Earth Day: April 22, 2015

Mid-America Prayer

Standing again
within and among all things,
Standing with each other
as sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers,
daughters and sons, grandmothers and grandfathers--
the past and present generations of our people,
Standing again
with and among all items of life,
the land, rivers, the mountains, plants, animals,
all life that is around us
that we are included with,
Standing within the circle of the horizon,
the day sky and the night sky,
the sun, moon, the cycle of seasons
and the earth mother which sustains us,
Standing again
with all things
that have been in the past,
that are in the present,
and that will be in the future
we acknowledge ourselves
to be in a relationship that is responsible
and proper, that is loving and compassionate,
for the sake of the land and all people,
we ask humbly of the creative forces of life
that we be given a portion
with which to help ourselves so that our struggle
and work will also be creative
for the continuance of life,
Standing again, within, among all things
we ask in all sincerity for hope, courage, peace,
strength, vision, unity and continuance.

-- Simon J. Ortiz --
from Woven Stone




Simon J. Ortiz is an Acoma Pueblo Native American who was born and raised near Albuquerque, New Mexico and grew up speaking the Acoma tongue.

Earth Day

Sailing Homeward

Cliffs that rise a thousand feet
Without a break,
Lake that stretches a hundred miles
Without a wave,
Sands that are white through all the year,
Without a stain,
Pine-tree woods, winter and summer
Ever-green,
Streams that for ever flow and flow
Without a pause,
Trees that for twenty thousand years
Your vows have kept,
You have suddenly healed the pain of a traveller's heart,
And moved his brush to write a new song.

-- Chan Fang-sheng -
(Chinese, 5th century)





The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-- Wendell Berry --
(American, b. 1934)

Earth Day

EARTH TEACHER

Earth teach me stillness

As the grasses are stilled with light.

Earth teach me suffering

As old stones suffer with memory.

Earth teach me humility

As blossoms are humble with beginning.

Earth teach me caring

As the mother who secures her young.

Earth teach me courage

As the tree which stands alone.

Earth teach me limitation

As the ant which crawls on the ground.

Earth teach me freedom

As the eagle which soars in the sky.

Earth teach me resignation

As the leaves die in autumn.

Earth teach me regeneration

As the seed which rises in the spring.

Earth teach me to forget myself

As melted snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me to remember kindness

As the dry fields weep in the rain.

-- Ute Prayer --