VISIONS OF GAIA
1 GAIA
_
Sweet fair damsel
Purest and most whole of loves
Earth’s own heart.
With your dancing leaves
Shimmering rainbows
And sweet soft moonlit night.
Earth who dances in the sunlight
And brings forth life.
Earth our mother
As we are brought from the dust.
Do not let
The children of your dust
Destroy you.
Walk cloaked in moonlight
Dance bathed in sunlight
Weep the tears of rain
And laughing,
Chase the rainbows
As they span your greenest meadows
And light upon your hills
Rise naked from the oceans’ foam
Adorned with pearls.
All creatures love you, our mother.
All creatures held in your loving arms.
Sweet fair damsel
Purest and most whole of loves
Earth’s own heart.
With your dancing leaves
Shimmering rainbows
And sweet soft moonlit night.
Earth who dances in the sunlight
And brings forth life.
Earth our mother
As we are brought from the dust.
Do not let
The children of your dust
Destroy you.
Walk cloaked in moonlight
Dance bathed in sunlight
Weep the tears of rain
And laughing,
Chase the rainbows
As they span your greenest meadows
And light upon your hills
Rise naked from the oceans’ foam
Adorned with pearls.
All creatures love you, our mother.
All creatures held in your loving arms.
_
_ 2 Florida
In what way, O mother,
Beloved one,
Do you grace this land?
And how may we see you manifest to us?
With orange blossoms in your hair
And bowls of fruit spilling out before you.
Birds fly about your crowned head
Lofty as the cypress or the oaks.
Deer play at your feet
You are clothed in the warm air
And the mist of the swamps
Shrouds you in uncertainty.
You are beyond humans
Encompassing all life.
I have come far to find you
And you are here, in perfection
Knowing and loving all things.
Independent of religion, but holding
All of life precious and mysterious.
Thank you for the caress of your air-
The warmth of your breath-
The sun of your smile.
Your birds’ voice
And your layers of scent.
Your freedom and complexity.
In what way, O mother,
Beloved one,
Do you grace this land?
And how may we see you manifest to us?
With orange blossoms in your hair
And bowls of fruit spilling out before you.
Birds fly about your crowned head
Lofty as the cypress or the oaks.
Deer play at your feet
You are clothed in the warm air
And the mist of the swamps
Shrouds you in uncertainty.
You are beyond humans
Encompassing all life.
I have come far to find you
And you are here, in perfection
Knowing and loving all things.
Independent of religion, but holding
All of life precious and mysterious.
Thank you for the caress of your air-
The warmth of your breath-
The sun of your smile.
Your birds’ voice
And your layers of scent.
Your freedom and complexity.
_3 AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
_
America the continent
America the not-human
Romping and dancing in her buxom way.
Specifically excepted from the fate of Babylon
Not subject to the ranting
So-called prophets, doomsayers.
But free and laughing
Living by other rules.
Trees standing tall and straight
Tops waving in the wind.
Clouds racing,
Rain tossed about
The will-I, nill-I of weather, fire
Storm, drought, and flood.
Lightning more than enough to power a city
Not subject to ‘man’s decree.
Life with biological rules and progressions,
Not content with geometric confines
But laughing, escaping, encroaching, engulfing.
Do I wish humans ill?-No-
But given the choice
Between God-damned warmongers
Of any persuasion;
Who manufacture and sow
Land mines to kill and maim
Those of their own kind-
Manufacture and use poison gas;
Store lethal microbes to use
Against the current enemy-
Choosing between these and my mother-
She whose green breast has borne me
Who feeds me the sap of her trees
Whose wind tumbles my hair
Whose soil grows my grains
From whose dust I was made
And to whose dust I will return
Where do you think my loyalty lies?
Where my love, where my heart.
Nature’s violence is honest
She gives fair warning
Her pyrotechnics can kill
But they are impartial
As is the mercy of her rain.
She is my sweet, ageless mother.
God’s minions claim to control her-
And she suffers them-
But they live at her pleasure.
They fight her,
They claim they have subdued her-
And she loves them as her children
But they live through her mercy.
America the continent
America the not-human
Romping and dancing in her buxom way.
Specifically excepted from the fate of Babylon
Not subject to the ranting
So-called prophets, doomsayers.
But free and laughing
Living by other rules.
Trees standing tall and straight
Tops waving in the wind.
Clouds racing,
Rain tossed about
The will-I, nill-I of weather, fire
Storm, drought, and flood.
Lightning more than enough to power a city
Not subject to ‘man’s decree.
Life with biological rules and progressions,
Not content with geometric confines
But laughing, escaping, encroaching, engulfing.
Do I wish humans ill?-No-
But given the choice
Between God-damned warmongers
Of any persuasion;
Who manufacture and sow
Land mines to kill and maim
Those of their own kind-
Manufacture and use poison gas;
Store lethal microbes to use
Against the current enemy-
Choosing between these and my mother-
She whose green breast has borne me
Who feeds me the sap of her trees
Whose wind tumbles my hair
Whose soil grows my grains
From whose dust I was made
And to whose dust I will return
Where do you think my loyalty lies?
Where my love, where my heart.
Nature’s violence is honest
She gives fair warning
Her pyrotechnics can kill
But they are impartial
As is the mercy of her rain.
She is my sweet, ageless mother.
God’s minions claim to control her-
And she suffers them-
But they live at her pleasure.
They fight her,
They claim they have subdued her-
And she loves them as her children
But they live through her mercy.
_4 DON’T FUCK WITH MOTHER NATURE
_
Earth in her youth
The gift of sun’s heat still new in her
Lava and petroleum running hot in her veins
Our species in our youth
Running and jumping and plundering
Like the wild animals we were.
Now we have paved paradise.
Spread factories over the land
Ripped gaping mines into her depths
Torn out the minerals
And sucked the petroleum from her veins
We sell her water.
We make bombs and guns to kill our fellow humans
Make Play Stations and televisions
To idle our youth and teach them violence
From earliest childhood.
Our leaders tell us lies
Enslave us and corrupt our commerce.
They close the borders to shipping of seeds to prevent bio-terrorism
Seed growers genetically modify crops
And then wonder why the bees die.
They claim a patent on life.
You cannot patent life.
The wind knows no boundary.
Pollen knows no boundary.
Life knows no boundary.
Don’t fuck with mother nature.
Earth in her youth
The gift of sun’s heat still new in her
Lava and petroleum running hot in her veins
Our species in our youth
Running and jumping and plundering
Like the wild animals we were.
Now we have paved paradise.
Spread factories over the land
Ripped gaping mines into her depths
Torn out the minerals
And sucked the petroleum from her veins
We sell her water.
We make bombs and guns to kill our fellow humans
Make Play Stations and televisions
To idle our youth and teach them violence
From earliest childhood.
Our leaders tell us lies
Enslave us and corrupt our commerce.
They close the borders to shipping of seeds to prevent bio-terrorism
Seed growers genetically modify crops
And then wonder why the bees die.
They claim a patent on life.
You cannot patent life.
The wind knows no boundary.
Pollen knows no boundary.
Life knows no boundary.
Don’t fuck with mother nature.
_Introduction/Discussion
_ The mother has clearly reached out to me many times. I wrote these
pieces down as they came to me. I didn’t really know what they were,
except that they would have their way with me. The experience I title
'Gaia', for example, came to me in early
2001, when I was driving south from Bangor, Maine, in the dark, in a snowstorm. And yet the vision came burning through, demanding to be written down, on a scrap of paper, in the glow of the dash lights, as I parked on the shoulder of the interstate, wondering ‘why now’, and what was going on. And of course it *would* come a line or two at a time. It was kind of a long trip. This particular poem or vision, whatever you like to call it, illustrates some of the process. It comes as ‘bites’- concepts, and some of them clearly not original with me. You can surely recognize Botticelli’s Aphrodite rising in the foam, and if you have read the science fiction book ‘Children of the Dust’, you can see that particular term was not original with me. But so it is with our communications, and indeed, why we study Had I not had those ‘bites’- some have termed them ‘memes’ in my memory bank, the communication process would have been slower. As it was, the vision came as words, pictures, and attendant concepts, remorselessly building and burning as it came to me. As they occurred, my mind searched for the nearest analogy, simile, metaphor, parable- to frame words and images to communicate the experience. And I ask, ‘Why night? Why winter? Why snow?’ This is not to look a gift horse in the mouth- I am deeply grateful, humbled, and in awe. But of course my monkey brain wants to understand the process. The phrases or verses in the poem which I set apart by spaces are pretty much the ‘bites’ of information.
'Florida'- came to me while on vacation in 2003. I had gone to Highland Hammock State Park. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that, during a walk along the boardwalk through the swamp, when I stopped to rest on one of the benches, I would be hit with this experience. Fortunately, I did have a notebook and pen with me.
It is hard to say what it was, and easier to say what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a hallucination. It wasn’t my physical eyes seeing it. But it was there in a way that demanded I write it down. And the experience was profoundly moving and changing. Something like that is a life altering event.
For years I have been trying to decide what to do with these visions. And I have decided that the thing to do is *not* to hide them, but rather share them.
(See pages 2 and 3 for more pieces)
2001, when I was driving south from Bangor, Maine, in the dark, in a snowstorm. And yet the vision came burning through, demanding to be written down, on a scrap of paper, in the glow of the dash lights, as I parked on the shoulder of the interstate, wondering ‘why now’, and what was going on. And of course it *would* come a line or two at a time. It was kind of a long trip. This particular poem or vision, whatever you like to call it, illustrates some of the process. It comes as ‘bites’- concepts, and some of them clearly not original with me. You can surely recognize Botticelli’s Aphrodite rising in the foam, and if you have read the science fiction book ‘Children of the Dust’, you can see that particular term was not original with me. But so it is with our communications, and indeed, why we study Had I not had those ‘bites’- some have termed them ‘memes’ in my memory bank, the communication process would have been slower. As it was, the vision came as words, pictures, and attendant concepts, remorselessly building and burning as it came to me. As they occurred, my mind searched for the nearest analogy, simile, metaphor, parable- to frame words and images to communicate the experience. And I ask, ‘Why night? Why winter? Why snow?’ This is not to look a gift horse in the mouth- I am deeply grateful, humbled, and in awe. But of course my monkey brain wants to understand the process. The phrases or verses in the poem which I set apart by spaces are pretty much the ‘bites’ of information.
'Florida'- came to me while on vacation in 2003. I had gone to Highland Hammock State Park. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that, during a walk along the boardwalk through the swamp, when I stopped to rest on one of the benches, I would be hit with this experience. Fortunately, I did have a notebook and pen with me.
It is hard to say what it was, and easier to say what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a hallucination. It wasn’t my physical eyes seeing it. But it was there in a way that demanded I write it down. And the experience was profoundly moving and changing. Something like that is a life altering event.
For years I have been trying to decide what to do with these visions. And I have decided that the thing to do is *not* to hide them, but rather share them.
(See pages 2 and 3 for more pieces)