Ground
On which we stand
Underneath our feet
In relation to me.
Ground
Grounded:
A discipline technique used by parents to force compliance.  A set time where child has limited freedoms inside and outside the home.
No T.V.
No friends houses.
No.
Grounded:
Feet on the ground.
No head in the clouds.
Real.
​Looking. Giving off.  Feeling of real.
Not flighty.  Not flakey.
Secure. 
Ground = Security
Possibility.
A place on which to grow.
Plant seeds, Ideas, Children.
Ownership of seeds.  Ideas.  Children. 
Labor.
Work. 
Productivity. 
Ownership. 
Owning the productivity of the ground. 
Of it's people.
​People from the ground,
Return to the ground.
Ashes to ashes. 
Dust to dust. 
Ribs from clay.
​In the garden. 
But before this...
There was light and the opposite of light. 
And then there was ground.  
And water 
Parents of life.
Big life. 
Overwhelming life. 
And God thought this is just too much. 
So God made us.  In his image. 
To rule over every living thing. 
To create things. To make messes. 
To start things.  To not finish them. 
To shirk responsibility
To dominate no matter the consequence
​Bud God blessed us before he slept.
And it was good. 
When Brahman created the ground on which we stand--our vast universe--there was no reason.
Like a child dancing. 
Spontaneous
Without purpose
For Brahman is perfect and complete without this ground.
So our world was created out of Bliss. 
By Bliss. 
And for Bliss. 
Pure divine play. 
The world a stage. 
When Sky Woman fell through the great distance between sky and the water below
Birds rallied to her cause and softened her fall.
Guiding her to the safety of the Great Turtle's back.
The animals saved Sky Woman--gathering earth from the depths of the water
Helping the Great Turtle's back grow. 
Sky woman's daughter married the West Wind.
Her twins born in tune and harmony with his birth. 
One born and in his birthing killed his mother. 
Different in nature
One diplomacy
One War
Yin and Yang
Complimentary opposites. 
Representing the whole.
Industrious and lazy
Stingy and generous 
In tune and out of touch 
All because of the generosity of the turtle. 
I collected turtles as a tween.
I've always had the habit of calling wherever I am home. 
I liked the weight and burden and protection of the shell--
That made sense to me. 
How difficult must it have been 
This woman of the Sky
Giving birth on moving ground. 
Creating life 
Nourished and held
Cradled by the ground beneath
A friendly turtle.
...A friendly universe? 
In balance. 
Full of opposites. 
Did she love one child more?
Could she love beyond the grave? 
Beyond pain?
Buried in the ground. 
Ashes to ashes.
Where we bury hopes. 
And bodies. 
And dreams. 
Under dirt. 
Dreams of flight. 
Disastisfied with ground. 
Not enough for the power of our imaginations. 
Imagining flight and then creating it. 
Launching clumsily.  Off the ground
Through the air. 
Into space. 
The race for space. 
Covering ground. 
Breaking new ground. 
Discovering new ground. 
Planets. 
Stars. 
Star Wars. 
When the ground was not enough
When cyberspace became the new frontier.
My forefathers crossed an ocean to escape a ground war
Escaping a patch of earth that no longer fed them. 
Seduced by advertisements in a mother tongue
Sent over seas
~Cheap land~
~Vast and Rich and Unclaimed~
Dodging the draft right into the center of north american ground 
Claiming space. 
Digging into hillsides for warmth.
Clearing the desert grasses for corn.
Desert. 
Empty. 
Useless space made viable by corn and soybeans. 
Year by year cutting down and pruning all other possibilities. 
Burning down. 
Clearing. 
Destroying an ecosystem they could not see. 
A future for their children. 
A promise for prosperity.
This was tangible. 
Microbes in a prairie stream? 
This was not. 
A man.  With a knife.  Of a different color. 
With a different language.  Who came for their ground. 
This was visible. 
Children quaking--hidden in the house with their mothers. 
Men--the task of killing on their shoulders
Weighing them down. Sweat dripping. 
Fear was tangible. 
This man of a different color with no words to share. 
No common tongue. 
He heard they had a sharpening stone. 
He had a dull knife. 
What luck. 
But this was not his ground anymore. 
Digging into the hillside. 
Ploughing into the ground. 
Dominating it. 
Changing it. 
Molding it to our image of order and prosperity and progress.
Burying the opposition
In graves
Deep within the ground.
Not with intention of respect or 
Love
Or honor
Or with hope for paving the way for their soul's journey. 
But in mass graves
Quickly dug. 
Because rotting bodies stink. 
And buried together,
All heaps of bone and flesh beneath the earth,
You cannot see the individual on her own
Or hear her song
Or feel her eyes
Or see your hopes in her children.
Buried deep within her the seeds of life. 
Sewn into the ground
Or butchered for their potential to grow. 
The woman's own body--dug into
Ploughed.
Leave seeds of the other there to take root and weaken the ties to her deepest held beliefs. 
To make her hate the place where she was ploughed and 
Give her children, she cannot love 
Who belong to no place. 
Raped for the ground on which she stands. 
Because the place is more important than any person. 
A resource. 
A precious resource.
A commodity.
Like coal or black gold or black bodies. 
~Vast and Rich and Unclaimed~
For my birthday I got a worm bin for the apartment we rent. 
So we can give the soil back to the earth.
WE DON'T buy paper towels. 
WE DO BUY fair trade chocolate. 
There will be no slave labor in my birthday cake. 
We made sure my diamonds were 
"Conflict Free"
Knowing deep, deep down
There is a cost.
To someone else.
To us too?
But exchanging paper dollars does not compare to the cost 
Of disappearing water and lands and lives. 
But they're sooooo shiny.
And we can rape our world responsibly. 
More slowly.
Take more time and use more thought in every thrust; exploiting all the pleasures she has to offer. 
Mother Earth.
Father Sky.
The air is polluted too but only as the aftermath of what we do to the feminine, penetrable earth.
If it were Mother Sky and Father Earth would we show more respect?
This is the moment now where 
I know I've been talking too long.
Taking up too much space.
Monopolizing this time. 
And I am not so important. 
Be smaller.
This is not yours.
A daughter watches her mother carefully measure the ounces in her wine glass. 
Counting calories. 
Careful not to take up too much space.
Cross any boundaries.
Take more than she deserves. 
Women.
Don't get too big.
Tread too loudly.
Speak too loudly.
Don't stand your ground.
Cover too much ground. 
This space of yours is rented.
Ownership is the privilege of someone else. 
You just work these grounds. 
You have not paid enough for them yet.
One day though.
One day you'll have fought enough
Ploughed enough
Earned enough on this earth
This soil
And it will be your time to own it.
Your time to dominate
To shape and bend and break
This ground
Into your own image.
And those who own the ground
Own the story.
When you are the winner,
What will you say?