Earth Is a Sentimental Old Woman

earth is a sentimental old woman

peeling back the tough

skin of death’s sleep

pushing roots and tubers

into waiting light

in spite of cries

from the dark loam.

blossoming does not gently unfold

it earns its opening

in earth’s dark center

These days I spend as much time outside as possible. There’s comfort in my backyard. I bring my laptop out there to write instead of sitting at my desk. The couch we bought at Home Depot, assembled with the help of a neighbor, holds me. A journal and a pen rest on a cushion. Headphones play classical music while I breathe deeply the warm, moist air of early morning. This is my promised land – a place that invites quiet and contemplation. The forest backs up to my yard and I pray to and with the trees, the plant-kin who have initiated me into the nature of my soul. Trees have always awakened in me the stories I want to tell.

A couple of weeks ago, while at a local nursery, I was captured by the dancing of a butterfly, who I followed. She landed on a cluster of Lantana and stayed still long enough for me to take her picture. I texted the image to my friend

Susan J Tweit

Like me, she loves the natural world. And unlike me, she is an encyclopedia of knowledge about such. I love that about her. It’s a gift to meet someone who can teach you things.

Susan got back to me, pointing out the small tear in the butterfly’s wing. She called it a bird beak wing snip. “I hope she’s got some eggs to lay, because she’s clearly a survivor.” She went on to tell me how “Swallowtails have the tails on each of their hind wings to fool birds into thinking those are the butterfly antennae. So the bird grabs for the butterfly’s more succulent head and body, but comes away with a beak full of hindwing , which is not at all edible. It’s nature’s decoy technique that works well when both bird and butterfly are in motion.” She attached an article about Swallowtails in which I read that the ancient Greek term for butterfly is psyche, meaning the embodiment and divinity of the human soul. All this from an i-phone picture of a butterfly.

What stuck me was, “she’s clearly a survivor.” Such a strong word, survivor, in relationship to something so delicate. Butterflies, have long been a symbol of transformation – lowly worm to winged beauty. This is the cycle of how life often feels, like we have to crawl on our bellies to get out of the rain, before we ever know we’ll grow wings. The language of myth and nature are the same: symbolism and metaphor. This is what births poetry. The animate world of nature speaks to our longing and lonely hearts. It invites us to immerse.

So, I’m spending as much time outside as I can. I walk and wander. Find butterflies. Sit on the patio, sheltered by the Cherry Laurels. Feel my senses come alive with wonder. Here, in this promised land, I feel a true sense of being and belonging. Nature teaches me so much, well, nature and Susan. From this world I learn that old age is both demise and fruition. Youthful beauty has been replaced by the leathery skin of wisdom, and the tattered wings of survival. The fruition is the merging into this Eden.

Maybe this is so for you too: Life burns away faster than I ever thought it would, leaving the clean white bones on which hang the flesh of ongoing promise and potential – true until the day it all recedes and we are returned to the thin layer of dust on a forest floor.

Dear and precious reader, thank you for being here. Please share with me: What is your promised land? Let’s have a conversation.