Listen Here - Podcast style
Let the earth look at me, and bless me, for now I am fecund and sacred, like the palms and the furrows.
Gabriela Mistral
After a warm rain the awakening spring forest is a fertile revelation to all of our senses. Softness beckons underfoot. The melodic sounds of birdsong surf the tenderness of a gentle welcoming breeze.
A thick swollen lushness of rich green sparkles with droplets of water that cling to leaves wrapping eyes and soul in a soothing calmness. The moist moss glows calling out like a siren conjuring to be explored on knees, stroked and caressed as a prayer by eager loving hands. The wet wood shows off all of her curves and crevices as she slowly dances with the shimmering light. Velvet red berries firmly invite to be slowly savoured and cherished in a wet taste of possibility that kisses the tip of tongue. A film of glistening dew drips with the flowing bittersweet dampness of sacred awe baptizing lips and staining soul.
The bouquet of scents ooze and leak from everywhere. Perfume of the gods. This earthy aroma is known as Petrichor. The word derives from the ancient Greek petra, meaning rock and ichor, the ethereal fluid that is the blood of the gods.
This unique scent comes from the water of the rain as it makes love with compounds like ozone, geosmin, and plant oils. Bacteria in the soil secrete geosmin, which raindrops release from the soil into the air and can be detected by the human nose at less than five parts per trillion! Geosmin dances with ozone and the oils found in the verdant flesh of plants to entice us into the wet forest. I bury my heart into her mystery and lose myself in her adventure.
Fecund
She invites me in
to lose myself
in her softness
After the rain
To dine on wild berries
that taste of bitter
velvet wine
and stain
of glowing moss
Shimmering
in a coat of dew
A sweetness of honey
Caressing the thick
Damp
Odour
of primal fermentation
Wrapped
in moist ichor
Dripping
as a beckoning
incitation
A surging essence
singing in my bones
The fragrance
of wet wood
entices me deeper
The wind moans
She calls my name
I disappear
Forgetting who I was
and what I came for
© Jamie Millard
All successful life is Adaptable, Opportunistic, Tenacious, Interconnected, and Fecund. Understand this. Use it. Shape God.
Octavia E. Butler
Poetry is an invitation to live into the questions. The questions that will not go away. The questions that deal with who we are becoming. Check out Cuoreosity my first book with a new updated interactive second edition. Enjoy the journey with me as we use the presence of poetry as a reflective ritual for spiritual growth.
I believe that poetry is meant to be read out loud. Reading and listening to a poem is meditative and the words create an intimate encounter with the heartfulness of presence. Poetry is a wonderful addition to a spiritual practice.
A podcast style audio is shared under the main titles above.
Thanks for Being Here!
Lots of love,
Jamie
Oh ~ Petrichor and Geosmin ~ the scent of the forest after spring rain is wafting through the room as I am reading these lines. Delicious writing! 💚 🙏
The smell of a forest after a rain always enlivens me. How wonderful Nature is to us.