Co-creating with Mother God

The day after the last post, I peeked out the window and saw a western blue bird fluttering around the trampoline. When I went to the door, it flew away. I heard activity high up in the Catalpa tree. I think this was Mama Bird coming down to thank us for saving one of her babies. Maybe I’m just a dreamer, but I looked up at the black container nailed to the tree and felt all was well.

I have been excited about a poem I wrote called “The Secret Odors of God.” It’s about the mucky smells of God’s work, all She has birthed.

It occurred to me in the past day that, like Julia Cameron says, I am a co-creator with God. I’m excited about my poem because Mother God and I wrote it together. It’s the same reason I am loving the work of writing this blog, trying out this Mother God experiment. New growth is taking place in me; Mother God is rototilling, composting, planting and enjoying what is coming up.

When Marshall was little I wasn’t writing, except to journal. I used to exercise every day though, to this one DVD by Amy Dixon. During her cardio workout, she’d say, “Find your breath, and find your way home.” I used to cry every single time I heard it. I hadn’t found either breath, or home. But now that I am writing daily, I am breathing and I am home.

At the same time that I am loving what I am doing in my head, I daily admire what God has created, Her work on earth. We have a garden this year, I mean a real one, not a sorry, wish-I’d-been-watered-more version. My 25-year-old step-son and his wife have come most weekends this spring to learn about organic gardening by doing it.

We have, for the 9^th year, taken over the curbside with rows of peas, bush beans, broccoli, cabbage, and corn, along with winter squash and pumpkins. In the yard, we’ve got beds of Walla Walla onions, ten varieties of tomatoes, and ever-bearing strawberries.

Sam is learning to spot the ripe ones and gobbles them up after plucking off the leaves. He smells like strawberries now as he sleeps in my arms.

The sweet peas are in at the fence, and we have a square sunflower garden still hiding the seeds but promising 12 foot flowers and a fun play space. Seeds wait, everywhere—hollyhocks, nasturtiums, bluebells.

The soil and the still air start speaking at around 6 in the evening. King David, or whoever wrote that psalm, may have felt like I do when he wrote, “the heavens are telling the glory of God; the firmament proclaims (her) handiwork” (Psalm 19:1,2). I can’t put into words what they say. But, I listen, I wait, I look: something important is happening in the stillness and I can absorb it if not understand it.

Tonight Joel will have grappled with the sweaty, smelly part of co-creation with the big rototiller, on the other curbside. I will take wildflower seeds and fescue grass seeds and scatter them, then sprinkle them with water. I will be aware of Mother God, and maybe She will say, “Let’s do this again soon.”