Thank You: Mother Earth day

Rynard Drozda 2009

18x36 inches

upcycled materials

This piece is inspired by last year's mystical and fleeting encounters with Red Fox.

I like this little poem from Jamie Sams Medicine Cards to go with todays Earth Day theme:

Fox...where are you? Under the ferns? Becoming the forest, So I can learn?
Are you watching, invisible to me? Trying to teach me, to become a tree?

                                                                                         My Favorite Tree

In honor of Mother Earth Day I thought to share with you a great program for artists to take part in at no cost and with wonderful inspiration provided  as a result. The National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat program. It can be accessed to register land at home, school, campus or business.

National Wildlife Federation certificate of participation

Once you download the National Wildlife Backyard Habitat application form and fill it out it's as easy as that. If accepted the land recieves a number designating its place in the national registry. The certificate pictured above is what you receive. For a small fee...you can also have a lovely metal sign to display in your yard. We installed ours on the post in the front yard and added the bird sculpture, nice touch don'tcha think? It's always quite wonderful to see how many people walking or riding their bikes past the house stop to read the sign.

 Wren House/Studio

We're fortunate to caretake an acre of forested land along the edge of a beautiful lake with eighbors who also appreciate and encourage conditions for good stewardship of the land.

We've had Red Fox living near us for many years. Catching a glimpse of their etheric beauty moving through in the low light of dusk or dawn is always a thrill. However this spring the gang has arrived and we are literally sharing the day with them as you can see from the pictures I took this morning.

 

Two of Four Drozda April 21, 2010

Wildlife Crossing Drozda April 21, 2010

Temporary Den Drozda April 21, 2010 

Mom Drozda April 21, 2010

 
Perhaps you will take a look around your homestead to see if you have habitat, food, and water available to support songbirds or larger critters. That can mean a small yard with feeders and a birdbath or something more.

Everyone needs a safe place of refuge and there is so much that we can each do, in our own unique artistic way, to help all sentient beings.

Happy Mother Earth Day all over the world.

~Sing the Day

Happy Celebration of the Earth and her art...

This is the kind of wonderful surprise that I receive as I walk out into my yard.

Many years ago I visited the glorious Bird's Acre Sanctuary and began to dream the dream of one day living in such a magical environment. Today and every day I give deep and gracious thanks to all the forces and the love that allow me to live at the wonderful wren house a bird's acre of its own making.

I am entranced. Mesmerized by the endless beauty that surrounds. Whereas the turtles on the log of two posts ago will spot my movement and dive under water in a flash...this Great Blue Heron fellow allowed me to practically walk right up to him and never actually flew off since I gave him space.

Gratitude to Mother Earth

Prayer for the Great Family

Gratitude to Mother Earth,

sailing through night and day—

and to her soil:

rich, rare and sweet

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Plants,

the sun-facing,

light-changing

leaf and fine root-hairs;

standing still through wind and rain;

their dance is in the flowering spiral grain

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Air,

bearing the soaring Swift and silent Owl at dawn.

Breath of our song clear spirit breeze

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Wild Beings,

our brothers, teaching secrets, freedoms, and ways;

who share with us their milk;

self-complete, brave and aware

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Water:

clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;

holding or releasing; streaming through all our bodies salty seas

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Sun:

blinding pulsing light through trunks of trees,

through mists, warming caves where bears and snakes sleep

— he who wakes us—

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Great Sky

who holds billions of stars

— and goes yet beyond that—

beyond all powers, and thoughts and yet is within us—

Grandfather Space.

The Mind is his Wife.

so be it.

after a Mohawk prayer
Gary Snyder, Turtle IslandNew Directions, New York, 1974, pp. 24-25

SWAN Day

It may not translate very well here but we had a marvelous afternoon yesterday taking part in the international festival: Supporting Women Artists Now (SWAN)...we held our event at Selden Gallery in downtown Norfolk, Virginia where my work is currently on exhibit. We gathered to welcome spring and to embrace the new beginning for our individual and collective creative voices as we all enter the East Gate of the wheel, signaled by the Spring Equinox and the start of the Aries cycle.

First we explored the gifts and the challenges that the earth calendar wheel offers then we laid the foundation for the building of the wheel... you can see bits of its intial stages here on the floor...later, after this pattern was set, we each ceremonially placed 'stones' for the 36 position around the wheel...and culminated with a 'Spiraling into the Center' dance (with song) that created the finale for our performance art afternoon.

Funny thing...I use stones for the wheel but this day the lugging would've destroyed the fun so I pondered. Stones...? Stones...? And what came is russett potatoes! So I ran out and purchased a good supply, augmented with a few yams, and we laid our wheel using potaotes...it was pretty much a blast....and a fine way to honor the earth and the Earth Mother for her bounty.

Perhaps at our next event which is April 13 'Moon Day at the Wren' we'll pop those potaotes into our fire and when baked we can 'consume the energy of the wheel'. yum.