Love & Truth
An inspirational fable
about togetherness and
the fulfillment of our truest
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The Secret Language of Earth-Speak When I moved from the noisy concrete and steel canyons of New York City to a small Hudson Valley village with its serenely-forested mountains, I was stunned by the radical change of scenery. In those first days of my new world, it was as if my eyes were continually washed by green -- I don’t think I ever realized so many hues of the color existed! As late summer turned into fall, my favorite season, nature’s magic began its work on me. From one of my first autumn walks along the wooded mountain path behind my house, I was introduced to the uncanny inwardly-audible voices of the natural world. My first encounter with what I call “Earth-Speak” was nothing less than phenomenal for its impact on my life and sensibility. As I came around a bend at the top of the mountain, the lush goldenness of maples along the trail nearly took my breath away. They colored the very air around them. As I stood transfixed, it seemed that all the flora of the woods began to sway toward me. The dramatic red-orange-gold hues in all shapes and sizes were pulsating with light and sound and a scent so liquid and intoxicating that I wasn’t sure if I was breathing or drinking. Suddenly, I “heard” a whispering of words that I will never forget: “Ah yes, the very things you humans sometimes admire us for -- our different colors and shapes and smells and languages -- are the things you often hate about each other. Alas, you have lost touch with your beauties because you have lost touch with us.” Having just moved out of a city teeming with the tensions that over-population and radical diversities of race, culture and economy too often provoke, this message was stunning and timely. During that first year of “life in the country,” I became unusually acquainted with this seemingly-conscious world. In my daily walks with pen and pad, the presences of nature enfolded me in their lushness while I chronicled their wisdom-teachings. As these “inner tuitions” invited me to consider some of life’s most paradoxical mysteries, they required only one thing of me -- to be utterly present. I didn’t know to call it that at the time -- I was only aware that I felt light and free, as if all the space around the trees and the flowers and blades of grass was also around, and even inside, me. One spring afternoon I received the ultimate “present” that awaits us in being present. As I came upon a multi-colored field of flowers that surely had not been there the day before, I suddenly experienced a palpable wave-wind-force come at me. As it hit, I felt a kind of energetic “hello” -- and instantly a sense of being deeply recognized and known. And then an incredible feeling of being loved washed over me. As that feeling surged, I was startled to realize I was being shown what it would feel like to love myself -- not merely the self-help attitudes of self-acknowledgment, self-acceptance and self-respect -- but to actually feel an emotion of love for my own self – and not as an ego, but a particular beingness within all beingness. As I stood there in the middle of the path that would lead to the end of loneliness, I felt that all-encompassing love wind its way through and out of me -- but without leaving me behind. Rather it held me connected as it traveled to and through everything around me. And it was the same love, the same Self that was loving me, loving everything else too. In that spectacular moment, I saw and knew and felt the perfection in our simultaneous urges for separateness and unity. I was shown how in separateness we are each given the opportunity to blossom into an identifiable and explorable presentation of our unique beauties, talents and gifts. And furthermore, I saw how only in separateness can the “Energy of Creation” experience in fullness the particular detail of Itself that each of us embody! Perhaps that is why when we are truly individuating, we may feel what some call a “Divineness” in our purpose. It is then, when our true selves are emerging and expressing, that our purest urge for community emerges and when we have the most to contribute to a higher-conscioused unity with others. In this heightened quality of co-mingling and cooperation that is driven by what can be given rather than gotten, the final stage of fullness that individuation (separateness) seeks is attained. In the paradoxical language of Earth-Speak: “the more vibrant and beautiful each single flower, the more magnificent the field -- and in the magnificence of the field, the single flower is justified.” Things of the natural world inherently participate in both individuation and union; but human nature must offer its own “free will” to allow these seeming opposites to co-exist in order to experience the fulfillment within the paradox. As my time-built walls of self-protection slowly melt in the mingling of the natural world with my own human nature, I am shown again and again the gifts of shelter and interdependence that living things and creatures can offer to each other… “Observe our formations, the ways in which we group together and stand apart. We are not so dense that we shut out the light, for then we could not nourish ourselves and our saplings into blossomings. And we are not so separate that we cannot shelter each other in a storm, lest we all one by one perish.” As my walks continue, even intermittently, the communications have taken on every timbre of conversation and revelation. Whether profound or fanciful, they’ve all had in common a certain weightlessness. I realize this is because the wisdoms are offered without judgment or admonishment, but rather with a kindness and caring for all -- and with a sentient purpose to show us how to be here with ourselves and each other. Every thing and presence in the natural world embodies an essence -- a mirror -- a message -- that corresponds to the seasons and cycles of our lives, our dreams and challenges, our individual and collective choices. In everything we feel, think and do on this planet, we are all participants in the dance between individual and community, separateness and unity, you and me and us. There is no “they” -- there is only “we.” And we can contribute to life-supporting actions such as preservation of wildlife and natural resources, development of eco-friendly energy sources, and the rich purposes of diversity on all levels -- or we can continue to cause ravages to our resources, global warming and the non-humanitarian effects of acquisitional politics and power. If we choose the latter, we must know that we are at a point in our technological evolution when “we cannot make a stink in one part of the world without smelling it in another.” When we listen to the language of Earth-Speak, the secrets of life are revealed to us. And whether they come rumbling, roaring, thundering, or drifting like a feather into the heart of any who are willing to listen, there is not only a global but a deeply personal resonance in the messages. We are shown how to embrace the gifts of shelter and interdependence that living things and creatures can offer to each other…how to become willing partners in the rhythm of seasons and cycles…how to revel in our fullnesses and recover from our losses…how to balance too much and not enough. And someday, even soon, we may come to not merely tolerate or accept -- but delight in -- each other’s diverse beauties so that we might collaborate as allies in the continuation of life on every level. And why? Well that’s the big question, isn’t it. What comes to me is an image of Love on a universal “walkabout” or vision-quest, an adventuring sojourner through time, creating a “home away from Home” here on Earth -- among our multitude of expressions, infinite potentials and yet samenesses of heart…
And then the rest of the message appeared: “….where ________________________ |