Mary Reynolds Thompson's Blog, page 4

What is Sacredness to You?

Last year at this time I was blessed to see the Sistine Chapel for the first time. I had read about and seen photographs of Michelangelo’s masterpiece for years, but this was my first in-person viewing. I sat, head raised, and marveled at his genius. And yet, I was strangely, and disturbingly, unmoved by the experience.

Now, a year later, I am in Lascaux II in the Dordogne region of southwest France. This isn’t the original cave, which has been sealed up to spare the images from bacteria and mold. And yet, Lascaux II was a work of many years, using the same materials and replicating the shape and texture of the cave within a centimeter of the original. As our guide traverses one of the cave’s corridors, lit torch in hand, the animals flicker and pulse before my eyes. My breath catches as I feel myself tumbling back in time.

Seventeen thousand years ago our Cro-Magnon ancestors scribed a series of animals onto the the walls of underground caves all around an area known as the Dark Perigord. Lascaux, the most magnificent, was referred to as the Sistine Chapel of cave art by one of its discoverers. It is certainly one of the most astonishing visions from prehistory.

The people who painted these images didn’t live in these caves, which were too closed off for fires to burn safely for any length of time. So why did they risk their lives to paint these images? What inspired them? Moved them? Why these images of bulls, and stags, and stampeding horses? Why not any of reindeer, who formed the staple diet of these ancient people and whose supple skin provided clothing and warmth?

And what of the image shown above, of a creature that is part rhinoceros, part bear, part wild cat, with unicorn horns. No animal like this has ever existed that we know of. Did this one emerge from the dream time?

The artistry of Lascaux is extraordinary, as amazing in my eyes as the artistry of Michelangelo. You can even see how the bulges and indents of the cave walls have been used by the artists to bring their figures into three-dimensional life. But what moves me most of all is that only one human figure appears. It is a man with a bird’s head and an erect penis: a shaman.

How different from the wholly human perspective––the white male dominance of the Sistine Chapel. How different from the Renaissance concept in which god is held aloft, perched in Paradise, causing the sacred to be separated from its earthy roots. How different these caves from a world in which man is portrayed as superior to all other creatures.

Perhaps I long for a spirituality that isn’t so grand, so hierarchical, so human dominated. Don’t get me wrong: the Sistine Chapel is beautiful and worthy of our respect, even adoration. But here, in the womb of Mother Earth, is a different kind of sacred art. In looking at these figures, I don’t feel awe for god, but for life itself.

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Dear Mother Earth

Dear Mother Earth,

I bow my head before you as I look deeply and recognize that you are present in me and that I’m a part of you. I was born from you and you are always present, offering me everything I need for my nourishment and growth.  My mother, my father, and all my ancestors are also your children.  We breathe your fresh air. We drink your clear water. We eat your nourishing food. Your herbs heal us when we’re sick.

You are the Mother of all beings. I call you by the human name Mother and yet I know your mothering nature is more vast and ancient than humankind.  We are just one young species of your many children. All the millions of other species who live—or have lived—on Earth are also your children. You aren’t a person, but I know you are not less than a person either. You are a living breathing being in the form of a planet.

Each species has its own language, yet as our Mother you can understand us all. That is why you can hear me today as I open my heart to you and offer you my prayer.

Dear Mother, wherever there is soil, water, rock or air, you are there, nourishing me and giving me life. You are present in every cell of my body. My physical body is your physical body, and just as the sun and stars are present in you, they are also present in me. You are not outside of me and I am not outside of you. You are more than just my environment. You are nothing less than myself.

I promise to keep the awareness alive that you are always in me, and I am always in you. I promise to be aware that your health and well-being is my own health and well-being. I know I need to keep this awareness alive in me for us both to be peaceful, happy, healthy, and strong.

Sometimes I forget.  Lost in the confusions and worries of daily life, I forget that my body is your body, and sometimes even forget that I have a body at all.  Unaware of the presence of my body and the beautiful planet around me and within me, I’m unable to cherish and celebrate the precious gift of life you have given me. Dear Mother, my deep wish is to wake up to the miracle of life. I promise to train myself to be present for myself, my life, and for you in every moment. I know that my true presence is the best gift I can offer to you, the one I love.

From Love Letter to the Earth, Thich Nhat Hanh

In honor of Earth Day, please write your own love letter to the Earth and post for all to read and savor.

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I Swear the Earth

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or

her who shall be complete,

The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.

I swear there is no greatness or power that does not

emulate those of the earth

There can be no theory of any account unless it

corroborate the theory of the earth,

No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not,

is of account, unless it compare with the

amplitude of the earth,

Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality,

rectitude of the earth.

(C) Walt Whitman, from Earth Prayers

In what ways are you jagged and broken? In what ways are you complete? How does your inner state impact the state of the earth?
Write a poem that begins with the words, I swear the earth…
What earth process– seasons, growth, balance–would you like to see reflected in our political and social systems? Explore in your journal.

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A Woman In the Ordinary

The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl

is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.

Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself

under ripples of conversation and debate.

The woman in the block of ivory soap

has massive thighs that neigh,

great breasts that blare and strong arms that trumpet.

The woman of the golden fleece

laughs uproariously from the belly

inside the girl who imitates

a Christmas card virgin with glued hands,

who fishes for herself in other’s eyes,

who stoops and creeps to make herself smaller.

In her bottled up is a woman peppery as curry,

a yam of a woman of butter and brass,

compounded of acid and sweet like a pineapple,

like a handgrenade set to explode,

like goldenrod ready to bloom.

(C) Marge Piercy

What’s bottled up in your body?  Goldenrods? Sweetness? Something explosive?
Write a poem that begins, “The woman in the extraordinary…” Create a vision of your most powerful self.
How will you stop effacing yourself, right now?

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Inclination

One’s throat must be like a garden

And one’s eyes like windows

through which love passes;

And one’s stature

Must be like a tree

that rises out of rocks;

And poetry must be like a singing bird,

Perching on the highest branch of a tree,

Breaking the heavy silence of the world.

(C) Hamid Reza Rahimi

If the poet’s throat is like a garden, what is your throat like? Write a poem that describes your body in term of nature’s images.
What is poetry to you? Journal your thoughts.
What is the silence that needs to be broken? Journal your thoughts or write a poem about that particular silence.

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This Land Is Your Land

This Blog is a guest blog by Tamra Peters of Resilient Neighborhoods. It’s her story of helping to save a tract of woodlands in her neighborhood.

Bill and I have lived across the street for 15 years, and fallen in love with this land and trail.  Nature has always been a major part of my life, a place where I reconnect with who I am.

As a kid my friends and I would spend hours playing in the woods and fields of Arlington County, VA. As I grew, so did the population. I watched as the woods were bulldozed and homes and streets put in. By the time I left home, I had to drive to be in nature.

My love of nature landed me my first job at the Nature Conservancy in 1970, just two months after the first Earth Day.  I’ve continued working for the environment for 45 years now and currently volunteer full-time running a climate change program I created called Resilient Neighborhoods that helps people lower their carbon footprint.

So putting up the funds to buy the land was a big decision, but not a hard one. I felt it was one of the most significant things I could do in my life.  As I experienced in my childhood, once land is developed; it’s gone forever. I knew what a loss it would be for us and for everyone in the neighborhood now and in the future.

So how did all of this happen? Here’s a quick sketch. Others will fill in the details. In February 2010, we were shocked to see a ‘for sale’ sign across the street. We contacted Hugo Landecker and MOST (Marin Open Space Trust). Hugo rounded up some neighbors.  We found old maps showing the stagecoach road and researched to see if the City might still own a trail easement. We even brought then City Council members Mark Levine and Damon Connolly to walk the trail with us. We worked on the project for 11 months, then the property was taken off the market.

Six years passed. Then last June, as Bill and I started our daily walk, a man stepped out of his BMW and asked us about the land. We inquired why he was asking and he said, “I’m thinking of buying it.”  Our hearts sunk.  He said the land had been on the market for months, but the owner had just substantially reduced the price. We raced back home and found the asking price was almost half of what it had been. We called MOST, they contacted the realtor, and five days later we had an accepted offer, beating out the other prospective buyers!

But our initial excitement sank when we learned that the City had an unwritten policy not to accept gifts of land.  That’s when we learned that “it takes a village” to save land.

So Hugo, San Rafael Heritage and GPNA all got involved.  We posted a petition at the foot of the trail and got 175 signatures. I’ll let others share their part of how the neighborhood pulled together to convince City Hall—with the Mayor’s leadership—that this land should remain open forever.

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Tamra Peter’s Wild Soul Story

Since shortly after the first Earth Day in 1970, Tamra Peters has sought to protect the Earth, working with organizations like the Nature Conservancy and Rainforest Action Network. In her wonderfully told story of having minor surgery as an outpatient, Tamra captures the pain and fear of being treated by the doctor merely as a slab of meat. Shaking with emotion, trembling with fear, she will uncover, in the aftermath of this event, a deeper understanding of the disregard with which we treat the body of the Earth. It is a story that truly brings home what it is to not care for our beloved planet. An earth advocate, a powerful activist, Tamra is founder of Resilient Neighborhoods, an organization that helps teams of people to get on a low carbon diet. You can find out more about Resilient Neighborhoods here.

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Will You Dream in the Darkness?

I awoke this morning as if from a bad dream. Trump is president. Everything in me wants to hide from the reality that confronts us in this moment. But denial is not an option.

Last night, we joined with hundreds at an Inauguration Day Interfaith Celebration in San Rafael, attended by our visionary congressman, Jared Huffman. We sang the old protest songs of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Faith leaders from Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Christian traditions soothed us and stirred us.

Today, with my husband and thousands of others, I’ll march in the Women’s March in San Francisco. We’ll join hands, link arms, protest. But we’ll also begin to dream.  For as the poet Rilke said: You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born.

Dreaming happens in the dark hours, and this is a dark hour in human history. The illusion of separation, the distorted dream of the modern mind, is the core organizing principle of our new president who seeks to divide and therefore conquer us. Movements based on separation are moving across Europe and the world. Fracking fractures the Earth, and notions of separation keep us from each other.

It’s heartbreaking, howl-making stuff. But if darkness is our dreaming place, then this is our womb-dark hour into which we can birth something new.

In The Way of the Shaman, Michael Harner writes, “The shaman is an accomplished see-er who works typically in the dark, or at least with the eyes covered, in order to see clearly.”

What dreams are we going to seed in the darkness?  What visions are waiting to be born?

It’s not enough to oppose what is happening. We need to dream the world anew.

And that begins with your own dreams.

What keeps you up at night? What do you care about?

What is one thing you can do right now?

What is it that you long for?

What is most beautiful to you?

If you were president, what is the first action you would take?

What is the world you want your children to be born into?

Start a dream circle. Share your dreams. Vocalize your passions. Take your passion and turn it into action.

Please share your dreams for the earth here.

There is nothing we can’t accomplish, if we dream it together.

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Sweet Darkness

 

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home

tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

(C) David Whyte

House of Belonging

When you make of the dark a womb, what new vision will be born?
What is tired in you and in the world? Name everything that is deadening to you. Then make a list of everything that wakes you up and brings you alive. How can you move from the deadening place to the place of aliveness? What would you need to change? To do? To dream?
Write a poem about aliveness.

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December

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye

Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,

And also the partridge in a pear tree

And the golden rings and the turtle doves.

In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue

Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,

Enduring the cold and also the flu,

Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.

Not much triumph going on here—and yet

There is much we do not understand.

And my hopes and fears are met

In this small singer holding onto my hand.

          Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark

          And are there angels singing overhead? Hark.

(C) Gary Johnson

 

Take a known Christmas carol or two. Pick out your favorite lines, and weave them into your own December poem.
What is it that we do not understand? What gives us hope and quells our fears?
Hark! What are the spirits trying to tell us? Write the song the angels are singing.

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