Lately I have come to regard Earth Day as my Easter.
I’ve long thought of the trees as god(s); I’ve worshipped at their roots, found support in their branches, rejoiced in their gifts of fruit and oxygen and shade.
( When I was a child I climbed up pine boughs with my journal to a congregation (church?) of one; the closest thing to heaven I knew: the treetops. )
And now, like the buds and blossoms before me, I am born again in the sun of spring; I let it call me away from the cozy den where I’ve passed the winter.
In April, I strive to be extra-holy, resisting the temptation to pillage and consume all that is made available to me, be it baked miracles or fermented vegetation pressed into sweet juices or generous conversation or even secondhand treasures I flatter myself I might save.
I redefine sacrifice by what Mother Earth has already given up for me. I remember the lambs I stopped eating in the name of our shared name — may another Rachel do the same?
I stop to observe the bravery of the rain-soaked worms, marvel at the bright yolk-flow from my morning egg, and kiss back the flirtatious wind as she dances with my hair. I think about how one of these wonders holds no more power than the other, holds no less worth than me.
In water I’m inclined to consider my imperfections. I imagine rinsing them away in abating ripples. In spite of this, the waves buoy me; a floating forgiveness.
To sin and scripture I have not subscribed, and yet I find salvation in all these earthly things.
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