love Archives - Page 16 of 21 -

Loving the Earth

By Simone Lipscomb | June 25, 2014

Loving the Earth: Creating a Conscious Relationship with Our Planet

A slight breezed carried my SUP board downriver as I stopped paddling to watch a pair of bald eagles drag their talons along the surface of the water. Nearby great egrets crowned cypress trees, their white plumage dazzling against the background of blue sky. A mullet splashed in the mud-tinted water of the Magnolia River and brought my attention back from sky to earth. As my gaze turned downward a brown pelican folded her wings, as if in prayer, and dropped from the sky close to my board. All around life expressed in a beautiful ballet of balance with this lone patron admiring the dance. Bliss seemed shared by all but perhaps it might be better named communion.

One never knows what will be the call that brings us to our heart’s work. While I loved nature since childhood, I never felt the commitment…the calling…to dedicate my life’s work to it until the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. It felt as if everything in life stopped so I could focus entirely on the Gulf Coast and the amazing life in our coastal ecosystems. During the first days of oil washing ashore I remember thinking the end of the world had arrived. How could this happen?

It’s easier to believe everything is okay than to pay attention to what’s really happening. I shared my book containing oil spill images with a cousin the other day that lives in Pensacola and she was shocked to see the reality I documented. There are people who live in Gulf Shores who still believe it wasn’t bad…that there wasn’t oil mixed with dispersant and it wasn’t fizzing in tidal pools of tiny fish gasping to their last breath. I know because I saw it first hand and stood on the beach weeping for every life I saw pass.

The most difficult thing I have ever experienced was witnessing the spill and its effects on innocent life which included small children playing in oily waters…so polluted that the benzene burned my eyes and throat. Video and photographs in my library document everything I saw but they can never share the true experience of grief beyond anything I’ve known.

A friend and mentor reminded me, during the first year of the spill, that there was a reason I was being called to witness the horror even though I might not understand why. Over four years have passed and I am more convinced that the only way to heal our broken planet is to heal our relationship with It and to heal our relationship with each other. That means healing our own lives.

The only solution I have found is to practice love…love as compassion…love as respect…love in the purest form of opening to surrender, to service.

Love for the planet requires opening the self. When we risk the deep opening of human heart to planetary heart we know the elation of unspeakable joy, of the heart’s expanding in answer to beauty. We also know the experience of grief and heartbreak when places, wildlife and humans we love are destroyed or profoundly injured.

Celebrating the beauty of the Magnolia River and other places of natural beauty relieves the grief that comes from being aware of the trials our planet is experiencing. There is resilience in nature and my hope is we will practice better stewardship before a non-reversible tipping point is reached.

As I remain engaged with nature’s rhythms through simple, daily observation and intention, I am drawn more deeply into partnership with the Earth. If we collectively open our hearts to loving this sacred planet, we can create a bond with each other that will transform darkness and create positive, lasting change.

Inner Music

By Simone Lipscomb | May 25, 2014

As I pulled out onto the dark highway, the delicate crescent moon hung directly over Venus. It appeared as if a gossamer thread connected the planet of love to the sliver of light. And then, within moments, wispy clouds obscured the planet and the moon appeared lonely in the immense pre-dawn sky.

I had awakened at 12.22am and spent hours wide awake with no apparent reason. Nothing was ticking through my mind but finally I surrendered and got up before the 4.30am alarm sounded. I made coffee and waited until nearly 5am to depart for my Sunday morning sea turtle patrol…my most favorite time of the week.

The white sand appeared blue as the first hint of light made its first tender caresses of the day. This is the time when softness and gentleness prevail. When we are gently invited to engage in life…to be present and awake.

As the sun claimed the day, light reflected in pastels that first appeared as a pale mist of color. This quickly changed as the intensity grew until the sand and tidal pools and waves changed to metallic pastels. Every sense became alive with color.

As I walked, three guitar fish got a gentle push back into the Gulf after getting trapped in tidal pools. Their eyes blinked at me as I wished them well and watched the tidal pool current take them back home, back into the Gulf. Go, go, go! Swim my friends!

If only I could express through words the feelings of sheer joy and exhilaration experienced. While seemingly shared only with a great blue heron, a few gulls and two or three sanderlings, and the guitar fish, it truly felt as if there was no separation of myself from the Universe. As if everything within me was pulsing in harmony with life. The sweetest sense of oneness continued for the nearly three hours spent on the shore.

Several days ago I had a dream and in the dream told a friend that I had always been able to hear music in my head and had come to accept it as normal for me rather than think I was crazy. This morning, this amazing saltwater morning, I heard music as my toes caressed the soft, cool sand. As I waded in shallow tidal pools it continued and as beautiful shells presented themselves to me, I heard it. And even now, as I sit reviewing images and reliving emotions, I hear the inner music, that vibrant chord activated when soul and nature interact to create inner harmony.

Venus is the planet of love, beauty, prosperity and harmony. It teaches us how to love and appreciate life and how to spread happiness and tenderness. It was coming into alignment with the Moon early this morning and had I slept later, I would have missed the magnificent sight of Venus hanging on a silver cord from the crescent moon…a sight that will continue to inspire me to listen to the music created when I allow the strings of my soul to be touched by Light, by Life.

Place of Oneness

By Simone Lipscomb | May 19, 2014

Every time I enter the Ocean I feel Her liquid fingers tapping my heart, bringing me into the present moment…that wondrous place of existence where there is Oneness of all life. Is it any wonder that I feel more at home underneath the surface that I do on dry land.

Where is the place that brings you to stillness? To Oneness? Where are you the most present?

In the present moment we find everything for which we search. We find there is no need to search. It’s already here, within us.

We Are Instruments

By Simone Lipscomb | May 5, 2014

The guitar and musician were within a few feet of me. His hands gently and purposefully changing frets and playing notes captured my attention. I found myself in a kind of trance watching and listening. Hearing not only the music, I heard my inner voice clearly say: We are instruments. Just like the guitar can sit and be silent or allow the touch of Spirit to move through and create beautiful gifts for the world.

I allowed this mantra to flow throughout my being like a trickle of water from head to toe. I felt my body become hollow and filled with the essence of Spirit. It didn’t last that long because Will began singing lyrics again and so my attention was drawn back to his voice. And yet the idea expanded as I saw his hands as instruments, his voice and realized that each of us have the capacity to be instruments of Love…Life…the Creative Force.

*Kerry Parks, glass artist creating one of her beautiful pieces of art*

We have freedom of choice. We can resist the Creative Impulsive that desires to fill us and flow through us or we can be open and receptive instruments.

Armondo owns a cave diving site in Akumal, Mexico and carves beautiful statues to honor the Earth. His energy is spent in this endeavor. — *Armondo owns a cave diving site in Akumal, Mexico and carves beautiful statues to honor the Earth.*

So what’s the secret to doing this? Perhaps its different for everyone but there are common threads of courage, determination, surrender, a playful spirit.

*Anthony Crawford of Sugarcane Jane and Willie Sugarcapps*

Have you ever watched someone in the process of creating? What do you notice? In others I am aware of them going into a sort of meditative state or zone where they allow their gifts to express freely without filtering or resisting. For my own creative endeavors its a complete surrender to being present in the moment and allowing inspiration to move me without judging or criticizing. The key is being in the flow.

There are endless ways we can be instruments of the Creative Flow (or whatever label you wish to call it). It can be as simple as interacting with others every day with an open heart. Or allowing Love to love through us to animals, friends, the Earth. There are no bounds or limits to Love flowing through us except those we impose.

*Savana Lee Crawford of Sugarcane Jane and Willie Sugarcapps*

Let it come through your voice….

Your hands…..

Your words….

Excerpt about a dive from, Sharks On My Fin Tips: “Everywhere I looked life was evident… As I moved, I absentmindedly started to hum a tune. From what depths did the song come? It seemed to come from my heart and was quite pleasant so I allowed it to find expression by humming through my scuba regulator. It was not easy to emit any sound because the mouthpiece occupied the majority of space in my mouth, but I made the effort to let the music come forth.

The more I droned, the stronger the emotion became until I felt a constriction in my throat. The sensation was so strong I had to stop humming and take a deep breath. When I halted I heard an answering refrain from somewhere outside myself. Without hesitation I knew it to be the song of the Ocean.

With the realization came a wave of joy so powerful that I sobbed into my regulator and tears flooded my mask. The presence I felt earlier in the dive grew larger in my awareness. It became tangible and very real to me. I felt it surround me like a warm blanket.

The consciousness of the Mother Ocean was reaching out to me, tapping my heart with Her liquid fingers. It was Her song I had been singing…I hung motionless in the water column, overcome with the sweetest love I had ever felt.”

*Kit & Steve Schmeiser hosting a Mountain Wild gathering in Asheville, NC*

Allow yourself to be open….a channel…an instrument for Love and see what magnificent wonders are born within you to gift to the world.

Virgin grove of trees in Tennessee...allow your hands to be instruments of Love... — *Virgin grove of trees in Tennessee…allow your hands to be instruments of Love…*

Children…Our Hope

By Simone Lipscomb | March 12, 2014

Tonight I spoke to my local community’s cub scout group. We gathered at the St. Paul’s Episcopal Chapel in Magnolia Springs and I shared a video presentation I produced on endangered species of the Alabama coast…specifically sea turtles and manatees.

The boys and parent/leaders were attentive and asked questions and showed a genuine and engaged interest in the message I brought them. It always makes my heart sing to participate in these programs. But it was the closing of their meeting that deeply touched me.

One of the boys was asked to close with reverence and he offered a prayer. First, he expressed gratitude for the sea turtles and manatees and other animals. Then he spoke of gratitude for our beautiful world. He was thankful for me being able to come and share with them. And finally…well, admittedly I was so deeply touched by his prayerful expression of love and gratitude for nature and our planet and animals that I lost the last bit of what he was saying.

Volunteering doesn’t offer financial rewards but having the opportunity to share video footage, still photographs and personal stories of encounters with sea turtles and manatees with children eager to learn and willing to engage with awe of our planet gives me hope. Honestly there are days when I read the news and see the horrible ways humans treat each other, animals, land, plants, the ocean and other water and I feel despair. But this night, I came away with profound hope and that is pure gold to me.

On days when we experience sadness, grief, despair and even anger over what’s happening to our beloved planet and all life here, I think the best way to balance those feelings is to pass along our love for the planet to those willing to listen…and especially to children, our hope.