My Prayerful Life: Earth
When I think of the word Earth, my sense of smell is instantly activated. I recall with joy the scent of the mischievous dusty earth under the scorching Aussie sun, and the scent of the cool ancient black soil in my back garden in Japan, in the depth of which I often found cicada grubs. Thinking of my childhood, I can almost feel the rain falling on a hydrangea-lined street during the monsoon season; the fragrant warm moist air rising up from the ground and filling my lungs. Then my mind is transported into space to behold Mother Earth, the beloved being who lovingly cradles me in her bosom.
The word Earth is an anagram of the word Heart.
Collins English Dictionary defines an anagram as ‘a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once.’ The said dictionary suggests that “anagrams can be traced back to the time of the Ancient Greeks, and were then known as ‘Themuru’ or changing, which was to find the hidden and mystical meaning in names.”
I remember in his novel The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown references anagrams:
‘The mystical teachings of the Kabbala drew heavily on anagrams — rearranging the letters of Hebrew words to derive new meanings.’
‘French kings throughout the Renaissance were so convinced that anagrams held magic power that they appointed royal anagrammatists to help them make better decisions by analyzing words in important documents.’
“The Romans actually referred to the study of anagrams as ars magna — ‘the great art.’”
I have a keen interest in this great art. Sometimes I am awe-stuck by what the words reveal, apparently unrelated to what they were originally intended to describe.
The beauty of the Earth is in the beat of her heart if you have the ear(s) to hear it.
The above sentence includes lexigrams as well as the anagram. The esoteric use of lexigrams is the same as anagrams. For lexigrams to work, not all the original letters have to be used, although there are other rules to observe especially where there are more than one word. The word beat is a lexigram of the word beauty, and ear is a lexigram of hear (makes total sense).
Interestingly, the word eat is hiding within the word beat. This reminds me of the famous quote by Hippocrates, ‘Food be thy medicine.’ Can beat be our medicine then? The answer is plain to see when I replace the word beat with the word vibration or frequency. Solfeggio is one example of vibrational medicine, as well as the not-so-obvious Homeopathy and Reiki. Albert Einstein put it simply, ‘Everything in life is vibration.’ Then anything and everything can be medicinal at the right frequency, including food.
The words beat and eat both derive from the word beauty. This, for me, is the crux of the matter. Beauty, in its original essence, heals. Of course it does; beauty is synonymous with harmony, which is synonymous with equilibrium, which is synonymous with homeostasis. When I can tune into the essence of beauty, I may invite my physical body to return to homeostasis.
The French word for water, eau, is also hidden in the word beauty. This is absolutely fitting when speaking of Mother Earth, who is cloaked in brilliant oceans that reflect the sky, the sun, the moon, and the stars. (Allow me to point out that the word wet is hidden within the word water.) To me, Mother Earth is beauty itself; her overall appearance as well as all the intricate workings of her nature.
Mother Earth gives us food and water to heal and nurture us, and she beats the tune to calibrate us. That is a solid foundation for a good life. The important question here is, ‘what do we do in return for Mother Earth?’
Growing up in a Buddhist-coloured household, I was accustomed to the concept of Indra’s Net that has its origin in Hinduism. In modern terms, Indra’s Net translates to Quantum Field or Unified Field in its perfect state. In other words, we are all connected.
Let me quote Rajiv Malhotra, an Indian-American researcher and writer on Dharma and India amongst many other topics:
‘Indra’s Net symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependencies among all its members, wherein every member is both a manifestation of the whole and inseparable from the whole.’
‘The net is said to be infinite, and to spread in all directions with no beginning or end. At each node of the net is a jewel, so arranged that every jewel reflects all the other jewels. No jewel exists by itself independently of the rest. Everything is related to everything else; nothing is isolated.’
‘Each jewel of Indra’s Net includes the reflections of all the other jewels; the significance of this symbolism is that each entity in the universe contains within itself the entire universe.’
‘Every jewel in Indra’s Net is a microcosm of the whole net; every component is the cause of the whole and also the effect of the whole. Nothing exists outside the net.’
What this concept describes is the fractal holographic nature of our universe. Our beauty that Mother Earth reflects back to us heals us, and as we heal Mother Earth heals. What an empowering thought! Together we are like an infinity mirror, which of course can be a double-edged sword.
I have meditated outside every single dry day since the start of the UK-wide ‘lockdown,’ and gradually I have started to notice the effect the creatures and elements have on me. It is calming, centring, and joy-inducing. I would indeed call this recalibration.
Resident animals such as mice and rabbits, as well as birds, who have their burrows and nests within the bounds of my home have become used to me over the last three months. They peck the ground near me and sweep around me, just as long as I sit very still outwardly and inwardly. Remarkably, one young rabbit even had a nap in front of me.
Whilst they give me the sense of tranquility, they must be getting something out of human presence too. When I ponder that, Saint Francis of Assisi comes to mind. He is often depicted with wild animals around him. My understanding is that his open heart and its emanation of love caused the animals to want to be near him. Whether it is historically correct or not, I can resonate with that. It’s like people flocking to the sunny beaches of England right after the relaxation of the lockdown, consciously or unconsciously wanting to be healed by the awesome power of Mother Nature.
Back in April I was already sporting a suntan from being in my garden so much. I thought to myself, ‘wow, I haven’t been this tanned since school.’ With that thought, I had a stark realisation that I had been quite disconnected from nature, dare I say, for well over twenty years.
I have an inkling that the wind blows against my ears or nearby trees to create custom vibrations for me. Same with the bees, they’d linger for as long as I need to complete my recalibration process. Honeysuckles have tapped me on my head, swayed by the breeze, just so that I could catch their sweet smell to uplift me when I had a fever. You never know, when a little beetle nipped my toe, he might have given me a reflexology treatment. I wouldn’t be surprised, Mother Nature seems to know just exactly what she is doing.
I feel OK again whenever I plug back into nature. All I need to do is to go outside and be still for a while. In theory, the entire universe should becomes OK too. How very simple and easy it is to ‘polish my jewel and shine my light,’ as Buddha might put it. No more time wasting and wallowing in regrets of how I had inadvertently sabotaged Mother Earth and consequently the entire universe!
Irregardless of the theory, I believe my inspired actions to care for nature are born out of my being still. To me, the world is unarguably beautiful and infinitely worth upholding. I am just so grateful to be alive here now on Planet Earth.
‘Up at dawn, the dewy freshness of the hour, the morning rapture of the birds, the daily miracle of sunrise, set her heart in tune, and gave her Nature’s most healing balm.’
- Louisa May Alcott