We are sending out this reminder of our quiet pulse together early this month, taking into account the eclipse in North America, drought and the heating up of the world, terrorist attacks in Barcelona, and violent civil unrest in the United States. We honor each one of you who deliberately clears and protects a quiet, sacred place in yourself. Anchoring our lives to this place of home, actions come that bring sanctity to the world. Last month I was invited to a research station in the heart of the Amazon forest where dedicated scientists track the density of biological diversity and climate disruption. I came to appreciate this basin (the size of the contiguous United States) as a great living pump, continually creating weather systems that water the whole planet. Seven of the world’s largest rivers are tributaries to the Amazon River, which carries twenty percent of the entire world’s fresh riverwater into the ocean. Water. Blessed water. One early morning, awakened by a band of howler monkeys, I crawled out of my hammock and went to sit by the creek that ran through our camp. I wrote the words below by a pool of water, and share them with you in the hopes that the intensity of fire now burning is met by the Spirit of Water. The Amazon lives in my body as a remembrance of wholeness; perhaps something of this will be implanted in you, too. Silent together, in the midst,
Barbara (and Peri)
Sitting still in the long arc of time, vulture shadows filter through the canopy brushing over my hair. The iridescent wings of the Blue Morphos flash their butterfly magnificence, flying the creek bed.
Light reflects off the water dancing on the underside of overarching palm fronds. And the spider on the rock hasn’t moved one iota for the duration.
High up in the branches that pierce the open skies, a gentle breeze loosens a singular dried leaf that twirls though the quiet air below and finally rests on the surface of the pool.
This social primate, one vertebrate in the humming, sweet peace, slips her naked body into the miracle of water, happy to be salty lunch for nipping minnows.
Today I am one grateful, humbled expression of the web of life… For once, right-sized into my place in the great family of things. ~ Barbara Cecil ~