(You're welcome to print this out and read later as it's a long one. I just hope you read it and join me.) For over a week I've avoided writing what I felt as we drove from Tennessee to Iowa for Thanksgiving. The feelings came easily but they and the words that followed did not feel 'good.' Actually a phrase came to mind immediately, a phrase to which I'm unaccustomed.
I looked out the car window and repeatedly thought 'We are so f****d' starting in northwestern KY and continuing for miles into Indiana and Illinois.
I can with sincerity usually find 'good news' in just about everything but not in the smoke filling the air for miles during our trip. Something about seeing and not just hearing about pollution stunned me. The phrase 'Seeing is believing' came to mind. I stopped counting at six although the plants kept coming some near the highway and others on the distant horizon.
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Over the holiday visit in this no stoplight town, my mother-in-law shared that three of the five women in her dominoes group had cancer. Someone in another conversation mentioned that the Mayo Clinic refers to a swath of land beginning on the cusp of where we were and stretching west as cancer alley because of the number of patients from the area. I thought of all the people in my own rural hometown who in the past ten years have died from cancer or are faced with cancer now. I've often wondered what mix of area toxins have contributed to this.
Arriving home on Sunday evening, the first headline that caught my eye was tucked away on page 7 of the day's paper and read: "Environmental programs fall victim to budget cuts." Days later this was followed by an Opinion page devoted to the Clean Air act with writers weighing in on the pros and cons of regulations, the EPA etc.
I've read these stories and continued to think we are f ****d and we deserve to be. We've trashed Creation through our ignorance, arrogance and greed. We don't deserve this beautiful planet. What will it take for us to wake up? Will a massive awakening even help?
Then last evening while going through a stack of papers I had hidden months ago before company arrived I came across a dream I had last Spring, a dream of a businessman with a gift for me. I reread the dream and knew again it holds an important and different message. Most days now I believe it's too late for normal action or legislation to alter what we in our unawareness have set in motion. I believe a way of being not based in science and statistics is called for, a way of being requested in the dream. I'm far from fully embodying the businessman's request but I'm certain he gave me a necessary and vital key.
The Dream
One recent morning, I awoke sobbing. I had dreamed
of the creek at my grandparents’ in the country, the creek that flowed
past their home and through the field in which their cows grazed. In
the dream, my nephews and I made our way through a tunnel of spider
webs and wooden boards to emerge on top of a small platform by the
creek. I loved this creek. It was the place in my childhood, where
tadpoles turned into frogs and crayfish hid among the pebbles. This was
where I first saw stones imprinted with tiny fossilized swimming,
crawling creatures from eons past. Buttercups grew along the bank in
spring, the same bank where in summer my grandmother would spread a
pallet, country speak for quilt, where we’d eat sugar and butter
sandwiches on white bread, to us a real treat.
These
fond memories relate to nature along the creek yet I awoke from my
dream crying. I awoke crying because we emerged from below to
find the creek was now a swiftly flowing river.
With
the contamination and disappearance of streams for a variety of
reasons, to see a stream that was now a river should have been a good
thing. But it wasn’t. The river had a wood
chip mill built alongside it. Water from the river was used to supply
power to the chipper as all things wooden – old chairs, tables and
planks - were shredded. At one point the shell of a black truck from the
1930’s floated past as I watched horrified.
My father stood on the platform. It was his parents who had owned this land. I looked at him and with urgency said, “We've got to stop this. I'll buy the land.”
With a profoundly sad look
on his face, he told me regulations prevented this because once a mill
was built on a stream the contract could not be reversed. I
compassionately replied, “I know. I know. You did what you thought you
had to do. You thought you had to sell the land to take care of the
kids.”
I then entered a nearby board room where
a businessman was releasing people, salt-of-the-earth people from this
dear rural town, from their debts. This is at least how it initially
appeared as the man outlined for each person the amount he could
financially save them if they agreed to his terms. People were quite
pleased he was there to help. I watched as they seemed asleep. In their
trust they were blind as to how he was the one profiting from their
predicament.
Then the man gave me a document, a
piece of paper that held two things in writing granting me debt relief.
I didn’t even know I had a debt but I immediately knew I could do the
things required of me.
One line read: Sing: “We Rejoice in Earth” a song I did not know but certainly knew I could sing. The line at the bottom of the form read: Owed: Forgiveness. All that was required of me was to sing and forgive.
Weeping,
I turned to the businessman and said, “Oh, but I do, I do forgive you. I
do.” He looked at me in disbelief as I could hardly get out the words.
Between intermittent sobs and gasps for breath, I told him I practiced a
meditative prayer honoring the fact that we are all connected and in
our unity I am part of him as he is part of me. I could find it in my heart to forgive him of everything.*
I awoke from the dream.
In
childhood, I was witness to nature along the creek. In the dream, I
witnessed the acts of human nature, acts resulting in inventions like
the truck that floated past as well as the acts of using others and
their allowing themselves to be used for another's gain. I’ve benefited from these acts and have also been pained. So many of these acts and decisions, like the contract with the mill on the river, cannot be reversed.
Humankind,
like my nephews and me, has made its way through the labyrinth of life
to this place where the creek of time is now a swiftly moving river of
all creation. How many businessmen or men like my father have impacted
the river of creation with decisions based on short-term gains for
themselves or to care for their children, without thought as to the
long-term impact on their children’s lives and health or to the
interconnected web that supports us here at home on Earth? How
many of these businessmen are now politicians or CEO’s connected to
lobbying groups, men unconsciously fueled by fear, trying to gut the EPA
while playing on people’s fear, salt-of-the-earth people who trust
without thinking? How many businessmen line their pockets
exploiting Earths’ resources, precious metals, trees, coal and petroleum
or even now consider how they might exploit potential metals on the
moon? (Yes, a Silicon Valley group aspires to mine the moon in the
coming years.)
I’ve harbored such anger at what
mankind has done to Earth and how Nature is treated and mistreated,
neglected and used for human benefit without appreciation. I’ve held
such anger and despair that at times I didn’t think I could continue
living on Earth.
So often I’ve wished for all
the money in the world, all the money in the world to buy back the land
like I desired in the dream. How many lotteries have I wanted to win so I
could buy the remaining fields and forests as well as clear the land of
homes of man so Earth could be restored? I cannot buy back the land.
How beautiful then that the businessman provided the answer to my grief as well as his own plight and redemption. The businessman gave me the key to healing and resonance with Mother Earth in these times. The slip of paper offered me held the two acts needed for our redemption, actions coming from the spirit of the human heart.
Singing and forgiving
we buy back the land, first the land that is our heart, for how we
treat the outer land parallels how we have treated or ignored our inner
land. Through reclaiming the heart’s land, we reconnect with the outer land, the land that is Mother Earth.
Singing and forgiving we buy back the land. We awake from the dream of separation to our unity. Singing and forgiving we energetically reverse the contracts that have negatively impacted the web of life.
I need You. The businessman needs you. Earth needs You. Whether you’re a singer, dancer, drummer, laugher, lover, wherever your joy and creativity lives, you are needed at this time. Don't
wait until Earth Day!
Let's rejoice in Earth. Let's forgive the businessman for his lack of awareness as to his relationship with Earth, the impact of his actions on the land, air, water and animals and the future health of his children I ask you, your neighbor, your family to join me uniting humankind, to redeem us, to pay off our debt by singing, by rejoicing in Earth and by forgiving ourselves for our ignoring and not appreciating the myriad of ways in which Mother Earth supports us.
Let's rejoice in Earth. Let's forgive the businessman for his lack of awareness as to his relationship with Earth, the impact of his actions on the land, air, water and animals and the future health of his children I ask you, your neighbor, your family to join me uniting humankind, to redeem us, to pay off our debt by singing, by rejoicing in Earth and by forgiving ourselves for our ignoring and not appreciating the myriad of ways in which Mother Earth supports us.
We bear witness and yes, those of us of heart may still grieve. It is time to forgive and sing. From
this place Mother Earth feels our compassion, our partnership and we
re-knit the torn threads in the web of life while just maybe healing and
waking the businessman, waking the businessman who gave me this
beautiful dream.
Please join him and me
* To learn more about the meditation or prayer form that I described to the man in my dream, click here - Ho'oponopono.
I do not have this perfected, but I do know when I practice this
simple prayer of "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I thank
you" I and my part of the greater web is healed and at peace.
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