Stop: A COVID-19 Invitation From Your Earth Mother.
We stand on a precipice, humanity before the fall. After the fall. During the fall. The fall where we land, face down, covered in shit, bleeding and bloody.
We stand, masks in hand, signposts on the ready. We chant our truths — loud, strong words, attempting to change the world. Our world. This broken shell of a world.
This earth that we poisoned and raped within an inch of its life. We watched as we pillaged more and more from its skin, from its core. We fretted and wrung our hands. If only something could be done. If only we could fix it.
And then, as you reach for your coffee, your phone slips off the table, glass shattering, and you fret no more. Finding the solution can come later.
Right now, you need to order a new screen, a new phone. You need to answer this email and take this child to their extracurricular activity. They must not be left behind.
That child sits, strapped into the seat behind you, and tells you about the polar bears and the ice caps and the burning of the rainforest. You witness their distress, join yours in with theirs through this red light and the next. Until you arrive and it is time for soccer, for ballet, for piano, for hockey… “Off you go now, don’t forget all the gear. Yes, I’ll be right here when you are done.”
And then you dive back into your broken screen, to view our broken world. If only, if only something could be done. But not right now, because there is dinner to plan, and children to get to bed, and the emails you still haven’t responded to, and isn’t tomorrow that meeting you have been dreading… and on, and on, and on… Until…
No more.
Stop this running. Stop this frantic pace. You have made your earth sick, you will get yourselves sick. You must stay home; there is an invisible force keeping your doors closed. For fear of what lurks beyond. That something might make you sick within an inch of your life. Or more.
It could take everything.
So stop. Stop with the lessons, and the meetings, and the running. Stop with the procrastination. Stop. There is nothing more important than a healthy body. Your healthy body. Your children’s healthy body. Your parents’ healthy body.
Your earth’s healthy body.
And in the pause, in this stop, She began to heal. Your Earth Mama, She began to put Herself back together and find Her balance.
But you, now, have been thrown off balance. This is not the way of it. You have been setting the pace, the rhythm for so long. Her rhythm is new, unfamiliar, uncomfortable.
So you stand on the precipice, rocking uneasily on your heels. Waiting for the movement to stop. Trying to find your balance. Trying to find your footing. And you are falling.
Failing.
Landing face down on a muddy ground, covered in shit. Masks in one hand, signposts in another. Flinging words like weapons across the boundaries of time and space.
No, this cannot be the new reality. No, you cannot sit and wait. No, you need to get back to… the overwhelm. The business. The busyness. This quiet is disconcerting. This stillness is off-putting. It has put you off your schedule. And your schedule is your everything. It is how you know you are good. It is how you know you are worthy. It is how you know it will be okay.
But what if it was okay already? What if you are already worthy? What if staying still is how you know you are good, doing right by Her, by your True Mother, who gives you life every day in the food you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe?
What if all your Mother asks of you is to love Her enough to stay with Her, stay still, sit on Her lap just a little longer, while She heals the wounds ignored too long?
What if your Mother wants only for you, and Her, to just sit by this stream, by this mountain, by this riverbank, by this garden bed, and to tell Her stories of the life you had when you were too busy running errands over Her body, back and forth, day in and day out? What if She is asking is for you to sit and listen to Her wisdom before She becomes too sick to whisper Her secrets to you any longer?
What if this is Her invitation to you for remembering Your true Source?
Would you put down your signposts then? Would you stop trying to find your balance on this rocky ledge, and simply sit and dangle your feet over the edge? Could you simply just sit and hold Her hand while She heals from generations of humans raping Her for Her bounty, pillaging for Her riches? Could you just lay your head here, on Her grassy breast, and listen to Her heartbeat becoming ever stronger?
Could you just sit awhile, mask in hand, signpost at your feet, and listen to Her breathing?
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Erin Orion is a counselor, priestess, coach and writer who lives on the Canadian west coast. In her spare time, she loves to spend time with her two kids, her partner and their three cats, Boulder, Keegan and Leeloo. She is unreasonably obsessed with textile arts and does all the things (knits, crochets, spins, weaves, felts and dyes yarn). She is the proud owner of too many spinning wheels, four of which are over 200 years old.