Mother
Earth
“Oh
Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds,
and
whose breath gives life to all things, hear me.
I
come to you as one of your many children.
I
am small and weak, I need your strength and your wisdom.
May
I walk in beauty. My my eyes ever behold the glorious sunrise,
and
may they see as much mystery in your small miracles
as
in your great ones.
Make
my hands respect the things you have created,
and
my ears sharp enough to hear your voice.
Make
me wise so that I may know the things you have taught your children,
the
lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
Make
me strong, not to overcome my brothers,
but
to be able to fight my greatest enemy: myself.
Make
me ever ready to come to you with pure hands and straight eyes,
so
that when my life fades as the fading sunset,
my
spirit may come to you and stand before you without shame.”
Yellow
Lark, Chief of Lakota Sioux
In
a month when we celebrate Earth day, we can't do better than express
the reverence of Chief Yellow Lark. His beautiful prayer, and his
feelings of kinship with creation will always be a reminder of right
relationship to our planet. Of course, this great Lakota Chief lived
in the late 19th century, before our Indian brothers and
sisters discovered gaming and built enormous casinos on tribal lands.
Can't blame them; they had been stripped of their way of life and
most of their sacred territories. They were hungry, and had few other options.
When
our celebration of Earth Day began in 1970, our main concern was the
widespread use of pesticides, especially DDT, that was decimating
bird species and killing all sorts of beneficial insects, including honey bees. After the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
in 1962, Americans became aware of the fragility of our ecosystem
in a way they had not been before. Movements to protect the
environment were launched that eventually produced the Environmental
Protection Agency.
We
have made great strides since then. The hurdle remaining is to
dedicate ourselves to reducing our greenhouse gases in the same way
we achieved the reduction of pesticide use. There are strong
financial incentives toward remaining with fossil-fuels, and until we
see enough financial incentive to change, I don't believe we will. We
humans are stubborn when it comes to money—we may need many more
Hurricane Sandy disasters, more intense droughts, more F-5 tornadoes,
and more city-burning wild fires to convince us that the financial
gains are not worth it.
As
much as I love the reverence of Chief Yellow Lark when it comes to
the Earth, I know we will never go back to it. We can only move
forward one human being at a time. If we love the planet enough to
want to stay here, we will begin to take responsibility for whatever
piece of it we call home.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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