The day of Hearts and Cupid arrived this year with a wintry flurry of events, some cosmic and some chillingly earth-bound. The Aquarius New Moon / Solar Eclipse occurred the day after Valentine’s Day with Chinese New Year close on its heels welcoming the Year of the Earth Dog. But on 2018’s Day of Love our open hearts were shattered by horrific mayhem in yet another public school…seventeen people, students and faculty, gunned down.  My intention to pen a Valentine for Mother Earth that day felt pointless, futile, even though a small voice gently prompted the timeless mantra that guides me to “be the change you wish to see in the world”.

Days earlier I’d been recalling my last year’s Earth-Valentine blog-post with the photo of the heart-in-the-snow that I’d traced beside the pond. (https://goldenspiraljourney.com/2017/02/14/valentine-for-mother-earth ) My intent was to echo those sentiments this year, a reminder to celebrate and give thanks (often) for our Earth-home and to gracious, patient Gaia. Then the news from Parkland, Florida, rendering me mute these past several days.

But over and over, that persistent voice saying quietly, remember…remember how the power of Love is so much stronger….always so very much stronger….than that of hate. And then in sweet synchronicity a beautiful image surfaced on Facebook, a tsunami of hearts…of love…cascading over and above the Ocean-Deva. “Here,” the voice suggested, “share this.”

So in the spiraling Circle of the year’s Wheel, this message returning. May we take heart from it once again, carrying its Hope and Light through the days and months to come.

(February, 2017)   Some time in the past year a serendipitous connection on the world-wide-web brought this Celtic blessing to my notice when I saw it on the Facebook time-line of Caitlin Matthews, a Celtic scholar who I have long admired. She offered it as a simple ritual for a morning and evening gift to Mother Earth, suggesting if possible to step outside and quietly say it aloud in your dooryard, your garden, your snowy deck, your front stoop. It didn’t matter a bit how urban or rural the setting, only that you acknowledge the sky above and sense your connection to the sweet earth beneath your feet.

Blessed be the precious and preserving Air

by which we are given Life

Blessed be the precious and preserving Fire

by which we are warmed

Blessed be the precious and preserving Waters

by which we are cleansed

Blessed be the precious and preserving Land

by which we are sustained

Blessed be the precious and preserving Spirit within and around us

Blessed be the precious and preserving Ancestors,

now, then, and to come.