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Sacred Earth

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It's here and now we choose to fly or fall... to ignore or heed the hero's call. There may never be a period of total peace on Earth, and truth is, we're strengthened and purified by a degree of challenge and travail. But there can and must be a return to balance that supports the flowering and blessing of the whole. The necessary cure will involve a complete remaking or our sense of self, community, purpose and place. It will require new forms of Earth-centered teaching, and teachers who are both visionary and grounded. A future founded in gratitude, and hope that will last. And a return to the sensibilities, sensitivities and values of our sacramental tribal past.

We can halt much of the destruction by exposing the facts, and through our most focused, unselfish acts. Even the earthquakes and droughts can be tempered if not tamed, through the depth of our gratitude, the sincerity of our rituals, and the strength of prayers. In bringing down a deer to eat, our primitive ancestors of every race gave thanks. Indigenous Americans spread cornmeal before the animal's stilled mouth. An ocean away early IndoEuropeans burned smudge sticks while describing their hungry children to their downed quarry, and promising to praise the creature's stamina and beauty in songs shared with the entire tribe.

It's time that we, too, spread sacred yellow corn or hallowed tears at the foot of our many gifts. Time that we compose new songs to the source of our sentience and sustenance, bliss and delight. And that we sacrifice all delusion and hesitation, on the miraculous altar of life. If there is ever a human extinction it will be because we neglected to respond as her “feelers” and healers, failed to fulfill our Gaian and evolutionary role.

And if we survive the Earth changes and our own species – most magnificent mistakes, it will be because we have learned to apply the attendant lessons in ways that benefit not only us but the Earth. It's then that we'll truly flourish, body and soul... serving as her lovers and protectors, ritualists and restorationists, sensors and celebrants again.

Jesse Wolf Hardin is the author of Kindred Spirits: Sacred Earth Wisdom (Swan Raven, 2001). For information on his and Loba's books and learning opportunities, contact: The Earthen Spirituality Project, Box 516, Reserve, NM 87830.