It’s difficult not to keep returning to what the Native American people say, so wisely: ‘What you do to the Earth, you do to yourself. What you do to yourself you do to the Earth’. This comes from the fact that we are part of her, our bodies are our own little earths, made of the same substance, and in evolution, as she is. This means that our sufferings reflect hers and it also means that what we do to help our own health and our own evolution is helping to heal her. This thought brings such a sense of meaning to what happens to us and a profound sense of service to the greater whole, in whatever we choose to do to heal.
The more we become conscious of what is going on at a deeper level, be it when we walk on the Earth or when love touches us, the more we open to the bigger picture, the more we can feel ourselves interwoven with the journey we and the Earth are making together, in these incredibly challenging and changing times. The thought that comes is so simple, yet profound: when we attend to the call to look after ourselves, to seek soul healing and the healing of our earthly vehicle, if we listen deeply, the Earth will respond with gratitude, sending signs in her own language, a lark rising in full song from just under our feet, a herd of deer leaping across fields and hedges, in full view. Spring brings the renewal of life and hope. May it bring a renewal of commitment to our common journey with the Earth.
Jehanne
The Way the Heart Warms
The way the heart warms when it opens to love
Is the way the Earth warms in the spring,
Never warm for only one person alone,
It spreads warmth over everything.
The way the heart sings when it opens to love
Is the way the lark sings in the air,
Letting its blessings water the Earth,
Showering down everywhere.
The way the heart hurts when it opens to love
Is a mixture of pain and of joy,
As this small chambered space in the cave of the breast
Grows wide as the Earth and the Sky.
The heart knows no limits when love is alight.
There’s no prison it cannot break through.
When the heart is in love the spirit is free
For the tasks it has chosen to do.
The way the heart warms when it opens to love
Is the way the Earth warms in the spring,
Never warm for only one person alone,
It spreads warmth over everything.
© Jehanne Mehta, April 2010
She Knows About Love
Oh, she knows about loving
nothing is lost on her
she watches you out of the faces
of flowers
she knows intimately
the set of your shoulder
the tilt of your head
as you walk, soul naked, bare footed
under the looping flight
of swallows
Her body is a sacred music
humming aloud
in the hollows where she hides her treasures,
orchids, bugle, cowslips,
milkwort,
exploding into lark tones of
unimaginable sweetness
when you touch her
with your heart
Be aware
the grass you tread is conscious
responds to your intent
your inmost thoughts
she knows you belong together
right into the open future
out beyond the oily vacancy that haunts the world
This is her endless hope, and so
she holds you as she longs to be held
nothing is lost on her
She knows about love
© Jehanne Mehta, April 2011
The teachings of your feet
Walking is a continual letting go:
As your back foot leaves the earth
You release an earth-time-print …
What you were when you occupied
That space, when your particular weight
Was falling there through you;
And jumbled in were all the familiar
Impediments to unfolding,
Pebbles in the flow,
So well rounded,
Rumbled to and fro in daily discourse,
You were oblivious.
But what a chance if we were mindful.
Follow the teachings of your feet:
Every step a whole world could drop away forever
And pilgrimage become a long and beautiful unwinding,
(Lazarus out of his grave clothes)
Leaving you radiant and heart new,
Yourself the goal,
The child with open face,
At last, the child with open face and feet of light,
Firm to the rock.
© Jehanne Mehta
To be in the world
If you know that the Universe
always sees you as beautiful
and treats you as such,
why would you doubt
your right to be in the world
as yourself, dispensing your beauty
as naturally as a flower does?
Forget to open to the Universe
and every step is uphill,
every thought a potential thorn
to puncture your security.
So we make the world into
a place of sharp edges,
where everything is measured by
the length of its sting.
© Jehanne Mehta, May 2009
Click to see the selection of Jehanne’s books and CDs available to buy at Cygnus
Jehanne writes songs for the Earth, the Soul and the Spirit, songs of love and transformation, songs of hope, songs for now and for the future. She heralds a new troubadour tradition, with a Celtic flavour as well as influences from other European traditions and languages, especially French.
Her poetry addresses similar themes, and is deeply rooted in a love for and intimate knowledge of the South Cotswold landscape around Stroud.
Jehanne’s writing is unique in the way it both traces her own inner journey and engages with the swift and immense changes she perceives taking place in the wider world at this extraordinary time. It is a call to all of us from within – to awaken the heart, connect with the land and bring the light of a deeper awareness to all our choices.
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