Joy Amidst "the Fall" - When Nature and Hymns on a Walk Conspire

During yesterday's walk, I came upon a dried, dead earthworm on the sidewalk. I cupped it in my palm for a moment before placing it in the grass. Then I came upon another. Earthworms stir joy in me and I found this exodus troubling. I'm accustomed to seeing earthworms on the sidewalk in Spring not Fall.

"For such as worm as I" sang through my mind. This line from the hymn, "At the Cross" implies we like worms are lowly and sinful. It was not good to be a worm back then. Yet earthworms area amazing and good. Earth nor we would be here without them.

I continued my walk thinking of being at the cross while listening to audio clips I recorded a year ago on Fall Equinox while hiking into the Grand Canyon. I had not listened to these since recording them. I randomly clicked on a file not knowing what I was about to hear except that it would be my voice. In this particular file I referred to the five bridges crossing Bright Angel Creek as we descended into the canyon. Then I heard myself comparing the five bridges with five crossings between Times, five times when life on Earth as it was known ended to start over again.

I walked and thought of Jesus and the crossing or bridge he created between dark and light. I shouldn't have been surprised to look down and see a bermuda grass crown of thorns in the middle of the sidewalk.

I had just read of Archangel Michael governing Autumn and hovering over Jesus in Gethsemane while assisting him in transmuting streams of hate and despair into currents of healing love.*

I lay the crown aside and walked a few more blocks before turning a corner. My pattern is to turn at  the third house up the inclining street. I got to the second house and looked down to find a host of earthworms, dead and dried, in many shapes like an early alphabet reminding me to listen to Nature's language.

I asked a man nearby if he knew whether the lawn where I stood had been sprayed. He told me landscapers had been digging earlier in the week.

This Fall migration reminded me of Earth's people today being forced from heir homes due to war and the corporate take over of African soil as businesses mine minerals to be used in our technology.

I bent down to more closely see the worms and realized one worm fragment had the tiniest of down feathers stuck to it.

Inside I smiled.

Needing to get to work, I gathered a handful of these beautiful beings and walked home. And yes, I stopped and got the "crown."

At my day's end, I sat with my treasures and listened. These creatures from the soil offered profound messages for the soul.

Earth and heaven are united.

Earthworm now flies....as can we.

Yet flying isn't superior to crawling. They are one and the same.

And the little fleck of down reminded me: 

Do not fear "down" - being down, feeling down, going downward.

(How often I've resisted down and judged myself for not being 'up.')

Down is ultimately the path to freedom and flight. Jesus traveled into the darkness we associate with down in order to shine the Light.

Grace had crawled from the grass in the form of earthworms and still grace lay before me in the form of the grassy crown. 

I felt the need to place the crown on my head. I did and immediately experienced it as the crown of harvest and celebration at this time of Fall. Then the thought occurred to me. What if humankind's "fall" was ultimately a beautiful thing meant to bring us to this Earthly place in Divine Time? What if the cross is now a place of crossing, a crossroads of sorts in which we each get to choose how we will use our energy and whether we will focus our attention on love or on fear so that rather than destroy ourselves and Earth this time around, we birth something unexperienced and new based in Love? What if the cross is now a place in which we realize the center is where up, down, in and out all meet together? Neither is more important than the other.

One of the first things my friend Wendy said to me years ago when we met was "The Universe is always speaking to us." 

The Universe IS always speaking to us..... through the stars and earthworms, through the grass and hymns of old. The Universe is always speaking to us through the quiet and simple, through the common and usually not so bold. 

Imagine the Shift to hearing. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 23 Sept. 2015

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

*From "Nature Speaks" by Ted Andrews. 

After writing the above I went in search of two other earthworm-inspired storie. I hope you take time to read it as well "Crawling Home - Finding Grace."  and "Class Isn't Over." 

And here's another story related to being Bright Angels.