I was walking back to my jeep down through a canyon near our home and praying softly in rhythm with the walking in a kind of mantra that I had made up. On the short drive up to the trailhead I had been struck by the winter beauty of the willows growing along the banks of the river. They were a purple-red color and bending slightly in the wind:
“Great Mother of us all
I supplicate myself before you
As the slender willows supplicate themselves
Before the winds along the river”
Repeating this over and over as I walked, not really taking it too seriously, just trying to focus my mind as I walked. But as I repeated it, I began to go deeper into the mantra, began to feel as though I were really giving myself to it more and more completely until I began to feel my body loosening, my will softening with the rhythm of walking, feeling myself opening and flowing, my body bending like the willows that I could still see in my minds eye:
“Great Mother of us all
I supplicate myself before you
As the slender willows supplicate themselves
Before the winds along the river”
And I began to feel a kind of oceanic peace settle over me - a very unusual feeling for me so quite noticeable - as I walked through the Ponderosa forest. Then our Gaian Mother whispered in Her female voice at once loving and authoritative, “you are not alone”
I smiled feeling gratitude and devotion wash over me as naturally as breathing. This was the only time that I had heard the voice of Gaia and Her words were reassuring beyond articulation. On the ride back from the canyon I crested an 8,000 ft pass and looked down upon the Sacramento mountains and the beauty of the scene expanded in my chest as felt bodily sensation of warmth. As it spread I felt a pure euphoria and thought, so this is what beauty “feels” like? How could I have never felt this before?
I give Her only my devotion and She gives me everything.