Our Mother's Dream

A Psalm for Earth Day

In the name of the Holy, the Sacred, the True,
pouring forth from the beginning
like a river of light and life to fill the Cosmos
with form, life, and glory.

Dance with the beat of the star’s burning hearts.
Move with the winds they breathe through the stars.
Embrace your children on this pale blue dot.
Hear our heartbreak and speak our truth with hope.

Listen to the cries of our beloved mother,
as the mines cut deep, and the forests burn.
See the violence we force upon her, our cousins, and ourselves,
and the pain we inflict on them all.

O why do we blind our hearts and minds
to the dreams of our mother, the cradle of life,
for little more than points in a game we made,
cursing our future for a higher score.

How can we ignore her tears
as the storms rage on,
the flood water rise,
and the land and sea burns.

What will it take for us to see our error?
Who must be broken on this wheel of suffering
before we open our eyes and hearts
to the foul works we have wrought?

We lie to ourselves, to each other, and to our children.
We cover up our harm sweet lies and profit statements.
We pretend we will escape the consequences for sins.
We flatter the rich and ignore the plight of the suffering.

Oh, breath of life, give us a voice so we might shout
the truth of our crimes against the world who raised us.
Enliven our minds so we might see a path forward
not only to change our ways, but restore what we’ve broken.

Teach us to live with our cousins in this world,
recognizing whose wisdom and ways to follow,
allowing them to teach us those ways of living
we have forgotten through the lies we called progress.

Remind us, Earth is our mother, the cradle of life.
We are her dream, the hope of life, love, and wisdom
arising from the very substance of her flesh,
her blood runs through our veins.

We cannot speak the dream of our Mother
if we talk over her and refuse to listen
as she reminds us of the inter-being of all,
the weave of life that holds us tight.

Oh, Mother, I hear your dream as a faint whisper.
Open my eyes, ears, and spirit to listen clearly
to the rushing stream of life ever flowing and rising
through you, breaking out creatively around us.

Your faithfulness to the life stream is attested in stone,
but you are not a respecter of any one species.
Forms of life come and go, but the stream of life flows on.
With, or without us, the flow will continue.

Awaken us to your ways so we will carry on in the flow
and not recede so another can take our place.
Teach us your ways, and remind us to not only sing your praises,
but to dance with you in the rhythm of life and the cosmos.

Grant us wisdom, so we can bring you peace.
Bless our creativity, so we can find a new way.
Break our hearts, so they can beat again,
and not remained frozen in the lies we made.

Invite us again into your dream,
so we can share it, build it,
helping it to grow and blossom
and heal the wounds we made.

There will be scars.
Nothing will be the same.
Together, we can build the world to come,
for ourselves and our descendants.