Eleanor Rae

In the Autumn 2006 issue of “Weaving the Connections,” I wrote about the beginnings of the project to restore the severely polluted river named for our pilgrim mother, Anne Marbury Hutchinson. Since that time, the project participants’ exploration of the river as well as further research of documents has enabled us to develop a definitive map of the river whose source is in the swampy area of Scarsdale, New York and whose mouth is at the southern tip of City Island, my current home.

The river flows through two different governmental jurisdictions—Westchester county and the Bronx in New York City. On July 16, 2007, with the assistance of an environmental lawyer who provided the proper legal terminology, we requested information under the Freedom of Information Law on all legal, illegal, and accidental releases into the river during the past five years. Westchester county officials almost immediately sent the requested information, which we then gave to our lawyer. However, repeated requests to New York City only—finally—yielded a verbal response that there were no discharges of any kind into the Hutchinson River in the Bronx. So, our next step will be to travel the river once again by boat and walk its banks to collect further documentation on what we have already seen.

One of our project workers, Elizabeth, has developed a blog, on which she is putting information on the river and inviting your input. You may access it on Hutchinsonriverproject.blogspot.com.

As we continue our work on this much needed restoration of the Hutchinson River, we invite your active participation—both physically and/or financially.

Earth Journal—Mary Southard, CSJ

We are in a circle, listening, being oriented to our day. “Today is a day to invite all the feelings…” The guides begin with a poem:

“It’s 3:23 in the morning and I’m awake because my great

great grandchildren won’t let me sleep my great

great grandchildren ask me in dreams

What did you do while the planet was plundered

What did you do when the earth was unraveling?

 Surely you did something….” (Drew Dellinger’s “Hieroglyphic Stairway” YES, Summer, ’06)

I am deeply moved. These words, this truth, the feelings they have evoked, stay with me as we are sent into the wild. I return to a special place near the river where I’ve come before. I am grieving, standing in a broad, wild valley near the edge of the tectonic plate that pushed up the Grand Tetons millions of years ago. They rise before me now and I feel in my soul the ancient upheaval, the cataclysm, the giving birth to these great magnificent beings. I feel the upheaval, the cataclysm of this moment, the unraveling of our planet Earth.

I am drawn into the great presence of these ancient beings, their rugged strength, majesty, grandeur, and exquisite beauty. Dostoyevsky’s words come to mind: “In the end, beauty will save the world.” How critically we need saving now! Tears come. I whisper, and they hear me: “Forgive us. We know not what we do. Please! Let the scales fall from our eyes. Let our tears flow and wash our souls, and become great rivers of healing for your sacred body. Wake us from the sleep of prisoners in which we languish, dead to the beauty, the power, the love of Holy Earth—and to our own truth, beauty and power.” I am held close to the strong arms of these awesome mountains. I whisper again: “Let me be a voice for Earth.”

After a while I turn to face the river, the Tetons at my back. I feel so small, so inadequate to the task. “Come, sit here a while. I will teach you,” the river says. I find a smooth log on which to sit. I listen. “You are not Source. All you need to do is let the Divine flow through you…let love, healing, beauty, intimacy with Earth…along with your own soul…let it all flow through you…like a river.”

From behind me I feel the mountains’ strength draw close again. I lean my back into them and feel their vigor and courage. And I hear, “You can count on me! I will be your backbone.”

I am silenced, deeply still for a long while, the sun warm, bright, embracing; the river and wind flowing through me, the mountains against my back. I hear their generous promises: “I will teach you…I will be your strength”. These feel directed to my soul’s deepest longings—to participate generously in human evolution, to paint my heart out; to be a voice for Earth, for oneness, for healing. And they address my failures in all of this, my lack of know-how, finesse, and courage.

I want to lie in the Earth. I settle for the log, and lay me down on it, face down, heaving out a long sigh. I’m humming “like a bridge over troubled waters.” It fits and the tears come again. “You could be a bridge” something says. A bridge…a bridge connecting Earth and humans, those awake and those sleeping, the inner and the outer worlds, the wild and the tame…a bridge…the fearful and the strong…all of those are me. “You could be a bridge.” Of course, I could be a bridge!

I’m beginning to feel weary. It is time to head back to camp. The shade of the forest path is welcoming and the trees are singing and groaning and grieving with me. Now I’m near the creek and I see a place where I might be able to drop down the bank and get close to the water. My feet are hot and sore and my spirit is spent. “Come on down. Let me refresh you; let me wash your feet.” I make a clumsy perch among the rocks, remove my boots and socks, and rest my feet in the clear, flowing water. Foot washing is such a powerful symbol. “As I do for you…so you are to do for one another…”I feel such tenderness, compassion, forgiveness. I feel so loved, vitally alive, called yet again and full of purpose.

But this journey isn’t over yet. Now, on the last stretch of my return, I am romanced by a beautiful, rusty-orange butterfly. She flutters right in front of me and lands not two feet away on the little wooden bridge over the marsh. And there she stays…and stays. I sing to her, and tell of her beauty. I inch closer and closer. I dance my shadow over her. I blow on her wings, and she wiggles them back at me. Finally, she lifts off, the last gift of our conversation. She has brought me back to being beauty, play and joy, to becoming, to transformation.

And what will I, what will we, answer when future generations ask: “What were you doing while Earth was unraveling?” This is one of the things I want to be doing!!

Mary Southard is an artist and co-founder of Spiritearth.