After the rain, there is a fullness under your feet and a fragrance in the air. You can almost feel the joy coming out of the ground through the roots of the grass, entering the soles of your feet. As you pause on your weekly Friday walk around the lake after dropping off your daughter at school, you make the turn around that bend where you’re standing directly opposite the old weather-worn house that’s casting it’s reflection under the gray skies into the water in the stillness.

The forest glen behind it has turned a marked green from the last time you were here a week ago, leaving the starkness of winter behind it. You can’t help but wonder where all this life emerges from and where does the joy and the bird song come from?

Where does this beauty that is seen in every bloom that holds it own raindrop aloft come from? And then, just like that, a young blackbird makes its way across the water and lands ever so gracefully on top of the tree greening right next to you. The lake, which seemed totally empty just a few minutes ago, fills up with the presence of three mallards floating into view over your right shoulder, as they make their way across the water towards the reflection of the house on the far shore.

Their approach is ever so gentle, as if they’re reluctant to disturb the beauty being cast by the trees blooming next to the house and the forest glen into the water. I silently watch the scene unfold from about a hundred feet away. The mallards actually seem to become almost invisible for a while, as they get really close to the lakeshore and merge in the reflections cast by their surroundings. And as I keep my eye on them, they choose to come to a standstill at the edge of the reflection being cast by a young flowering tree in full bloom.

It is as if they, like me, have paused because they too want to absorb it all, drink of it all in. After their paws by the tree, they set off again, heading back to the portion of the lake from where they had emerged. I notice that the two in the keep switching places with each other, to perhaps give the one in the middle an opportunity to draft. The peacefulness of the journey of the family of three seems to exemplify the unity that they must feel from the environment around them.

A dozen or so minutes have gone by and I’m still standing here wondering at the harmony of it all, and now they seem to take a position facing southwest – as if they’re going to takeoff into the incoming storm clouds. No, not yet. They’re not quite ready because back into the far part of the lake they go, returning from whence they came — slowly disappearing out of view over the right edge of my right shoulder. They are still moving at the same pace, with the same serene grace that they emerged with. I am grateful to them for giving me a reason to pause and experience a piece of Earth’s giving nature.

For the duration that they circled part of the lake and then disappeared, I remained paused and watched them glide. It was due to their peacefulness that I too could absorb the peace, the tranquility and the silence that had accompanied me on my midmorning journey. In standing still and observing nature at play for a little bit, it felt like I was imbibing the energy that Mother Earth is ever so willing to transmit and share so freely with us. As I resumed the walk, I remembered a piece of the lesson I was taught by the total solar eclipse a few weeks ago.

The lesson was that the gift of even the slightest sliver of sunlight after total darkness is enough to illumine our planet and sustain all of life here on Earth. I don’t think I will ever forget how quickly all our surroundings became lit up again when the smallest fraction of the Sun emerged from the Moon’s shadow. In spiritual terms, the message of the eclipse seemed to be a reminder that even a sliver of light is gift enough to remove all the darkness for all the beings here on Earth. And what does the Earth do with all that she receives from the Sun, and the universe at large?

She does not accumulate or hoard what she receives, does she? She simply turns around and gives it all away, doesn’t she? Spring comes, the grass is greened, the flowers are bloomed, the birdsongs are sung, and so much more is given to us by her every single day, whether we are aware of it or not. What will we do with her gifts to us? What will we learn from Earth’s giving nature?

Perhaps we will choose to give forward of Earth’s energy given to us, by becoming givers of joy, hope, goodness, gratitude, simplicity, lightness and more to all? Maybe every day will then become ‘EarthsGiving Day’?!

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat, Sunday April 21 2024 at 9amET / 1pmGMT / 630pm India as we celebrate Earth Day (April 22) and share on “Earth’s Giving Nature” in #Spiritchat. Namaste ~ @AjmaniK

Raindrops are held gently by flowers blooming by the lake shore…