Happy Earth Day!

Dear friends, Below are my words celebrating Earth Day over the past 14 years. Hope you enjoy!

O, great being, goddess, mother, home, we earthlings celebrate today your lavish generosity and kindness for giving birth and nurture to us and our sister and fellow living beings. Our gratitude is inexhaustible. Yet we have failed to honor you and have caused great harm to your water, air, soil, plants and animals. We are endangering all your living beings. Please forgive us and wake us from our delusion to right relationship with you. May it be so!

"Why am I so happy? Because the Earth is round!" Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Every event over 5,000 years of human history and 2 million years of human evolution has happened as part of the unfolding of one gorgeous, glorious planet in this vast, mysterious Cosmos. Boundless gratitude!

We do not live on the Earth. We ARE the Earth flowering.

The first time I encircled your roundness, 56 years ago, I fell in love with your oceans, mountains, cities, people and cultures. And I am more in love each day.

the poet sang

the body electric

our body the Earth

alive with all aliveness

that we have ever known

hail, great Gaia, mother,

home for all of us

Earthlings all

gratitude

yes

Celebrating our gorgeous home planet and mother on Earth Day today! Gratitude for air, water, soil, plants, and animals, including us weird humans. May all beings everywhere realize happiness, peace, compassion, and understanding. What are you grateful for?

We do not live on Earth. We are the Earth. We are Earth-air breathers, Earth-water drinkers, Earth-plant and animal eaters, Earth-soil dwellers and tillers, Earth-mountain viewers, Earth-sea sailors, Earth-sky flyers. We have evolved as part of Earth for thousands, millions, billions of years. We are Earth’s children and stewards. Why then have we become Earth destroyers, Earth polluters? We have lost our way. We think that we are Earth conquerors, but we are sadly wrong. As Earth-ice melts, seas rise, coasts flood, islands submerge, storms slam, droughts hit, wildfires rage, crops die, migration swells, we and all Earth-creatures will suffer and die. Wake up, wake up! Protect Earth, our Mother.

Just went to close the front door and gasped at the beauty of an Earth-evening -- blue sky, yellow flowers, green grass, tall brown trees with white blossoms, darkness falling rapidly as we turn away from our sun-star. Do we not live in heaven? May all beings everywhere realize peace, happiness, understanding, and compassion.

EVERY DAY IS EARTH DAY

Every day is Earth day

and always has been

the only place we

have ever known a day

or night or anything

else at all

these years, four billion,

two million, 200,000,

5,000, twenty fourteen

hooray for our heavenly

home, beautiful beyond

beauty, alive beyond

aliveness, abundant

for all

and yet, and yet

we humans divide and

hoard and pillage and rape

and harm our mother,

our own body;

but now is waking up time

making up time

time to cherish and conserve

for the next 1,000, million,

billion years or so

yes

let’s

(from my book Earthling Love: Living Poems)

“Earthling Vows”

Earth, our only home

Precious beyond priceless

Gift of the universe

Our mother who gives us life

Earth, our only home

We cherish you and vow

To keep you safe from harm

We swoon at the stunning beauty

Of your land

Earth, our only home

We give you thanks for air and water

We delight in your plants and animals

We celebrate each of your humans

Earth, our only home

We vow to let go of violence and greed

And create a new civilization of

Compassion and understanding

Earth, our only home

(from my book Earthling Love)