soil and saints---an ecological liturgy

This past Sunday, December 4, 2011 a group of us met at one of the 28 known contaminated sites in the neighborhood, in a brownfield to bless the land during ADVENT, the expectation, the beginning, the time of preparing for a new birth, the life that comes out of compassion.

Consider yourself invited:

Greetings from Camden,

I wanted to invite you to help create a little ceremony here in Camden that is both for the symbolic and literal healing of the land, and also to honor the sacrament of breastfeeding (amazing).

I was talking with an environmental engineer friend of mine this past year, and we discussed the ways in which brownfields (contaminated land) can be bioremediated, or cleaned up using natural materials.

He thought for a moment and then said that both vegetable oil and milk help to stabilize the volatile organic compounds. Many of you are currently lactating or have recently had this type of intimacy of nurturing with your child, or work closely with mothers in this process. I have been discussing the idea with Nikki Kelley Kleinburg of coming together on a brownfield (a contaminated site) in Camden to either breastfeed a child on the edge of the land or to allow some of the milk to fall onto the land. Perhaps this is something that you would like to participate in with us on Dec. 4th.

Other ideas include, bringing your goat, saving up milk from your morning coffee, or breaking into the cafeteria and saving the milk that is expired to pour onto the land.

If you are interested in helping to shape this ceremonial time or would like to come please free to respond.

Sunday Dec. 4th. (also my grandmother's birthday) 1:30 pm. 1554 S. 4th Street. Camden

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The day was beautiful, warm and sunny, yet Advent cozy. There were 8 adults and a dozen young children who came to pour their milk onto the land. Nikki, holy mother, walked incense to the 4 corners of Land blessing the four directions, bringing the hawk from the sky and wild dog from the land.

Baby Vada blessed the land with her burp-up milk, the milk from holy mother Nikki fed the wild dog. The mothers brought milk from their own bodies in bottles, fed their sons and daughters on the land, spilling their nurture on the soil. We also blessed their milk with holy water, and two garbage bags of milk a lil expired from a cafeteria.

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First Reading. The Goodness of the Earth

Second Reading Earth Blessing

Third Reading Holy Mother

Fourth Reading Lament of the destruction of the earth as body

Fifth Reading Earth Liberation

SIXTH READING Reading of expectation of Mary

SEVENTH READING BLESSING The MILK and all Mothers

Benediction

During this time of Mary’s great expectation, we too are expecting, delivering with labor pains this New Earth.

This blessed milk is a symbolic and literal healing of this earth on which we now stand, the milk stabilizes volatile organic compounds, and reminds us of our deepest connection to healing and the goodness of all Creation.

LAND YOU ARE GOOD. WE bless you in the name of El Shaddhai, Divine with many nurturing breasts

Welcome

LEADER: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

ALL: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

So then, there is the sweet communion.... the sweet joy and

refreshment in the Lord our righteousness, who causeth righteousness

to drop down from heaven, and truth to spring up out of the earth. And

so our Father is felt blessing us, blessing our land, blessing our

habitations, delighting in us and over us to do us good; and our land

yields its increase to the Lord of Life, who hath redeemed it and

planted the precious plants and seeds of life in it.

—Isaac Penington (1617-1679)

THE WEB OF THE GATHERING

First Reading. The Goodness of the Earth

The earth is full of your goodness,

your greatness and understanding,

your wisdom and harmony.

How wonderful are the lights that you created.

You formed them with strength and power

and they shine very wonderfully on the world,

magnificent in their splendour.

They arise in radiance and go down in joy.

Reverently they fulfill your divine will.

They are tributes to your name

as they exalt your sovereign rule in song.

jewish mystical hymn 516 b.c.e. - 70 c.e.

LEADER: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

ALL: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

Second Reading Earth Blessing

Genesis 12:3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you

I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

Acts 17:24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the

Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the

face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the

waters. And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the

waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Job 38:8 "Who hushed the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb?”

Psalm 24:1 Of David. A psalm. The earth is the LORD's, and everything

in it, the world, and all who live in it;

Psalm 95:5 The sea is Gods, for God made it, and God’s hands formed the dry land.

When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed,

perhaps of wheat or of something else.

1 Corinthians 15

But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body

will they come?"

And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but

only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting.

But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed

he gives its own body.

There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the

splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the

earthly bodies is another.

This is how it will be at the resurrection of the dead. What is

planted is decaying, what is raised cannot decay.This is how it will

be at the resurrection of the dead. What is planted is decaying, what

is raised cannot decay.

LEADER: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

ALL: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

Third Reading Holy Mother

After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were

opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and

settling on him. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the

water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God

descending like a dove and lighting on him. Then the voice said, this is my son with whom I am well pleased

Mary mother of unending devotion

Jochebed mother whose endless love will always seek a way to deliver

Rizeph mother who loves the unlovely and despicable

During this time of Mary’s great expectation, we too are expecting delivering with labor pains this New Earth

Mother bear, mighty womb of compassion, Mother Hen, El Shaddhai, God

of mighty nurishing breasts take this milk which you have given

blessed by mammal bodies, holy annd pure take this Milk as a living

sacrafice for the healing of the Earth. Hover over the chaos of this

place to heal this earth as it wwaits in anticipationn to be

revealed. Heal this LAND creator Ruah nurturinng El Shaddhi, nurture

us innto communnion with this land, as the Wheat annd grapes rise from

seeds fallen into the earth, may this milk fall as tears, fall as your

mercy reachinng to your thirsty people.

LEADER: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

ALL: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

Fourth Reading Lament of the destruction of the earth as body

This milk falls as our tears to the earth. The cries of your children

will not go unheard.

75,000 different chemicals fill our land, bodies of water, and skies.

560 million tons of hazardous waste produced each year in this

country alone

28 Contaminated Sites in this neighborhood

Let down your milk, latch with us in this land filling with holy

colostrum in the contracting of the cosmic uterus . Fill us with the

milk of human compassion, suffering with and nurturing with this land.

Love canal, Bhopal, Chernobyl, Agent Orange in our wars and on our

lawns, Three Mile Island, Fracking and Fukishima, diesel fumes. lead,

merucry, alcohol, bennzyne, herachloriphine

Carcinnogin,Mutagen, teratogen, digestive, respiratory, eco,

reproduction system,

Rachel Carsonn, Meister Eckhart, Vandana Shiva, Lois Gibbs, Wangari,

Mary Evelyn Tucker, Thomas Berry

The women of mountains, the women of the rivers, pray with us

LEADER: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

ALL: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

Fifth Reading Earth Liberation

Enter here into the new Pentecost of the renewal of the earth

Today, I will name it this: the art of liberation, the act that

releases the mysteries, that ruptures the fabric of our beliefs and

lets us look into the heart of deep space where dwell the

immeasurable, life-generating powers.

Those powers live in us also, as we live in them. The mysteries are

what is wild in us, what cannot be quantified or contained. But the

mysteries are also what is most common to us all: blood, breath,

heartbeat, the sprouting of seed, the waxing and waning of the moon,

the turning of the earth around the sun, birth, growth, death, and

renewal.

Starhawk

18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with

the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager

expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was

subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of

the one who subjected it, in hope 21thati the creation itself will be

liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious

freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of

childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we

ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as

we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our

bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no

hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for

what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Beauty saves. Beauty heals. Beauty motivates. Beauty unites. Beauty

returns us to our origins, and here lies the ultimate act of saving,

of healing, of overcoming dualism.

Matthew Fox

“This, then, is salvation: When you marvel at the beauty of created things and praise the beautiful providence of their creator.”

Meister Eckhart

“Creation is all things and us. It is us in relationship with all

things. All things, the ones we see and the ones we do not; the

whirling galaxies and the wild suns, the black holes and the

microorganisms, the trees and the stars, the fish and the whales - the

molten lava and the towering snow-capped mountains, the children we

give birth to and their children, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs.”

Matthew Fox

The New EARTH

Revelation 22:2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On

each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of

fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are

for the healing of the nations.

LEADER: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

ALL: The touching of the earth is an act divine, it is good, we are all interconnected

SIXTH READING Reading of expectation of Mary

38“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you

have said.”

Mary Visits Elizabeth

39At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill

country of Judea, 40where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted

Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in

her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42In a loud

voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the

child you will bear! 43But why am I so favored, that the mother of my

Lord should come to me? 44As soon as the sound of your greeting

reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45Blessed is she

who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be

accomplished!”

Mary’s Song

46And Mary said:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children forever.

(Lk 1:46-55)

SEVENTH READING spilling of milk onto the earth

Honoring of the mother's body to produce nurturing milk

Milk you are holy and blessed. Mother you give us all strength of unending devotion, always seeking to devlier, waiting patiently, and unconditional love. Mother you bless us with ultimate compassion, ultimate connection. Creator make us all as mothers to see the fulfillment of all creation. Connect us and nurture us, may we feel more clearing the connection with this cosmic umbilical. BLESS THIS MILK AND THE MOTHERS WHO PRODUCED IT HERE TODAY. Bless this mother’s milk who was at the manger, who fed and nourished our own bodies and our neighbors, bless this milk

Mary mother of unending devotion

Jochebed mother whose endless love will always seek a way to deliver

Rizeph mother who loves the unlovely and dispicable