Earth Etude for Elul 2: A Plan

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?

Come my friends, let us dig in the dark earth, thank this life giver and get back to the work of her protection.

Judith Black’s traditional and original stories rock laughing audiences to their feet. Winner of the Oracle: Circle of Excellence, storytelling’s most coveted award, Judith has been featured at The Montreal Comedy Festival, The National Storytelling Festival, The Smithsonian Institution, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the National Art Museum in Cape Town, and NPR. She’s performed at over 12 CAJE conferences, is on the faculty of the Maggid Institute of Reclaiming Judaism, and is active in 350.org, Sustainable Marblehead, the Jewish Climate Action Network, and just had air source heat pumps put in her home. For more information about Judith’s work: www.storiesalive.com and www.tellingstoriestochildren.com.

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