Mother Nature

The midwestern sun swept over my face this morning, I can always count on its rising glow. I’m grateful for being raised on a rustic farm in the eighties, the 1980’s. No running hot water, only cold. An annoyance back then. My bare feet as a child connected me with nature, each step rooted me to survive in this current unstable time.

Today, I’m up early. Headed toward an old honey comb in the bowels of our three majestic white oaks. The majority of our farm has been sold, with the exception of our old house with peeling paint. We hoped a good soul might acquire the fields and pastures during the sweltering midwestern day of our auction. We aren’t farmers. For our Mom, it was the best decision. The new owner, full of bravado like a bull, ripped the land apart. Prior to him changing the landscape and its habitat, I told him of my Father’s reverence for its beauty and history. Daddy often spoke of the Sauk and Fox Indians who walked the land before him, finding evidence of their presence with his keen observation to spot stone tools. He knew its brambly cow paths laced with multiflora rose like the back of his hand since he had been raised on the farm next door.

Given this knowledge, it still didn’t deter the young owner from excavating deep holes which filled the streams with clay, revealing layers of ancient limestone boulders. He unearthed sea creatures from the Mississippian period. Their fragile imprints saw sunlight for the first time in over 300 million years.

With an eye on the prize, he was blinded to our creator’s ancient gift comprised of rich soil made from star dust and the intricate lungs of trees allowing us to breathe. He lived on caffeinated drinks during the day and calmed down to a simmering boil with alcohol at night. A real grouchy, unfeeling character was he.

His temporary claim on the land, and it was temporary, was his dream to build a giant pond in the pasture surrounded by characterless beige mansions. These dwellings attract a new breed of human, those who long for peace in the country without bringing peace to the country. All chaos. It’s theirs for the taking; so they think. Guns, target practice, loud parties and an unwillingness to accept the power of Mother Nature was his downfall. Her network laid down for billions of years always wins no matter how humankind attempts to cleverly manipulate it.

He had his dutiful hired men destroy the 200 year old oaks with their machines one day. Without struggle, they laid on their sides. I felt as though a part of our family had died. A few days later, an ancient pear in bloom was suddenly ripped out of its nest with a backhoe. Sadly, our Mom died too on this day. She had been debilitated for three years after a stroke. It was tragic as we held her frail hand, watching mournfully from our kitchen window. I struggled to think “was this death or was this renewal”. I couldn’t do anything to stop our Mom or the trees from dying. I felt crumpled and defeated.

I have done my best to be a steward of our earth. No human can be perfect. At least I have consciously tried to take care of it and its large and small inhabitants. Caretaking has been imprinted into my psyche, but for his kind, they don’t survive. Survival is both organic and inorganic. One cannot be without the other. His reliance and for many others has been concentrated only on the inorganic; machines and technology. What they see is what they want, there is no saving for a rainy day. Plunder the earth, worry later.

As for myself, I was scarcely aware that my openness to recover from hardships in the past would be a trait allowing me to survive this rebirth. Echos of my Environmental professor’s words in the hopeful nineties went through my head “the earth is self cleaning, the earth is self cleaning, the earth is self cleaning and always will bring itself back into balance”. It was a warning which many chose to ignore. I’m devastated, but I know something had to happen to halt humanity’s recklessness.

As I walked through the field, I found the old oaks on their sides and hugged them tightly with gratitude for their honeycombs in the hollow near their roots. They again were mine. The bees had deserted them, leaving us their food and the men who tore them out were no longer. My Sister and my boyfriend were with me, that’s it. We don’t know what happened to the rest of our family up the road, or our friends and neighbors. We can’t use a phone, watch TV or even turn on a light. We assume a mist has covered the whole earth like a blanket. It’s cool and tranquil after the upheaval. Is this what the dinosaurs experienced after the meteorite? It had to be worse because it threw the planet into darkness for who knows how long. Today, I can see a faint glint of the sun. We have finally come out of the grey shadows.

My Sister clutches an ancient locket that Mom had given us a few months before she died. It’s made from copper, green now with age and crudely fashioned. In her weak voice she reminded us of Daddy’s recollection when he found it as a boy “your Dad saw this glinting object among the clods of dirt in the field when a small dust devil came hovering near. He saw the most beautiful electric blue colors as he watched the whirling mini tornado”. After that day, something in him felt different. He felt he’d always be safe. The locket was bestowed upon him he thought by something otherworldly. It wasn’t simply an old relic. We had always taken the story with a grain of salt being science minded children with artistic flairs. Our Dad was a practical man who saved for his family and respected his elders and neighbors. He always said “you never know when you might need each other”. He was gentle and treaded lightly across the earth. Every once in awhile Daddy would surprise us speaking of the mystical.

Mom was the same. When we were getting ready to sell our farm she said a young man appeared. He was hanging off the ladder leading up to our combine looking toward her on the porch. She saw him plain as day. He gazed at her but did not respond to her friendly wave. His clothing was simple, a black leather vest and black long pants covering his feet. His skin was brown and his hair long, dark and wavy. She felt offended that he stood by our combine staring at her thinking he was our farmer’s assistant who rented the land. The next day her eyes were wide, she said she had seen a spirit. A Native American spirit who was fearful for us to sell the land. She had described him so distinctly, how could I doubt her. In hindsight, why didn’t we recognize his guidance.

A few days ago everything came to a halt. A beautiful dream like state seemed to melt from the sky akin to the way images drip in a Dali painting. We saw wisps of beings who appeared to walk in and out of our dimension for mere seconds before they flowed into what seemed to be a doorway or a portal. Golden orbs and royal blue streaks of light playfully bounced in the haze. The same blue lights that Daddy had mentioned seeing as a child. Spiritual energy. Those few days already seem like months. The day it happened, the digging kept going, dump trucks drove past us like an army of ants, sending walls of dust that seemed to purposefully be aimed toward our house. A typical day until the earth began to rumble, followed by a white fire dissolving the men into thin air! We watched this scene from our kitchen window in awe and fear. Would it be our demise? The sound was deafening, high pitched screeches. It was as if a giant hand was reaching into the world for the pesky humans intentionally swatting them into outer space. These men floated to the outer world as particles, prematurely turning into star dust.

We aren’t sure how or why we were not chosen to leave this earth, but today we are walking meekly and gratefully. Ah, maybe this is it… the meek shall inherit the earth?! In my life, I’ve entertained friends who mused of other dimensions and the possibility of other worlds. On top of it, I’ve seen things that I couldn’t find a logical explanation. I’d brush my curiosity off because it’s easier to do this than to try to explain the unexplainable. Is this the time that my Dad had said was the new earth? Or the era of dream time that the Native Americans prophesied at the end of the Mayan Calendar? We don’t know how to get through this, but we have always said we are survivors. We have been chosen to stay.