by Judith Black
~When despair for my planet came ramming down my door, my heart, my hope, I stood crushed.
When despair entered my
bloodstream and resonated as cancer, I nodded toward death.
When despair began to drive
away friends, family, like a toxic odor, I kept belching it out.
Then Spring woke the earth.
It bloomed in every color imaginable. It smelt like the heaven of the very
good.
It started to grow cabbage
and weeds and insects and flowers. It lives.
If this mother of us all has
the resilience to wake up and give life, who am I to lose hope?
...
by Rabbi Katy Allen
~ By happenstance of geography,
Eden--
gathering the fruits of the land
borne by dint of natural ecosystems,
ever-changing as the seasons progress--
is just a distant prehistoric memory
of Paradise.
From Eden straight into working the land we went--
by the sweat of your brow
you shall till the land.
No pauses with our new-found awareness
to experience
being fully integrated into the ecosystems
outside the gates of Gan Eden.
No longer were we part and parcel of Creation,
now we ...
