melodious plot     
  Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,     
    Singest of summer in full-throated ease.




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In my next Blog (noun?) I intend to Blog (verb) about another form of healing. My Jena told me a couple of weeks ago that I MUST do something about my negative self-talk. She was right, as she has an astonishing penchant for being. And so I began, using Jena’s idea and morphing it around in my own weird and strange fantastic and creative way. It’s an interesting story, coming soon to a Blog (noun) near you.

If you would read a description of something truly divine, come to PLAY-POD and read what Jena writes of a “Grace Shower.” Come and see all my beautiful friends “Playing, Singing, Dancing, Sharing and Praying at Dryad's Bed” It is a poem, that one line. A poem, that means more to me than I will ever be able to say with worlds, tears or my kaleidoscope of light.

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MRI, Abutment, Abduction, Horse Tails & Transcendent Trees

Posted on Apr 19th, 2008 by Dryad : Coming Home Dryad

I promised some of you an “update.” I’m not sure this counts, being much more of a question than an answer, but that seems to be the size of things. I used to think that a question came first and an answer was the conclusion. One question, one answer to follow. I don’t think that is the case anymore. I’m not sure what their relationship is - questions and answers - but like all relationships, it just isn’t that simple. 

E.P. Cross, Results of MRI (Mildly Radical Insanity)

There is a considerable impingement of the dipwhipper by the 12th tine of the borkelfork; the 714th trolley secular car is anterior in conjunction with sha-la-la-la, this is complicated by the compression of bopbamaloo which is responsible for loss of signal in the schniddlemurk that results in she-bop-bam-boom! F-1 (phantom bomber) is deployed because the central canal has narrowed, causing flooding on the valley floor where  Fibro-oid-nad has gone ske-bumpus on the tiddley- twaddley. The preponderance of rhyme is evident though rhythm is in retropulsion causing deflection of kangaroo, i.e. Captain which all appear, with difficulty and Jeans (M.R. Green), to be more pronounced, due to a lisp and unwarranted giggles, occurring in the prior study.

Really. It’s not that bad - it’s worse. I haven’t got a clue what it says. I also think it is rude to begin something like this by saying that someone’s anterior is compressed and deformed. I’m not sure they should be looking at my anterior anyway! :-P

Due to several really spectacular snafu’s, my doctor has seen the MRI and the report, I’ve seen the report, but not the MRI, I haven’t seen my doctor and she hasn’t seen me. No one has seen the surgeon, but the doctor is trying hard. It is suspected that he may have gone to Ireland for Saint Patrick’s Day at which point I, naturally, suspect abduction by the Wee Folk. Given he is about 6'6" it is, at least, fun to indulge in contemplation of said abduction whilst waiting for him to come back from wherever he actually is.

My information came from my own reading of the MRI report and from speaking to the Physician’s Assistant who hadn’t seen the MRI and was reading the report as she spoke to me over the telephone. My understanding is less than perfect right now. It may even turn out that I’m mixed up completely on what is going on. I also have no idea whatsoever what happens next. I still don’t like the sound of any of the options, but given how mixed up this sounds to me, the castle in Lottery/Spain option doesn’t sound all that wild. I think I’m going with that one, regardless.

SO,  from what I can understand: the other three cracked vertebrae have not significantly changed which is good news. The bad news is that one vertebrae has evidently slipped on to another. I don’t understand this at all, I came to this conclusion from translating words in the report from Latin to English, back to Latin and back to English. Do you understand that? I don’t. There are several “bulging” disks in my lower back. I knew that, but it seems that said disks are indulging in more bulging than we knew. One bulger seems to be pressing on my spinal column badly, or I think badly. Having no comparative norms, I can’t tell the severity of their severe or how considerable their considerable is. It seems that my “ anterior thecal sac is deflected and causing severe abutment of the conus medullaris.” In good old every day English, deflected and abutment are almost antonyms. I think they are using abutment differently than in regular English - rather than abutment meaning “support” or something that receives and therefore relieves weight - as in the abutment of a bridge - they mean something is pushing against something else. I think. Item A pushing against Item B (abutment?), thus causing Item B to be out of line (deflected?)  I’m having a very hard time visualizing what is being deflected and how and what is being abutted and exactly what the whole thing means or how it relates to the abduction of the surgeon.  Anyone out there speak this language?

My favorite thing that I discovered is this: The conus medullaris is the terminal end of the spinal cord. The conus medullaris is what is being abutted. Receiving abutment? Getting shoved?  This is the fun part, though . . . after the spinal cord terminates . . . that doesn’t sound good does it? It sounds rather sinister to me. Sorry . . . after the spinal cord terminates,  the spinal nerves continue as dangling nerves called the cauda equina. Those language nerds among you are now going, “equina? horse?” Yes!

All these roots and rootlets of nerves dangling down the vertebral column give the appearance of a horse's tail, which is the meaning of the Latin name cauda equina. Now, I have to wonder if this has anything to do with Peri and Mary and I turning into horses in “Horses of Valor.” I also have to wonder how I am going to explain this to all these doctors? :-P . . . “well, you see, my friends and I were playing horses, we were galloping along and then we just up and turned into . . .”
In Whose Imagination - Riding Cloud Canyon


Regardless of whatever it is that is going on - from the inside out - I’m a little bit better in the last two days, after having spent most of my time in bed and walking slowly. I’m back to the computer today for a few short periods of time. I’ve got a great little timer that tells me when I must get up and stretch/walk. It’s so . . .ANNOYING!  Right in the middle of a thought or when I’ve finally found the right word . . . MAAH! . . . MAAH! . . . MAAH! . . . MAAH! The thing thinks it is a baby goat.
WI BabyGoat Wolters 102006

The Redwoods were magnificent. I was sick a good part of the weekend, but the hours that we spent in the trees were transcendent. It had been raining so we didn’t hike much, being more afraid of slipping than usual and having stamina equal to none. (Yes, that sentence could mean two things. I will leave you to decide.)  There was no one else in the park at all. We drove all the way around the loop through both sides of the Jedediah Smith Redwood’s State Park several times going about five miles an hour and only saw one other car.  The sun was coming down through the dripping branches and splitting into long, brave  banners of swirling faery dust. Every once in a while a bank of fog would attack from the ocean. It prowled like a huge grey cat, gliding languid and liquid through the trees, leaving kittens on some of the branches. Each kitten climbed and frolicked the top of their tree for a while and then they rolled themselves up and streaked across the sky to tumble back among the rest of the Fog Cat Family once again.
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There were raindrops everywhere, and so there were rainbows everywhere as well; they arched among the trees for a few moments and then were gone in the next twist of the sun. There were the tiny, dancing kind of rainbows than come from a single drop of water; the kind that you are not even completely sure you’ve seen, but then you ‘almost’ see another and another and then, suddenly,  THAT one WAS a rainbow, you are sure! A rainbow just the size of the sparkle in your eye.

Rainbow Eyes



The ferns have just finished their opening dance and the fiddle heads are right behind them, unrolling like a yawning cats tongue. There were delicate, white flowers everywhere. I’m not sure what they are - they looked like a cross between a Colorado Columbine and the Lady Slippers that came out in the early spring of the woods of Maine.
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This was my fantastic new invention . . . this is especially for you Alya, since you always remember . . .It’s called “LOOK UP: THE REDWOOD BALLET.” In the park, the road is narrow; it was built around the trees not through them. In other words, they didn’t cut trees to make the road, they built the road around the trees, so it winds around and around and passes very close to the trees. My husband was driving, going about 5 mph. I turned side wards in my seat, rolled down my window and put my feet in his lap. Then I put my neck pillow between my neck and the window casing and I put my head OUT the window! Just barely out, but out far enough that I had a clear view straight up into the tremendous soaring trees. Down on the ground it was quite shady with occasional beams of light dancing alone; sliding around the tree trunks and leaping through the clearings. Up in the tops of the trees everything had changed places. The sun was shining brightly and it was the shadows that twirled and spun through the new, spring leaves so far from the forest floor. The car wove slowly and the trees danced above my eyes. It wasn’t any time at all before I could “switch” and see myself and the car holding still and the trees moving. I’m just not sure I’ve ever seen a ballet quite as mighty and magnificent as the Jedediah Smith Redwood’s doing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
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Gidon Kremer - Vivaldi's Four Seasons - Spring (I. Allegro)

It was a glorious day, full of treasure and wonder. I was in Niap for many minutes that probably added up to more than an hour which was utterly magnificent. It was the kind of day for a lot of ThunWoosh. Umm. ThunWoosh. I think that is another Blog. Stay Tuned.

Thank you again to each of you who have helped me with strength, light and love. I don’t know what is going to happen next, but I feel a little more able to cope with it now - what ever it is.

Blessings ~

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Earth Day: Observance, Reverence, Wonder, Celebration: HOPE

Posted on Apr 22nd, 2008 by Dryad : Coming Home Dryad

I’ve been writing this Blog about Earth Day all during Earth-Eve and most of Earth Day and now Earth Day has almost gone away. Is there an Earth-Night? There ought to be if there isn’t. This didn’t start out to be a Blog at all. I was just writing stuff and it sort of SLUPed together like the quicksilver - mercury - in a broken thermometer used to do. Do you remember that?

We were told never, never, to touch quicksilver. It was made out of magic material called “Touch Me Child,” you couldn’t help it. If a thermometer broke, children came from miles around with their fingers out. I think they made that spun-glass Angel Hair out of the same thing. I remember quicksilver, spun-glass Angel Hair and I remember the first Earth Day very well. It doesn’t seem possible that it was so long ago. (That last sentence is a good way to show that you are old.)  We had a long, long way to go on April 22, 1970. Industry was still dumping waste not only into the air, but straight into rivers with impunity, everyone was driving huge cars into which we dumped leaded gas; most people had never heard of an emission test. Try to talk to anyone about poisoning the land with pesticides, the rapid extinction of species and decimation of wilderness land  and you were a radical trying to cause trouble. They called us Eco-freaks. No one knew the word ‘Environment’ no less ‘Ecology.’ Many of the people at the “Rally” had come to laugh.

Earth Day was still new when I started teaching, but it had been accepted. Sort of. Those first years, we just kind of knitted it on to Arbor Day. Arbor Day had been around for years and trees were considered safe and not controversial or extremist. Little did THEY know! The Ents were on guard, even then, but only a few of us knew it.  We used it to teach our children about conservation, preservation, conservancy, reforestation. Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. Though Recycle seemed to get the attention through the years, early on, we taught the children that all three were important. We used the words before the nifty emblem came out. We still got strange looks and worried parents when we taught these 3-R’s during the year, but on Earth Day - disguised as Arbor Day - it was permissible. We prepared for Earth Day for weeks - and when the day came - we celebrated. I made my first worms and mud cupcakes for Earth Day. The children wrote poems and painted pictures for the earth. We danced, we sang and planted trees, we built instruments from vegetables, we danced, we wrote earth-dreams on the sidewalk in chalk, and we danced. One Earth Day Celebration after dancing for a long time on the grass, we all lay down on the ground on our backs. I had the children close their eyes and feel the gifts of the sun against their eye lids: light and warmth. I asked them to feel the earth against their backs holding them securely. I asked them to feel how the sun spread warmth all over their bodies and then the wind came dancing to cool them. The child laying next to me said, thoughtfully, “You otta get a bunch of grown-up’s to try this. Ya’know, we do this all the time.” Ah. Out of the mouths of babes.

My kids grew up Green. I have a nineteen year old son who doesn’t have a drivers license, but walks everywhere he goes. One daughter walks to work and the other is trying to relocate so she can do the same. My daughters wash and reuse plastic bags, use drying racks for laundry, always use less when less will do, reuse if possible, recycle if it is not. They nearly had apoplexy when I told them we used to run the water while we brushed our teeth. They couldn’t imagine anyone ever being that unaware and wasteful. The products we use in our homes are all non-toxic, and 5-7 day biodegradable. They eat organic and wear clothes made of natural fibers. They study and know how to use the money they spend to support groups and people who feel as they do. They vote. They grew up this way, it is reality to them, the way things must be. The way things should be. The way things just are.

I started thinking last night about how many resources there are for teachers who are celebrating Earth Day with their students now. The idea of having the Internet as a teaching resource still just stuns me. So last night, on a whim, I went searching to see what I could find about Earth Day, 2008.

I found some fun projects. I also read that Earth Day has accomplished almost nothing. I read that small steps like returning bottles, bringing your own bag and shorter showers are of such minor impact that they are meaningless. In fact, they are less than meaningless because they make us think we are doing something productive when we are not. ‘Individual Life Style’ makes no impact. I saw Earth Day called a “Ritual of Sympathy” that merely made “regular” people feel good while achieving nothing. One article told me that Earth Day, and the entire environmental movement, has been ruled by Big Oil since 1967. I also read that April 22 was Vladimir Lenin's birthday and Earth Day has really always been an undercover tribute to the founder of the Soviet Union and therefore Communistic. This article wasn’t written in 2008, of course. It was written in 2006. I wonder if no one has bothered to tell them about the Soviet Union? At any rate, I don’t think I’ve heard that one since 1970.

Despair. There have been plenty of times that I have despaired. Times that it has seemed that people will not hear, will not care, will not understand - will not look farther than the next ten years or their own noses, which ever comes first. I have often been utterly despondent at the attitudes of some of the people of my home state - people so spoiled by living amid magnificent natural wonders that they would sell those wonders cheap, for temporary luxuries that they have convinced themselves are necessities. In the early ‘70's I read a book entitled “Slaughter the Animals, Poison the Earth” that began to change my mind about things I had always been told regarding man’s “stewardship” of the earth. I kept reading. In the early ‘70's I took the first stand of my life against my father’s wishes and beliefs. I hauled home the entire Environmental Impact Statement for the 5000 megawatt coal-fired generation plant that was scheduled by Southern California Edison to be built on the Kaiparowits Plateau in Southern Utah. The EIS was roughly the size of about seven metropolitan telephone books. I read the entire thing, to be sure I knew what I was doing. Then I laced up my vibrim boots and went off, without my Daddy’s blessing, to protest “Kaiparowits.”

It was a turning point in many ways, not only for me, but for the burgeoning Ecology movement. The ecological battle that was lost with the building of the Glen Canyon Dam was won years later on the Kaiparowits Plateau. It was one of the first ‘Big One’s’ that the “Environmentalists” won. There are people in my home state who still speak that word as if they are swearing. Some of them are my friends. There are many who were less than happy with the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The idea is that the land is theirs and they should be able to do what they want with it. Morally, of course, it is not ‘their land.’ It isn’t literally either, it belongs to the United States Government. Now. I don’t know if Chief Seattle actually ever gave the speech attributed to him, but I must agree with part of what it says. The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth. I belong to this earth. This is where I was born. There is no huge smoke stack belching black coal smoke on top of the Kaiparowits Plateau.

Kaiparowits Plateau

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

This one is not the Grand Staircase - it is a bit to the West - Cedar Breaks National Monument. I really was almost born here. Mom & Dad made it back to Cedar City or I would have a better story to tell. Still. It's fairly impressive for an almost. I think. :-)
Cedar Breaks


We won that one. History will show there were many more that were lost. There were years that I doubted anyone with any power understood anything at all. In 1992, I read a book written by a United States Senator entitled “Earth in the Balance.” Fourteen years before “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore’s first book allayed that doubt, leaving me sure that at least one man living and working in Washington D.C. deeply understood what we are up against. I lived there myself at the time and I certainly knew that one man was not going to do it alone. Still. He was a light shining as brightly as several million CFL blubs in a deep depth of darkness. He still is.

OK. I am biased. I hereby admit it. I like Al Gore. I don't even know if it is PC anymore, I've been expecting a back lash. Is it out there? No. Don't tell me.

Last night I got stuck in a sort of “surfing-rut” going from one article to another - they got darker and darker. Article after article that said: no hope. Not from the individual. The problem is, every time I check in the mirror, there is still only one of me. Because it is impossible for me to reduce my “Footprint” to fit my own foot, there is no reason to try? What have we fought so hard for all these years? The years of protest, letter writing, campaigning, teaching, changing, helping others want to change too. Was it all for nothing?

Finally, early this morning, I switched back over to Gaia to see if there was anything up here yet. Well, I had been up all night and I had a headache, which is no doubt the reason I started crying when I read what Siona wrote. Truthfully, I read things Siona writes all the time and DON’T cry about them. Really.

There were words throughout Siona’s message that sang out to me . . . observance, reverence, wonder, celebration. How beautifully those four words go together, and what a perfect fit for this day; this day that should be a magnificent celebration of joy; joy in what we have been given and joy for what we have done. Of course there is still more to do, and we are doing it. Right here. Everyday. Gaia - with the heart of Zaadz - aptly named, Goddess of the Earth. We put out the light of quite a few CFL bulbs ourselves. And so, HERE, today, at least in my chair, is for rejoicing; today is for revels and delight for this greatest gift, without which none of our other gifts would be. When I had finished reading Siona’s message -  with visions of wind dancing, spring grass breaking through the cement, the circles and cycles of our planet and our own bodies cradled in that planet - the word that came to my heart was “hope.” Siona writes “BE in life and in Celebration and in love and allow, for a time, the whole world to love you back.” I could hear my little friend laying next to me on the grass say: “You grown-ups otta try this. We do it all the time.”

So, I offer my poem of hope. And my paintings of the Goddess Guardians who are striving with us to keep this glorious sphere spinning. It is titled "A Prayer for Earth Day." And the beautiful Green Goddess who wears the name of Gaia. I spent hours and hours working on the light in that baby’s face. It was so important to me. WE are that baby and the light that is shining there is called: “hope.”

Today’s Question at Gaia has to do with why you love the earth. I used to ask the same question of Kindergarten students and then write as fast as I could on my yellow legal pad as they shouted out their answers. This made me want to do my answer the same way. So I put up a THREAD at PLAY-POD where you may come and do the same. Draw with crayons. Sew it on your sewing cards. Paint it on the sidewalk with chalk. Or, in that great PLAY-POD tradition - Write it on the Wall!

Reuters wanted us to know today that Earth Day has gone Political and Corporate, that Prince William landed a helicopter in his girl friend’s garden and that Elvis made a secret visit to the UK in 1960. Number one on the Top 40 hits is evidently Mariah Carey singing “Touch my Body.”

I remember Wednesday, April 22, 1970. The President was set to meet with the National Security Council on the Cambodian Situation. Growing demonstrations against the war in Vietnam took second place to ‘Earth Day’ also called ‘EarthFest,’ ‘Pollution Protest,’ ‘Gaylord Nelson’s Environmental Protest,’ and ‘those hippies are trying to cause trouble again.’ We were told that conserving fossil fuels wasn’t going to be enough, that we should be developing other sources of energy. One speaker said that low oil reserves could be a real crisis and gasoline prices could rise above a dollar a gallon. This was greeted with a big laugh by the contingent who had come to jeer.  On the radio, Simon and Garfunkle sang “Bridge over Troubled Waters.” It wasn’t number one on the Top 40 Chart, but it is what I remember. The waters remainl troubled, but I think the bridge still stands.

Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water



Prayer

There in your fullsnow moon
The lucent light
Will glide on silent snow
Gold-dust on diamonds
Sweet cream on pearls
Build a Snow Goddess there
With the cold, dry powder
And your bare, dreaming hands
Mold round her milkwhite, resonant breasts
Mellow, full of moon;
To nurture a starving world

My garden
Glows moist with the same moonlight
Here it is deep and damp                   
Serene and saturated
Kneeling in the wet black earth
I ask blessing for an earth gone dry
Slake the thirst, quench what is parched
Renew the seared, regenerate the withered
Kneeling in the calm tranquility of night
I ask peace for a world infected with war

My fingers form eyes deep with wisdom
My hands shape a face of clear compassion
Kneeling in the wet black earth, here in the dark
I will build a Goddess
Of violets and of rain
My cupped hands fill with sacred moonlight
My fingers close on hope
I will build                           
A Goddess
Of Love


©Edwina Peterson Cross


Gaia

A Prayer For Earth Day

Wind Power. My painting of the Turbines in the Harbor at Copenhagen. I found them strangely beautiful,  like dancers in the bay,  dancing with three elements, one for each elegant tine. Anchored to earth, standing in water, dancing and harvesting the wind ,  reaping the power to raise the fire that will warm the winter. Ah! There you have it! All four elements, along with plenty of thought. A dance of gathering and gleaning;  a dance of plenty, a dance of sanity in a world that sometimes seems mad.
Turbines in the Harbor at Copenhagen

Come on over to PLAY-POD, tell us What You Love About the Earth and splash a lot of paint around! I used to always tell my students . . . Everyday is Earth Day. So, if it is after April 22, 2008 when you read this . . . Come on Over to PLAY-POD and splash paint anyway!
What Do You Love About the Earth


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