GAIA BREATHING

We are at war. We must fight. We must win.
A human tactic. To make an “other” of it.
Of anything mysterious and therefore threatening.
Of anything that is not I, not us.

Can we not see with curiosity and ask:
What have we done to her?
What has she sent us in return?
Can we not approach with awe, with faith?

Can we not return to sit at the skirt hem of our Mother?
Turn ourselves inside out
And heal our deepest wound?

Can we not offer up our belly wound to grace
And cease our self-betrayal and betrayal
And self-betrayal and betrayal?

Can we not gaze into our emptiness.
Into the vast interior that cries out:
I am alone. I am unworthy. I am guilty. I am shameful. I am sick. I am dying.

Can we not send our first scream back into the vast space?
Content to never hear it but as an echo?
Can we not let our cries cry?
Cry out for her?

Can we not bear to hear our own crying?
Can we not believe that she has heard it all along?
Tended to our crying all along?
As she is tending to it now?

Can we not feel that through her own tears she is tending ours?
Through her own wound she is tending ours?
That she is easing our fever through her own?
Preparing the poultice for our souls?
Mumbling her devotion as she stirs?
All who upon her dwell.

Can we not let it be?
Can we not let ourselves be calmed?

Can we not lie down?
Lie down together and accept her mothering?
She who has let us go and on and on.
Destroyer wannabes, with our toy weaponry

Can we not withhold our need as she breathes through her pain?
Through the lead foot the size of ten Saturns
Bearing down on her chest.
As she raises herself up, lifts herself up and breathes
And grunts and moans her birth cries
Can we not hear them?

Can we not watch as she throws off our excesses,
Reveals the cracks in our headdresses
Towels off our sticky messes
Rinses and repeats.

She who could destroy but chooses to disarm.
Who could come as a rampage but opts to come as a rainstorm.
Who could shake us off like a pest but decides to shift the color spectrum instead.

As she directs the oceans and the seas, the birds and the bees
The clouds and the stars
To raise their vibration all at once and everywhere

Can we not let go and breathe with her
Mother of mercy, can we?
O mercy, Mother, can we?

Can we not smell the trees again
Can we not see the sky again
Can we not greet the fish again
And the snowcapped mountains

Can we not love the discomfort
And the loneliness
Can we not find the play?
Can we not lose track of the day?

Can we not stand at the threshold and let go
Of our tired way?
Can we not take two steps forward for every one back
Can we not remember the simple things that matter

Can we not stare at our reflection and remember
Can we not step into her womb again?
Dare to know mercy?

Can we not breathe with her, feed of her, float with her
Care for her
Can we not let our love be for her

This is our last birthing
From this our only Mother
For now and for all time
Can we not love her and her many motherings?

Can we not forgive her for her part in the agreement
For not standing in the way of the disintegration
And just being
And just breathing

Can we not forgive ourselves for our kin-made fallacy
That makes her the enemy
Our very spark of life and birth and death

Can we not end the killings born of our othering
For good and ill
Can we not live with our disgust and mistrust
Our misdeeds and misguides

Can we not love our disguise
That only belies what we once forsook
When we abandoned our ship
Only to learn that we are our ship
And there is no leaving ever for anyone

Corona, the earth’s antibody
Permission to enter

Can we not make the next world
Without a heaven within a hell
Without a hell within a heaven
And just settle for a heaven

Can we not return with everything
Can we not come home on the inhale now
Which is all there is left to do
From now on and for all time
And for all good

~ Karen Kohler, 05/12/20

(artwork: “Gaia” by Alex Grey, 1989)