Meditation at the Church of Earth

Begin at the highest summit and think downward.

Above: light to dark and back. Within you, your animal-sized land

and sea. Life moves in your body in sentient streams.

 

Thank each plant for the treasure of oxygen.  Feel

the gifts of plants in the yielding corners of your lungs.

Thank each animal for the lessons it teaches.

Remember wildness rocking in the soul of the tamed.

Ease your attention to the workings of your heart.

Red springs of life-force whip through your blood;

you recognize life as belonging to all who inherit its alchemy.

Invisible birds move in your body carrying in their beaks

strands of connection between all things that cannot be cut.

 

Your feet send movable roots into the ground everywhere you step.

Down through each layer of the planet, time’s signature speaks.

You enter the ultimate deepness in Earth’s core, the bass roar of magma

shifting like a fiery herd of mastodons.

 

You know yourself to be as fragile as a filament of silk.

 

Jennifer Pratt-Walter, © 2024

Standing on the Shoulders of Time

This is what we were created for, Crones!

Children grown, society and workplace duties

all behind us. Sterling wisdom—awake!

Our world needs us to stand tall as Sequoia, to remember

and strive for justice, to fight for critical change.

To heal.

Let us claim our wisdom, turn loose our Kraken-powers

against the assault of Mother Earth.   We all know

what is wrong.  Everything we do matters.

Everything.

Raise our collective voices!  Come Crones and Spinsters,

come Grandmothers and Hags!  This is our moment,

this is our planet: caring together with purpose.

The shoulders of time are calling us to stand upon their height--

This is what we were made for, Sisters!

J. Pratt-Walter, ©  2024 

Photo by JPW, Pride Parade

Toward Goodness: A Reading for Solstice

 How can I hold fear,

how can sadness dim the day

when I step into the beauty of this

gleaming new dawn?

The fulcrum of the Earth tilts

toward goodness and I will

ride along, drinking deep the hours,

worshipping as if this were my

last chance.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

crucible

listen      the desecrated earth cries out

she heaves in catastrophic tongues

of storms

drought

floods

fires

disease

listen    these are the last moments to act

this is the alarm clock and crucible of endings

this is when the children must teach the adults

there is no option of both survival and failure to act

so pick one, people

choose wisely     not just for yourself

but for all the look-ahead lives to come

 

J. Pratt-Walter NaPoMo 4/1/2023

 

The All-Miracle Church of Earth

 In our curve of time the framework of Love

is still being dreamt open –

Love seeps and strokes into the wounds of the spirit

like silk blessing the first leaf born of the first bud,

unrolled atop the first root, enshrined from the first Source.

 

Beloved ones precious as air lace our seconds and days together,

a vivid shawl sewn in the cadence of our kaleidoscope souls.

 

The slow streams preach their smooth water-truths,

the snow is its refrain: “Shhh love now, shhh love often”

they whisper to us like salamanders in the shape-shift moments.

 

Love weaves through the gills of our being

alive together on this All-Miracle Church of Earth,

of everything hallowed, brokenly true,

of all things Yes, igniting us while capturing fallen sparks

chimed from the ecstatic tongues of stars.

  

 J. Pratt-Walter, © 2021

Opening Pandora's Box

Justice for Women

is Justice for Mother Earth,

and too great for mere words,

but our XX

Chromosome power

has been fallowing

for generations.

 

We are the lips to

Pandora’s riotous box.

We are stretching up

and primed

to spear her light

 

scribing it into our

collective mythology

for healing,

our dazzling souls

unleashed, flung

wide open with the lightning

of our XX convictions.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2021

How It Shakes

                  I feel

 a small injured bird fluttering

                in the heart of

                     my heart

The great ship of Earth

               plows on

unmindful of bird, flutter

               or pulse

 

She herself is hurting

an unseen broken winged

          creature, sick

             and so

alone

 

Humans are the weapons

            that infect, ignite and

wring the life out of our planet

 

My eyes burn with rivers

              and oh, my heart

Mother Earth, my heart

                         how it shakes

 

J. Pratt-Walter  © 2020

To Mother Earth, Alleluia

Dear Mother Earth

Someday our souls will slip from life

like water off a swan

and I say Alleluia.

They say this is your day,

Earth Day

but I know each moment,

they all belong to you

and I say Alleluia.

Oh Earth, I feel the sharp song

of our connection. I feel

the spear of your heartache

and hurt, I feel green everything,

green-blue, green-gold, green-black.

Everything is alive all in

a tumble of miracles

and I say Alleluia.

And now, Holy Earth,

I see it:  our ways must cease.

We must surrender, closing eyes

and giving breath over to you,

always only you

and I say Alleluia.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 4/22/2020

50^th Anniversary of Earth Day

From This Day Forward NaPoWriMo #2

The air is heavy as war. While I make coffee,

the whole Earth holds its breath.


My eye that sees the future

is shaking.  We are in a prolonged

earthquake, but what topples is our lives.


The water is hot, the coffee beans

are perfectly ground.

We are balanced on the deadly cusp

of a pandemic. Today is the fulcrum

of our futures. My eye knows.


From this day forward

everything has changed, everything

will be different.  The air

is darkly gravid.  The French press

is ready.  The kitten is playing with her

string toy on the kitchen floor.


The Earth cannot breathe.


From this day forward

everything changes…



J. Pratt-Walter, 4/2/2020

Heartbeat of the World

Sometimes the heartbeat of the world

is measured out so sweet

in lamb bleats and liquid birdsong.

Sometimes you hear it,

an echo at the end of a sunset

and the truth of it dances in your core.

Sometimes the pulse of Earth

swells and swings as slow as a mountain grows

then rolls itself down as sand to the sea.

Sometimes it vibrates like honeybees

or makes the hollow sound of loss

or keeps the cool silence of fossils.

Someday I’ll hand my pulse back to the world.

I’ll go willingly.

Listen for me at sunset, or where redwing blackbird

clasps the cattails and sings

and sings.

J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 2019