Re-membering Earth: Between Rock and Root

She has been called many names — Gaia or Ge by the Greeks, Pachamama by the Incas, Geb by the Egyptians, and, all across Her meadows, mountains, oceans and plains, She is known as Ma, Mama, Mother.  Sometimes earth is male but most often She is female. 

Earth is the first oracle before all other oracles.  She preceded all the temples built to house other oracles.  Stretching back through time and tomorrow, before and after temples, cities, buildings and civilisations as we know them, there were caves and fathomless lakes, springs and the dark places between rock and root.  Long before Delphi and long before the oaks of Dodonian Zeus and oracles of the internet, She spoke and speaks through our ancestors and they understood this, they knew Her voice and honoured Her knowledge and wisdom.

The Earth Oracle was attended by those called to Her.  They heard Her voice and answered Her call, becoming Her guardians.  We know these guardians today by those who still tend Earth and Her creatures with reverence, who remember that we live off Her blood, Her sinew, Her bones.  There are some who still tend Her gateways.

We eat Her creatures for food, be they plant, animal or mineral.  We use Her trees to build and craft objects for our pleasure and comfort.  We mine Her, dig into Her and bury toxic and nuclear waste in Her stomach, deep down in the shadows.  

In some places we can still enjoy Her crystal clear waters and fresh air.  But in many places we cannot.  Many of Her gateways no longer have gatekeepers and those gates have shut down leading to many of the problems we have in our environment today.  Much of this work has been shown to us by Malidoma Some in his book Ritual:  Power, Healing and Community.  I highly recommend this book to those who are seriously called to be gatekeepers, tenders of Earth.

Even so, those who weave a garden, orchard or forest from seed to fruit or tree are gatekeepers of Earth too.  Those who find ways to eradicate pollution or become gatekeepers of nuclear powerplants are also doing important work (see the works of Joanna Macy who recognises that nuclear plants and nuclear waste will not go away but that these places require gatekeepers to make sure the waste is kept from harming us all).  Nothing goes unnoticed.  All work done to help our only home is crucial to Her survival.

I heard a story today from a friend that made me think twice about doomsday reports on Earth’s demise.  Should you find yourself at certain stone circles in the British Isles on the Solstice you will see that the sun still casts its light in the exact same spot on the stones as it will have done thousands of years ago, even given tilts and wobbles of Earth on her axis.  Certainly we have work to do to help and tend the Earth Mother, but this may be some indication that all is not lost if such ancient circles still maintain their exactitude.

Honour Earth in your garden, window box, allotment, stone covered backyard.  Honour Her in your desert adobe house.  Honour Her on your snow capped mountain and at the local caves.  Remember, She is your Mother and you are Her Sacred Child.  We may come from Elsewhere but we enter this world through the wombs of your mother and mine and we are born on Earth — not the Moon, not Mars, not Saturn — although these places too are the children of Galatea (for another post!).  Remember too, Earth is way old, older than you can imagine, one of the oldest of divinities, and She holds great wisdom for us, deep down there between rock and root.