Faith & Reflection: Voices from the Black Church and Beyond
- Deep gratitude for the Greening and abundance, honoring the Mother of Corn and the Feast of the New Grain.
- Pesticide spraying and habitat harm have erased fireflies and monarchs, turning grief into a teacher through the transforming Powers of Loss.
- Intimate kinship with animals and ritual, mourning Lucy, giving thanks for Coalie and Lily B., honoring Pueblo traditions.
Today Grace enters. The air is clear, the window open. One hummingbird hovers at my window. Every twig is covered with lush green leaves and every time I gaze into the green, I feel that gratitude pulsing through me – the wonder of being alive. A brilliant green frog inhabits my toad pond. Last night a Datura blossom literally opened before my eyes etched with pale lavender – a moonflower of exquisite fragrance and beauty. If anything, I appreciate these moon blossoms more than I did in the desert.
My bee garden is humming, saturated with crimson, deep orange, yellow, pink, a cacophony of color and sound. I say sound because I also imagine that I can hear the flowers singing their song of abundance, gratitude, and praise to all there is…
The first lemon lily pods are ripening, green apples bend the trees low, grapevines are heavy with new fruit, and columbine spikes are bursting with seed that I scatter between the cracks of stones. Diminutive pale pink poppies keep popping out of a tangle of ajuga runners and fledglings hug the cabin. The forest birds have quieted. Some will soon be migrating but stillness blotted out the forest trills when the deadly smoke first filtered in. Little gold birds flit back and forth, sunbursts singing up the dawn. The Mourning Dove waits for me at twilight…
The light is changing. High sun – dappled shade slides into deeper shadow as the sunstar slips lower on the horizon. We have already lost 45 minutes of sunlight to a sultry dusk, and that steel sword edge of white summer light is softening. Here in this sanctuary of trees carpets of velvety moss cover the hill. I can still hear the brook flowing but the sound is muted now. The water table is low from ongoing drought, although violent thunderstorms strike without warning. I say prayers for burning trees everywhere as most days I shut my windows to protect our lungs from toxic air.
I have eaten the first blood red beets and sunburst tomatoes. Purple basil perks up tasty salads that delight my tongue. Scarlet runner beans are not ready to blossom. I watch for the Mother of the Deer as an aunt, a mother, and a delicate spotted fawn graze in their bountiful “kitchen” around the house. The fawn trots down the mossy path confidently knowing that safety awaited him in the lush hemlock thickened hollow below.
I try to remind myself that most everything I planted here was for the animals when my bean vines are munched.
A year ago today, I buried my little dog, Lucy. Lucia, little lady of light. Just now three mamas and five young turkeys appeared at my window and then walked over her grave, the first time I have ever witnessed this behavior. Oh, the child cried, thank you. Nature does not forget. A year ago, fireflies clung to my window this night, but this year neighbors have sprayed their land for ticks with Pest Shield. No warning at all. Yet one more poison clogs the air, killing amphibians, fish, cats, remaining a threat to all dogs and birds that eat destructive insects like turkeys do. After the spraying fireflies disappeared along with the second batch of monarch butterflies that were fluttering through the garden and feasting on shaded milkweed. Honoring unspeakable losses has become a way of life.
At this Feast of the New Grain the Corn Mothers come into their own. Corn is the mother of the Pueblo people… and my heart is with the Tewa who are celebrating the coming harvest, giving thanks for whatever rain has fallen, while saying goodbye to the Katsinas who are returning to their mountain homes.
Blessed Be the Mother of Corn and the abundance that comes with her Presence, first as Seed Maiden and now at this first celebration of the harvest.
Blessed Be the ‘Mother of Muses’ who sings to me.
I give thanks for being alive, for the Greening, for the gift of my beloved dog Coalie and bird Lily B., for the three wild doves and the female turkeys who have gathered here as witnesses, for each day when the sky is clear, for a concert I will never forget, for having found a winter reprieve.
I honor the Powers of Loss to help us become more human. Perhaps only intolerable grief can shift our present perspective?
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