Spring has arrived, and I invite you to take some time in this magical season to truly connect with the Earth. You are the Earth. Your bones are made out of particles that were once a part of mountains. Your cells are surrounded and penetrated by the ocean.
The breath that moves through you once moved through mighty cedar trees and baby pandas. And all the plants and herbs that you partake of come from a love affair with the sun! To connect with the Earth is to remember that you are a part of the mysterious and awesomely creative process that is Life. To connect with the Earth is to be invited to live from the awareness of the sacredness of all.
If you really think about it, most of the time there are shoes and floors and concrete between you and a full connection with this sacred planet. You may every once in a while smell the Earth and you may actually pause for a moment here and there to truly see its beauty, but you rarely truly touch it. So, at your first opportunity, take off your shoes and find some grass to wiggle your toes in. Be like a child and allow your feet to play with the Earth!
And if you want to take this further, lie down on the Earth and take a few moments to look at your world from this position. Open to the beauty of the sky above you with the eyes of a child, and watch the clouds dance. When you are ready, close your eyes and allow your imagination to move down through the Earth below you all the way out to the other side, and discover that the Earth is resting in vast oceans of space! Now extend your awareness out to the left and the right and above you and discover there too are vast oceans of space. Feel how solid the Earth is below you. Then, just as the Earth allows itself to be held by space, allow yourself to be held by the Earth as you dance through the cosmos. Melt into her embrace.
From this grounded place, open your ears and listen to the Earth. There are all sorts of sounds arising and passing away around you and within you. This is the music of Life and you are listening to it the moment it appears out of mystery. Now open your eyes again and look into space. Because the Earth is moving at 65,000 MPH around the sun, you are now looking at a different part of the universe than you did just a few minutes ago. Allow yourself to be awed by how vast and yet how supportive Life is.
If you are inclined to take this one step further, find a place to lie down on the Earth under a starry night. Again melt into the embrace of the Earth and open to the vast oceans of space you are dancing through right at this moment. If you are away from city lights, there are 10,000 stars that you can actually see above you, and if they were grains of sand, they would fit into the palm of your hand. But there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on every beach of the Earth!! Can you open to the magnitude and the grandeur of the universe you are living in? Can you allow yourself to be held by the Earth as you dance through space and recognize that you are a small but integral part of this awe-inspiring, unfolding that is Life?
I invite you to lift yourself out of your ordinary awareness and open to Life. Allow yourself to be so moved that you recognize that you are a part of a creative unfolding that is mind-boggling in its precision, its intelligence and its beauty. Understand that we are all together on this tiny blue-green jewel that is dancing through oceans of space and that we have so much more in common that we do in differences. As you move through each day, may you become increasingly aware that you and I are threads in the tapestry of sacred Oneness that weaves this world.
