We have the holiday Mother’s Day coming up and it is a pretty commercial day, but it also reminds me of one “mother” who doesn’t usually get celebrated. Mother Earth, who must deal with our trash, mining, oil spills, polluted air, cutting of trees and many other actions which must cost her much grief. Now we even have a controversy about greenhouse emissions. We often feel as if we have lost touch with ourselves and with reality. We seem to be being pulled in many directions with our busy schedules. The ancients believed when this happened, you should take off your shoes and stand upon the ground in your bare feet. Then you do a standing meditation in which you pray and remember that the same Divine Energy that is above you in the air and below you in the earth, also flows within your body. The phrase “Take off your shoes, your are standing on sacred ground ” conveys the search for the sacred in the ordinary.

On Holy Ground

——Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Photo by Barbara Mattio

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

And only she who sees, takes off her shoes;

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”

“There is religion in everything around us,

A calm and holy religion

In the unbreathing things in Nature.

It is meek and blessed influence,

Stealing in as it were unaware upon the heart;

It comes quickly, and without excitement;

It has no terror, no gloom,

It does not rouse up the passions;

It is untrammelled by creeds…

It is written on the arched sky;

It looks out from every star,

It is on the sailing cloud and in the invisible wind,

It is among the hills and valleys of the earth

Where the shrubless mountain-top pierces the thin atmosphere

of eternal winter,

Or where the mighty forest fluctuates before the strong wind,

With its dark waves of green foliage;

It is spread out like a legible language upon the broad face of

an unsleeping ocean;

It is the poetry of Nature;

It is that which uplifts the spirit within us…

And which opens to our imagination a world of spiritual beauty

and holiness.”                —–John Ruskin

This Mother’s Day I am not only going to celebrate the holiday with daughters and with other moms and nanas or grandmothers, I am going to do something good for the original mother. And I will be standing in my bare feet on the ground as I smell the flowers in my garden and as I stand in silence and know I am in the presence of God.

In my previous house I had a “moon garden”, It was filled with all white flowers. At night when the moon was out, I sat on my patio and watched the flowers reflect the moon. I always felt so composed and relaxed.

The human body is made of mostly water and so when the moon is out it effects everyone. It brings in the tides, it increases the number of births, and trust me you don’t want to work in an ER, unless you like that chaos. I myself these days love to sit at the beach and watch the moon reflect upon the lake. The sheer beauty of it blows me away. I often wonder if the moon doesn’t possibly have a stronger influence upon us than the sun does. We,human beings often stand or sit gazing up at the moon and it warms our souls. The sun, on the other hand can really injure your eyes if you look too long.

This super moon came much closer to our tiny planet in its orbit than it usually does. I, for one, am glad of her visit and how she interjected herself into our dialog and for a few hours we took our eyes off of the news and politics and lifted our heads to the sky and remembered that we are filled with the same molecules as the moon and stars. We are star dust. I am grateful for the opportunity to be reminded.

The Moon in Your Hands

—-Hilda Doolittle

If you take the moon in your hands

and turn it around

(heave, slightly tarnished platter)

you’re there;

if you pull dry sea-weed from the sand

and turn it round

and wonder at the underside’s bright amber,

your eyes

look out as they did here,

(you don’t remember)

when my soul turned round,

perceiving the other-side of everything,

mullein-lief, dogwood-leaf, moth-wing

and dandelion-seed under the ground.

Many of us think we have no real talents. We don’t compose music like Mozart, or paint like Picasso.  We can’t sing like Caruso or climb mountains or win an Olympic gold medal. Talent can be innate or learned.

But each of us has talents and they are meant to be shared and used to experience our own presence of Divinity. Creativity is the outer expression of our soul. All talents are given by God. So what could our talents possibly be? Some people have talents for healing , business, compassion, to love unconditionally. Some people can do photography or art and some can listen with their souls. Some can comfort a child, hug a friend, dance and act. Everyone has talent within us.  Every kindness or bit of beauty that you put into the world causes a Ripple Effect that will never cease to grow and touch others’ lives.  God is limitless and she uses whatever we put out in the world. I can say from experience, not judging yourself and what you can accomplish is the hard part. Few of us believe we are “good enough” or can “do enough”.  All talent is recognized and beyond reproach.

So, do what you do best and know in the depths of your soul that your talents help to make this a more beautiful, compassionate, exciting world. Take one small step at a time and they will end up carrying you along on your journey.  .