Arctic Bliss (photo: Maia C)

Hospice for the Earth & Its Waters…

The Memory of Water

Nika suggested, ephemerally, that perhaps the kindest
most compassionate thing we could do in these challenging
times would be to provide hospice for the earth and witness
its death. And so, I’ve been contemplating, wondering
if it really is too late for homeopathy as a metaphor
to work as a cure for the Earth… Is it time for hospice.

Most likely, it is too late, since nano-doses depend
upon the memory of water for their effectiveness
and we have ruined so much of the Earth’s waters:
the oceans, rivers, lakes, ponds, wetlands ––even bird baths
—with pollution, acid rain, prescription medicines, landfills
and run-offs, compromising water’s memory and its ability to heal
anything, the earth, ourselves, flora & fauna, or even itself

much less poverty or strife. When you next drink a long cool
glass of water, remember those who have none and know
that one day you may be among them. Know that the Earth
is losing its potable water… that we are at Peak Water.

Remember, too, the once-snow-capped mountains & glaciers
and the current dearth of fresh water they once provided in spring…
to prevent drought and to irrigate crops… to cleanse.

The memory of water is flexible, allowing toxic agents
in even while reacting to them. Yet, water repels the one thing
we believe we need to live that we are sure we cannot live
without – oil – to run our combustion engines.

The History of the Dust-Bowl

Remember, if you can–or re-read the history–of our mid-west
And the dust-bowl era and its poverty and pay tribute or–better yet—
a true homage to those who are reclaiming small family farms.

Fauna & Flora

When you are no longer able to recognize the world
around you, remember the migrating birds and butterflies
and insects who became disoriented by climate changes
and unable to fly their way home, from winter to summer
and then back again as well as the honey bees, whom
we may have poisoned with concentrated corn syrup
while deploying them from their hives via trucks.

When you no longer have ice available to cool your tea or juice
remember the polar bears whose ice floes we allowed, without mercy
to melt into the sea, erasing their habitat. When next you water
your lawn, look ahead to the day, when you can no longer afford
significant increases in your water bill that a “brilliantly green”
lawn will incur, much less its poisonous pesticides and salts.

When you cut a fresh, organic carrot into match-stick-sized
pieces for a stir-fry, remember the amount of water required
to feed and make a garden grow especially when the rains
run dry. Remember the deer and woodchucks, squirrels
foxes and other wild life who have been displaced
by our suburban Edens, and the shock of seeing
from a car, a doe and her fawns on the sidewalk.

Savoring Water

Savor every single future drop of water with which you bathe
or cook or wash your laundry, every drop that you drink or give
to your children or your pets, or with which you water your garden.
Instill this savoring virtue into your children’s children that they, too
may be aware that our Earth is dying for lack of pure water
and clean air because our land-fills, carbon dioxide and other pollutants
have poisoned our air and water and bodies with mercury and asthma

and autism, plastic toxins and malfunctioning thyroid glands, nitrates
chemicals and their resultant diseases, factory-produced foods
and chronic illnesses, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, for most of which
the medical doctors know only how to prescribe pills that will
attack your liver and other vital organs, maybe even a kidney, ironically.
Water is far wiser than we are and much longer lived than we.
We mothers carry the ocean in our wombs. Our young are aquatic.

Providing Hospice

Corrupted by us, and like us, water is an unfailing witness to our sins.
While you are providing hospice for the Earth and, ultimately
for yourselves, your children & grandchildren, you are connecting
the atoms that unite us all in this space and with each other
with compassion and kindness and empathy beyond
boundaries. Know that in living, we are also dying and in dying
learning, how we might have lived had we only paid

a little more attention to the memory of water.

Just as we are deaf to the wisdom of water, it is
no accident that we are deaf to ourselves and to nature.
We are mostly water ourselves; so it is no wonder
our bodies are failing. Water is where we came from.