Roots ... Ecology of Hope Rally

Sink your tap root, one that goes deepest
striking far, intuitively divining
hidden wells of sustenance
through the driest times.

Send your feeder roots, spreading just under the surface
in the symbolic exchange
with dirt and rot
that is the essence of life.

Reach your prop roots
linking elbows in a mesh of underground limbs.
Let us offer each other
the grounded tenacity of our woven roots,
and stand together through
the strongest winds.

Let us rediscover
the hot fires of our passion
awaken, stir
our sizzling, churning core
that has always burned stronger
than the fires of war.

The message we most need to hear
is all around us – there is no place to look
where it isn’t shown us.

Only we think these crazy thoughts like:
“This is my bed”
Or
“This is my house”
Or
“This is my country”
Or
“This is my body”

But bones laugh –
surely you know by now …

Yet we rush and busy ourselves
so we don’t have to think of death
at all, let alone sit and listen
to some old laughing bones.

We are the only creatures on earth
who have successfully tricked our minds into

Believing We Are:

Separate

Above Special

Unrelated Independent

Distant “Free”

Hypnotized into believing
we are scattered, dispersed,
alone.

We are uprooted, too easily swayed.
We are tumbleweed, somersaulting
between fear and desire.

Yes, the message we most need to hear
is all around us --
we want it to be complex
we want an excuse for why
we still haven’t gotten it.

But it’s so breathtakingly simple
as taking a breath,
same breath
that a tree
breathed out!

by Malia Burkhart, MayDay artist …
Inspiration for “Ancient Voices”
Van-Go Mobile Arts JAMS Bench …

In the Heart of the Beast Theatre Presents - a href="http://www.hobt.org/invigorate/supporters.html">Invigorate the Common ...
Sandy Spieler; Masanari Karahara; Malia Burkhart; Julie Kastigar; Esther Ouray