Our Injustice Eyes are Opening

A poem, a prayer of the heart, is significant because my eyes are open, which is why I speak. I watched the inhumane news about a black man, George Floyd, treated as less than a human. He was suffering as he was dying on the cold pavement, at the hands of police officers. His cries were unheaded. It was at that moment, as he died, that I realized the injustice to Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, and anyone else that I haven’t mentioned. I knew it was going on, but this was the catalyst of change. We are still living the reality of Colonialism. White America is just living along with no thought of suffering humanity.

It is 2020, have we not come any further? There is no excuse now. I hope others like me, white and privileged to live in security, heard the cries spilled on the street. I hope our eyes are open to Americans being prejudice. 

Perhaps the Global Pandemic came to teach us that we need to awaken and change our behavior towards others that are not like us. No one should be beneath us. I could cry with the agony I feel for that poor man who died at the hands of injustice. I couldn’t say it any better. Here is a poem by Maya Angelou. The Poem was posted by Pastor Melissa O’Brien, at The Peru Church, Wednesday Prayer Service at https://www.theperuchurch.org

Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer

My wish for you

Is that you continue

Continue

To be who and how you are

To astonish a mean world

With your acts of kindness

Continue

To allow humor to lighten the burden

Of your tender heart

Continue

In a society dark with cruelty

To let the people hear the grandeur

Of God in the peals of your laughter

Continue

To let your eloquence

Elevate the people to heights

They had only imagined

Continue

To remind the people that

Each is as good as the other

And that no one is beneath

Nor above you

Continue

To remember your own young years

And look with favor upon the lost

And the least and the lonely

Continue

To put the mantel of your protection

Around the bodies of

The young and defenseless

Continue

To take the hand of the despised

And diseased and walk proudly with them

In the high street

Some might see you and

Be encouraged to do likewise

Continue

To plant a public kiss of concern

On the cheek of the sick

And the aged and infirm

And count that as a

Natural action to be expected

Continue

To let gratitude be the pillow

Upon which you kneel to

Say your nightly prayer.

The video is graphic and disturbing. The reality of George Floyd losing his life is even more disturbing. Learn more at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/minneapolis-police-man-died.html

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You feeling this too?

I like Lara’s writing and deep thoughts. I think the world needed resetting. Only mother nature can stop the madness we were headed to. Now everything is on hold. I find this new space tranquil. I am doing handiwork again after 50 years. I am planting a Victory Garden of native plants and crops such as potatoes. Setting the seed potatoes out tomorrow. I finally have enough time for me at 75 years of age. Be grateful we are slowed down in our tracks. We were going nowhere anyway, even if it felt like we were on Top of the World in a New York Minute. Now we are one with nature and it is sustainable. Be Grateful that this time was chosen so each of us might know silence and meditation.

Ajuga reptans – Bugle

The low growing herb has periwinkle blue to violet colored flowers growing in the shape of a hooded flower with open lip petal that grows on a head. The stem is square. Leaves are opposite and can be mostly oval or lance shaped. This afternoon while facing the small rock wall I placed in front of the wild pollinator garden, I saw her pressed up against the rocks. Did she know I had been looking for her? There the little beauty beamed right in front of the garden set against a large grey stone.

Bugle, an alien, a flower brought from another country.

Eating on the Wild Side

Recently I saw a recipe for pasta with chickpeas, tomato, and spinach. Instead of spinach, I added dandelion leaves. With a dandelion digger and carrying an aluminum chair to the flowering dandelion field, I dug up roots and leaves. The common bumblebee and European honeybee were at play in the field, gathering nectar, from the first flowers of spring.

At home, the flowers were placed in a container to enjoy for a day before they faded. The roots were separated for drying for winter medicinal tea. The leaves were chopped and fried in garlic olive oil that I made a while back. Talk about good.

The Global Pandemic reminds me to return to my roots in herbalism, environmental education, master gardening, and wild foraging. I love returning to my roots. Thank you, Mother Nature, who provides for us.