what will be my cry? one of grief or one of love? the Truth, it is both
When the rains ended, the arroyos ceased flowing and their newly formed edges dried and crumbled into the sand, a deep crippling grief overtook me. It felt as though all the edgy places i had been wandering, all the upheaval and awakening happening across the country had crumbled bit by bit with each new unveiling of evil. What rain did not fall instead fell from me for days… A story of grief, or maybe it was love, brought me out of mine.
One evening, i listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer share a story she had first heard from Haudenosaunee elder, Tom Porter. The story was about how the fate of the world was to be decided in a game played by two young boys, Skywoman’s grandsons, creation and destruction. They played the Peach Stone game where painted peach pits, one side black, one side white, are placed into a bowl and tossed into the air. If all fell black, destruction would prevail. If all fell white, creation would prevail. As the boys played for the fate of the world, all Beings watched in terror as on one toss, after many, the stones began to fall one by one into the bowl all black. With one still spinning in the air, all of the world’s Beings let out a great cry. The force of their cry changed the stone’s path and it landed white.
At the end of the story, she asked, “What will be your cry when we face the future of this beautiful world?”
Mine is certainly grief. But the overwhelming grief i feel is also a testament to my deep love for Earth and all Her Beings, knowing what has been lost and what can still be lost if we do not, like those Beings in this sacred story, rise.
My grieving silence is broken. Like these flowers rising toward the golden sun, colored purple as a reminder of the Mystery that dwells among us, i will lift myself and raise my cry. My grief… my love for this precious, beautiful planet and all Her Beloveds will be carried through in my vote next month.
What will be our cry? Will we rise and let it be known?
even the stones will cry out
when the one (of many)
who lived among us
began a movement of love
Your Breath of Life on his lips
Your Way of Love in his soul
(and his soles)
he told us to raise our voices for
even the stones will cry out
may those cries not be for nothing
O Breath of Life, be the wind
that ignites creation’s cries
and may we alongside You
lift our voices for the Whole
