Let my words

be bright with animals

images the flash of a gull's wing,

If we pretend

that we are at the center,

that moles and kignfishers,

eels and coyotes

are at the edge of grace,

then we circle, dead moons

about a cold sun.

This morning I ask only

the blessing of the crayfish,

the beatitude of the birds;

to wear the skin of the bear

in my songs;

to work like a man with my hands

------ Joseph Bruchar

I am the Wind... an affirmation
I am the wind that breathes upon the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of leaves rusting,
I am the rays of the sun,
I am the beam of themoon and stars,
I am the power of trees growing
I am the bud breaking into blossom,
I am the movement of the salmon swimming,
I am the courage of wild boear fighting,
I am the speed of the stag running,
I am the strength of the ox pulling the plough,
I am the size of the mighty oak tree,
And I am the thoughts of all people 
Who praise my beauty anda grace.
--- from the ancient Welsh Black Book of Camarthan
 

Native American Prayer for Peace

Oh Great Spirit of our
Ancestors, I raise
my pipe to you.
To your messengers the four winds, and
to Mother Earth who provides
for your children.
Give us the wisdom to teach our children
to love, to respect, and to be kind
to each other so that they may grow
with peace of mind.
Let us learn to share all good things that
you provide for us on this Earth.

The Earth is all that lasts. 

The earth is what I speak to when

I do not understand my life

Nor why I am not heard.

The earth answers me in the same song

That it sang for my fathers when

Their tears covered up the sun.

The earth sings a song of gladness.

The earth rises up and laughs at me

Each time that I forget

How spring begins with winter

And how death begins with birth.

~ Nancy Wood

The Evening Forest

The cool, dark fir forest was bordered by a lush green meadow and a rushing, roaring mountain stream. One sharp snowy finger of the mountain pointed skyward just visible above the tallest trees. The cold stream poured from a glacier somewhere behind that pinnacle.

The meadow was large and almost flat with islands of grey snags near the center and along two edges. A hundred years ago it was a swamp; a hundred years before that a watercourse of many small streams, streams that were just beginning to become clogged with reeds and dead grasses. Today it was a beautiful meadow filled with countless pink shooting stars. Someday it would be a fir forest.

Today it was a meadow, and its thick grass was a green that only can be seen at high altitudes on a clear day beneath an azure sky. The early evening light washed the meadow and the treetops in an orange glow. The roar of the rushing stream seemed both softened and broadened by that luminescence.

The stream was large enough that it was better crossed in the morning before the midday sun would wake and thaw the sleeping snowfields above. Then the melting snows of the warm afternoon would send forth torrents that coursed wildly down the mountainside. Then the falls just below the ford would literally boom. The booming resounded in the mountain valley, echoing, filling it like water fills a vessel.

Everything within that refreshing vessel of dark green forest was immersed in that steady reverberation. Immersed in a divine roar whose endless layers echoed off transparent walls. It's not the sort of sound you can hear solely with your ears. Even to bathe in it won't be enough, because there'll still be someone there to interfere, to interpret and create details.

It has to be felt deeper, below the surface, at the very point where all senses merge. Merge with them right there like a fleck of foam falling into a stream. Just by listening with your eyes you can fold back on yourself and merge into that primal stream of awareness like a river is swallowed by the immensity of the ocean. Only then will you know what point to live from. Only then will you be sure.

- From Journeys on Mind Mountain

~~ Submitted by our member Justin