40 Days of Peace Day Nineteen
Sacred Lotus Love
All I ever wanted to be was a good mother…
In Braiding Sweetgrass Robin tells us the story of a pond and how she came to care for the water as it were her child. The Home for Sale ad had read, “spring fed pond”, but what she and her daughters purchased was something less picturesque. “Like many an old farm pond, mine was the victim of eutrophication, the natural process of nutrient enrichment that comes with age. Generations of algae and lily pads and fallen leaves and autumn’s apples falling into the pond built up the sediments, layering the once clean gravel at the bottom in a sheet of muck. All the nutrients fueled the growth of new plants which accelerated the cycle. This is the way for many ponds, which eventually become marsh and maybe someday a meadow and then a forest.”- Robin Wall Kimmerer.
But Robin saw the pond as her own child AND she dreamed of her daughters swimming in the pond on summer days. So she set off to do her duty as an ecologist, and restore the water to its highest calling as a pond.
Robin’s descriptive writing tells the story of nature through both scientific language, (that I admit I have to read several times often to absorb), and from the eyes of a true lover of nature. It’s so beautiful and I can see myself in her scenes. I envisioned myself with her all those days raking the algae from the pond tediously. What a labor of love.
In the beginning of her new project, she wears waders and skirts the edge of the pond until she finally realizes she isn’t accomplishing much by circling the edge… she must dive into the mud.
“I developed a new relationship with mud. Instead of trying to protect myself from it, I became oblivious to it, noticing its presence only when I would go back to the house and see strands of algae caught in my hair or the water in the shower turning decidedly brown. I came to know the feel of the gravelly bottom below the muck, the sucking mud by the cattails and the cold stillness where the bottom dropped away from the shallows.
Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge.”
“We carry our babies in internal ponds and they come forth into the world on a wave of water. It is our responsibility to safeguard the water for all our relations. Being a good mother includes the care taking of water.”
We can all put ourselves in these waders. We can let our visions of what we think our life should be, keep us from diving into what this moment is. Sometimes life is muddy, real sludge, algae covered alligator wrestlin’ kinda muddy. But in order to transform the water into what we hope for, we have to take off the waders and dive into the mud, bare and vulnerable to the elements. And here is where the real transformation is forged.
The conditions that create the life of purpose we are meant to live, lie well outside our comfort zone and safety nets. The lotus flower teaches us all about this.
“When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
She’s so beautiful, the Lotus Flower. She is sacred and strong. Associated with celestial symbolism—the flower simply defies logic. She finds sanctuary in the muck and mud. She sprouts under water, in the algae waters of the pond, in the dark, in dirt, and pretty rough conditions. And in a miraculous feat, she makes her way to the top of the water, and ... she… blooms!
Despite the conditions that are part of her unique divine blueprint, she stays strong and moves gracefully through every obstacle along the way until she reaches the top of the water and sets her face on the sun, and… she… blooms!
She reveals divine miracles through her unique make up. She arises above the water, a tiny bud, freeing herself from all the hard conditions she had to face in the beginning of her life. Taking in the air, the breath of life, into each petal. And… she … blooms.
She is ready to share her heart song with the world!
To the unknowing eye, the lotus could appear to be fragile floating on the water, but her stem is deeply rooted in the earth, in the mud and water.
To the unfaithful eye, the lotus could appear hopeless, being born in dark water with so many obstacles to face in order to bloom, but the lotus knows her calling. She was born for this.
And when She blooms there is no sign of mud on her, not a speck. Every petal is pure and clean and inside she is bright and beautiful. Creators masterpiece.
In Buddhism, the lotus represents awakening, enlightenment,… the whole universe. She reminds us to be pure and mindful of our body, speech and mind. According to Buddhist myth, the Buddha appeared atop a floating lotus, and his first footsteps on Earth left lotus blossoms.
LOVE allows God’s Divine presence to flow in and through every tiny moment of our lives, every cell of our being, every second of time. Love allows us to stay open to miracles, just as the lotus opens to bloom.
The Lotus grows out of the mud. Without the mud, there is no Lotus.
Suffering is a kind of mud, that we must use in order to grow the flower of Understanding and Love” - Thich Nat Hanh/ Vietnamese Monk
The Lotus has a fascinating will to live. A lotus seed can withstand thousands of years without water, able to germinate over two centuries later.
“Due to the waxy protection layer on its petals, its beauty is blithely unaffected when it re-blooms each morning. It continues to resurrect itself, coming back just as beautiful as it was last seen. With such refusal to accept defeat, it's almost impossible not to associate this flower with unwavering faith. Although cultures have largely dubbed the lotus as a spiritual figurehead, it is most emblematic of the faith within ourselves.”
She teaches us to live in faith, not fear. TO LOVE and BLOOM wherever we are planted.
Life unfolds in a growing spiral, as our children grow and set out on their own paths one day. But, the work of a mama and papa is never complete.
“The spiral widens farther and farther, so that the sphere of a wise woman/man is beyond herself/himself, beyond their family, beyond the human community, embracing the planet, mothering the earth. So it is that my grandchildren will swim in this pond, and others whom the years will bring.
The circle of care grows larger and caregiving spills over for other waters… The water connects us all. … the pond has shown me that being a good mother/father doesn’t end with creating a home where just my children can flourish. A good mother/father grows Into a richly you traffic old woman, knowing that her work doesn’t end until she creates a home where all of lives beings can flourish. There are grandchildren to nurture and frog children, nestlings, goslings, ceilings, and spores, and I still want to be a good mother.” -Robin Wall Kimmerer
“Living life with unwavering faith,
as the lotus does,
ensures the most beautiful revivals.”-Buddhist Proverb
Shams of Tabriz’s 40 Rules of Love
Rule 19
Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That is the hardest part and that is what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Don’t go with the flow. Be the flow.
For Josephine, our lotus, the heart of our clan, God’s messenger sent to teach us how to “dance in the storm”
Infinite love and miracles, mighty one.
Auntie Sarah loves you.
I believe.
