And in this world of upheaval, I ponder the vibration within the earth as the sap returns to the trunks, branches, limbs, and budded fingers. I gaze upon the roots and imagine the millions of roots beneath the visible soil humming with life and connection. We are all rooted. May, in our awareness of that rooting, may we find our grounding.

School Prayer
by
Diane Ackerman
 In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

Namaste