Earth

Do you remember that I wrote last month that we are stardust?  It’s a phrase I’d heard before.  In a song?  In a book?  And I like how it feels; its suggestion of bright light, of ancientness, of universe, of far distances, of white-hot fire, of a life that is beyond the already beautiful confines of The Earth.

And yet, it is merely a suggestion.  Because it is this beautiful Earth that is my home.  And it will be a new Earth that will be my next home.  I am not really stardust, I am soil.  Adam was made from earth, Eve was made from Adam, and down through the generations our connection to our planet, our home, has continued, has flowed.  And if one day we travel the stars, it is Earth that will come with us, that will tell the universe of our home and who we are.

Stars might be a dream; earth is the place where dreams are planted, take root and come to life.

What do you think of when you think of earth?  I think of fertility and growth; I think of nurture and sustenance; I think of warmth and life.  For the Earth has everything needed for life, where it is tended well.  We have everything we need for life, where we are tended well too.  Remembering that different plants need different soils to flourish; our Earth has many soils to choose from.  Have you ever paid attention to all the colours and textures?  Have you ever considered the eons that have passed to create what you can touch today?  Have I? 

I think that I quite love this idea of being earth, of being soil.  I can feel the earth with every sense.  As I think about what it would be like burying my fingers in the soil beneath the rose bush in front of me, as I am sitting in the early Autumn sun writing, the fragrance of the damp soil fills my nostrils just from a lifetime of memories and knowledge.  And I can imagine what it would feel like to take my shoes off and slip my toes into the crisp grass and find the cold ground beneath.  Perhaps I’ll do that and let the sensation flow to my pen.  This has ancientness too.  Far distances of time.

I love the idea that I am planted somewhere, with air to breathe and senses to fill and seasons to weather and instincts ingrained in every atom that has made me over a thousands generations.  A place that is mine in a time that is right.

I can see the moon and the planets and the constellations shift and change from my position here on Earth, moving in the rhythm and pattern that my ancestors watched and my descendants will watch.  Perhaps they have an influence that was a part of their design, perhaps not.  And yet their very intricacy speaks to a design that I can have faith in, and here on Earth is the perfect place to see from.

I think I do love the idea of being earth, of being soil, just as much as I love the idea of being stardust, perhaps more.  I can dance under the stars, lit by the moon, without needing to be stardust, just by being rooted in this soil where I belong, this small corner of a vast universe that is home.