Nancy Lankston
Can you stand at the edge of fear and hold to the truth of who you are?
No matter how big the abyss of fear feels,
it is nothing in comparison to your truth.
When you truly know yourself, fear is merely a tool
that the Universe uses to get you to pay attention.
Stand strong.
~Robbie Warren, Otter Woman Standing
“Women’s stories are as powerful, inspiring, and terrifying as the goddess herself.
And in fact, these are the stories of the goddess.
As women, we know her because we are she.
Each woman, no matter how powerless she might feel,
is a cell within her vast form, an embodiment of her essence,
and each woman’s story is a chapter in the
biography of the sacred feminine.”
☾☽
“There is a deep intelligence intrinsic to all of us that we call Shakti: a creative life force pressing through all things. It wants to grow, to become. It is powerful beyond comprehension. It moves the planets; it erupts volcanoes; it allows the butterfly to burst out of the cocoon.
This same Shakti is what awakens you and brings awareness into the frozen, rigid places. It is the longing that presses through you, telling you some of your old ways of being are too small for you, like old clothes that don’t fit anymore.”
~Chameli Ardagh
Awakening Women
Every part of Mama Earth is alive and has a spirit; each blade of grass, pine tree, fox, flower, stone and drop of water is infused and flowing with spiritual essence and consciousness. Our Earth is a pulsing, flowing sacred system. And we are completely interwoven and interdependent with every other form of life in this system. All of life is interconnected; the idea that human beings are separate from other life forms is simply an illusion.
Our human actions have a huge effect on our Earth Mother. The history of human life is physically and energetically imprinted into the elements of Mama Earth. Her elemental structures hold our human stories of war and violence, love and connection, loss and pain; our Mother stores our history within her water, soil and stones. Like a great elemental library, the sacred body of Gaia “remembers” the entire history of life on this planet.
“Human history is a Gaian dream.”
~Terence McKenna
Although humans may have long forgotten the stories, Mama Earth continues to hold the history of all those who lived here before us. These traumatic imprints were created through human neglect and ignorance, and they can continue to haunt us for generations. When a piece of land holds a story of human aggression, loss, disconnection, trauma or suffering, those energies continue to impact the animals and people who live, work and interact with that place years later.
Without some form of balancing or clearing process, a traumatic event may continue to negatively impact the land and the people who live on the land years later. Mother Earth can stay ‘stuck’ in a state of imbalance for generations. But each of us can help our mother release old traumas and heal.
Whenever we consciously treat our Earth Mama with the love and respect she deserves, we actually help her restore balance and heal. And we heal our own relationship with this beautiful blue planet in the process.
Carl Sagan once asked, “Who speaks for planet Earth?” I believe it is time for each of us to speak out for Mama Earth.
“There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”
~Rumi
The Patience of Ordinary Things
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
~ Pat Schneider
Another River: New and Selected Poems