Honk…honk..honk……the geese called me to come and witness the beauty of the sunrise. I had spent the night at a vacation rental house set on a small pond near Mount Shasta. I am sitting on the deck, feeling the cool morning dew on my feet and my eyes blinded by the sun rising over the mountains. Shasta is just now coming out from the clouds to greet the day with me. There is a swan gliding silently across the water……yes, add a swan or two to the scene! Someone has thought of everything. The water ripples in the sunlight, dew drops hang from the cattails and reeds like sparkling crystals. A fish jumps and leaves rings of movement on the surface of the water. I hear the birds singing their good morning to the sun as I raise my voice in joy and praise for this day. For this earth, for the heaven that is present here. Truly we are living in heaven on earth. Each day she gifts us with her beauty and light. Her fragrance so full of her creations…the vegetation, the damp soil, the pine trees standing as sentinels along this pond’s shore. There is an ecstasy that flows through my veins as a quiet river. I am drinking of this beauty.

A friend is here, sharing in the ohhs and ahhs. We share our gratitude for this morning’s feast. There is only this moment. Later it will be time to deal with the movement of the day. A friend called yesterday and is heading from her island home off Vancouver to her mom in Iowa. It seems so many are close to passing into a new world. They are choosing to witness the dawning of this new age from the other side. I agreed to drive north to meet her on route for a night of sharing. I see that we have an exchange to do, codes to be given and received. Makes no logical sense yet my heart leads unerringly to the next step.

The sun has risen high enough to find my face and touch me with her warmth. I feel caressed. It is true that we can make love with everything. Our bodies want to celebrate with the trees and water and mists. The lover is everywhere. The lover is everything. How could my beloved not come, he is all around me this morning.

I once spoke to a beloved of mine on the phone as he contemplated ending his life. I said, “If that is your choice, you can take it. Yet, you have not. You have called me. What is it that you are living for?” There was silence that stretched my heart strings taut. Finally he whispered, ” Beauty. I wish to live for beauty, to create beauty in the world.” Yes, beauty is life. Beauty is nourishment. For so many, they have lived on a starvation diet with so little beauty around them. It is time to restore the beauty of our mother and recognize that everyone deserves to live in beauty. When I worked with inner city kids, the schools were so ugly, so barren. As a society we had decided that they did not

deserve beauty. The assumption was that they would only destroy it. Yet, those were the ones who needed it the most. I took them into nature and they drank it up. There was fear, as they had not been exposed to open spaces and so much light. Yet, their hearts responded, as our hearts do, to the gifts of our mother. When she opens her arms, it is hard to resist her embrace. Who would want to?

I am being fed this morning at the grand feast in the hall of kings. I know that I am worthy of this gift and send it streaming from my heart to all others on this planet of ours. I so love this earth and all of her inhabitants.