Thank you for showing up for me, lovingly and unconditionally, in all the ways that you do.
Thank you for this tree, in whose generous shade and numinous Beingness I sit as I write this missive in the relentless summer desert heat. Thank you for your lovely green boughs, to which I bow, finding peace and comfort amid the discomfort of embodied existence. Thank you for transmuting sunlight into both oxygen and the energy my soul needs to sustain itself in the pain, glory, and absurdity of this impossibly dense realm.
Thank you for the solidity and groundedness of your earth, for unconditionally carrying me as your child and as a passenger through spacetime intergalactic. Thank you for allowing me this solid footing regardless of whether I am walking barefoot in reverence upon your bare naked back, each step sanctimonious with gratitude and in communion with you — or whether I am using you mindlessly as an object, allowing me to move from Point A to Point B doing Very Important Human Things.
Thank you for taking into the whole of you all of my sorrows in my greatest times of need, time and time and time again. Thank you for grounding all the psychoemotional energies seemingly too big for this small, finite body to contain — the grief, despair, agony, anger, and loneliness, and equally so, the joys immeasurable, ecstasies, and bliss — each and every time that I asked, each and every time that I needed you — without judgement, without rejection, without abandon. Thank you for holding me as you do.
Thank you for your cleansing winds and rains, for your rainbows, and for your fires — all of which remind me of the sanctity of my relationship with You.
I’m sorry that I have taken you for granted, that I have ignored you, that I’ve objectified and betrayed you. I’m sorry I have forgotten you as my living Mother.
I’m sorry that I haven’t, and that I don’t, always honor you in the ways you deserve to be honored. I’m sorry that I’ve sometimes walked past trash littering your hallow grounds, I’m sorry that I sometimes use single use plastics for my convenience, I’m sorry that I still recycle instead of categorically eliminating materials known to be harmful to you. I’m sorry that I’ve released toxic chemicals into your waterways and dumped millions of gallons of oil into your oceans. I’m sorry for raping you of your precious mineral gifts without even so much as a “thanks” when I flip on a light switch or I turn on my mobile phone.
I’m sorry that I’ve put into power and elected global leaders who see you as a resource from which to extract, instead of as a living, breathing, Being with whom to live in reciprocity. I’m sorry that I haven’t done enough to speak up and act upon your behalf when I see others — power players, corporate entities, peers — having their way with you.
I’m sorry that as a small human I feel discouraged and ill equipped to speak up and enact change in any meaningful way, and have resorted to silence and small local actions. I’m sorry that the feelings of overwhelm, despair, and powerlessness experienced through this human body, seemingly paralyzing it, allow your global rape and plunder to continue.
Please forgive me. Please forgive me for failing you. Please forgive me because I know not what I do.
I love you. I love you, and I know that love is an action and not a feeling.
I love you, and so I will bear witness to all that arises and accept the consequences of my, and our collective, actions and inactions without resentment or displacement or projection; these fires are not punishments or senseless tragedies, but the meaningful consequences of a Good Mother holding Her boundaries, and I love the powerful ease with which you parent me.
I love you, and so I will use the force of my will to walk in greater awareness alongside you; I will be vigilant in my awareness so as not to fall into ignorance or lapse into greater complacency.
I love you, and so I will honor you with my song and my dance and the drum beat of my heart.
I love you, and so I will create space in which to listen more deeply to your guidance, your needs, your wants and your desires.
I am listening, Mother, please show me the way I am to be in this world, and teach me how to be in Right Relationship with You.
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.
