Retreat for the Earth

Next week is Earth Week, and I plan to post an agenda of activities for each day, including some reading and education, contemplation, earth care actions, and artwork, that grounds me in unity with the Earth.

Today I just want to sit with the notion that I am of the earth, and settle into a contemplation of how I want to BE.

Maya Angelou said, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” This is the kind of flexible optimism I aim for - not naivety, but realistic and adjustable. 

I am aware that the planet is suffering, that birds and insects are dying, that we will face riots and wars because of our actions. But I need to have hope that things can change, and I need to do what I can to make change. And then I need to cultivate an attitude of joy because of all the beauty we still have.

Agenda:

1. Read QEW pamphlets

2. Get native plants

1. Read QEW pamphlets:

I decided to peruse the Quaker Earthcare Witness website a bit each day this week. 

From "Contemplative Action in the Time of Climate Change", By Tom Small and the QEW Publications and Spiritual Nurturance Committees

Coming to Our Senses
In losing the ancient, shamanistic ability to discern what the natural world — plants, animals, stones, water, air, soil — says to us, we risk losing touch with our own inward spirit and acting merely for the sake of action. We have eyes that see not, ears that hear not. We come to our senses and save our souls through what Wordsworth calls “wise passiveness.” In attentive stillness one being comes to know another as an active presence. When we cease to manage, persuade, consume, or overcome the “other,” we discover both the unity and the difference between us and otherness. We realize this instance of an infinite, endlessly creative diversity in unity, which is both Nature and Self. Then we approach harmony with ourselves and the other. In contemplative stillness we begin spirit-led action “in the world.” We are responsive to our Leadings. We hear our own “still, small voice,” and we may hear or invoke it in the other, to “make the witness of God in them to bless you” (George Fox).

In such a moment, we commune, as both Quakers and creatures. We gather “local nature — the earth, the water, the air, the native creatures — within the membership of the community” (Wendell Berry). We re-member what has been lost. And so we enter into the spiritual economy of gift exchange, a dramatic dialogue of continuing revelation and faith-response.

2. Get native flowers:

Today I'm going to a native plant sale with my friend Pattiebuff touring home 5 new flowers to plant:

1 Poison Larkspur (Delphinium trolliifolium) - for sanctuary bed: Larkspur has jewel-like spires of spurred flowers ranging in color from cobalt to indigo. This coastal perennial likes wet feet and tolerates flooding. Poisonous if ingested, larkspur is especially dangerous for cattle and other livestock; however, its luminous flowers are loved by hummingbirds, songbirds, and butterflies. A spring to early summer bloomer, this vivid wildflower will liven up any planting.

1 Cusick's rose checkermallow (sidalcea) - to plant in our "wetlands": Its arresting deep rose-pink flowers grow in dense racemes that are loved by native butterflies and other pollinators. This tall, herbaceous perennial grows to 6 feet and is an ideal replacement for ornamental hollyhocks, loosestrife, and snapdragons.

3 Idaho blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium idahoense) - for hugelkulture: Member of the iris family, with characteristic flattened leaves with 1-inch blue or purple flowers, with darker coloration around the bright yellow to lime green centers.  This semi-evergreen perennial grows in small tufts to roughly 1 foot and is generally found in wet meadows, seeps, wetland edges, and vernal pools. It prefers full to partial sun with moist or seasonally wet soils, and is ideal in native perennial borders or moist wildflower meadows.

    

I also have a clump of Smith's Fairybells growing under the front window that I want to move to the hugelkulture: Upright. Stems with widely spreading branches. Roots creeping, in time making loose thicket. Stems, leaves hairless. Leaves dark, shiny green, alternate, clasping stems. Flower clusters of 1–7 hang from underside of stems. Flowers are 1/2 in. long, creamy white, narrow bells flaring only slightly at tip. Berries longer than wide, orange to red. Grows in deep moist woods, redwood forests, at low to mid-elevations.