Messengers of God

Living in the country, growing and eating my own food, working the land, burning its wood... all of these things have a heartbeat of their own. And after several years, all the heartbeats around me become one with my own and we all share in the rhythm of life and the cycles of nature. When I lived in the city, I sometimes would drive out to the country to spend a day or two, as so many city-folk do. I would feel a longing, a yearning, a sense of peace that I could never really get in the city. And once I finally moved to the country, I thought, "I'm here! Now, I can feel this way all the time! Nature is my back yard!" And I thought, at the time, that I was really in touch with Mother Earth. But now that I've lived in the country for almost five years, I realize those feelings were only scratching the surface.


It's like any other union. It takes time and commitment, investment of yourself, to realize the rewards. The longer the relationship, the deeper the rewards. The relationship becomes an entity of its own, fed and nurtured by its partners. I feed the land, the land feeds me. We take care of each other. If one party stops caring, or ceases to feed the relationship, it suffers. I can't expect my land to continue to feed me if I don't feed the land with compost, water, and nutrients it so willingly gives up to my harvest. An intricate balance, yet pure and simple.


Now that I've lived here for a decent chunk of time, I am given reminders of my relationship with Mother Earth all the time. Whether it's the great blue heron I saw in the creek this morning, the diamonds sparkling on the sunlit snow, the herd of deer loping across the meadow, a field mouse and her babies nested in the bee hive, a giant sunflower burgeoning with seeds, or a hawk circling its prey, I am perpetually witness to, and part of, the circle of life.


These moments are Messengers of God. I embrace and treasure them.

It's time to order seeds and plan the garden. Soon, the busy work of growing food will begin. But for now, there's a fire to be stoked, pumpkin bread to be baked, laundry to be folded, and a sweater to be finished. I will highlight the sweater I've been knitting in my next post, but for now...

...back to my tasks at hand.