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 labyrinth 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 the labyrinth 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.
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.
