Land Honoring for Hartman Park 2023

Thank you for having me here today, Wendy, and to the Town of Lyme and the Lyme Land Trust. It’s an honor to speak on behalf of the Earth and to guide our hearts towards an offering of healing as the Earth restores and renews from a recent human-driven disturbance. 

As you may know, in January of this year, heavy machinery mowing cleared 7 years of native habitat growth that Eversource previously maintained as part of their environmental stewardship efforts in the transmission corridor. It not only leveled the ecosystem, but also left large ruts and damage to the soils and underground networks that support this unique community of native brush habitat.

When Eversource made the decision to cut down the native habitat from forest edge to forest edge, they also made the decision to leave many animals, birds, and other species without the food and shelter they depend on.

For example, this corridor is also part of the Lyme Forest Block, a landscape-level important bird area. Audubon’s Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program is a global effort to identify and protect habitats that will protect sustainable populations of birds. As well, this habitat is suitable for New England cottontails and also benefits more than 60 other wildlife Species of Greatest Conservation Need.

Communication between Eversource and the Town of Lyme indicated a routine maintenance of the corridor per their best management practices. What happened was not within those guidelines. We are not sure why this clearing occurred. In the meantime, we shall honor the land. 

Today we gather to get to know the land as she is now, share our heartfelt thoughts, and provide a gift for her and all beings together— to honor what has been lost and what is emerging in a new family of beings.

I’d like to begin our time together by inviting you to wander out and get to know the land, offer your presence, pause and be and accompany. I’ll call us back with the flute in about 10 minutes.

[Open for sharing in circle]

[Read blessing below]

[Guide offering of well wishes and sunflower seeds to the land and all beings]  

***

Great Mother, we are grateful

to walk your path,

to feel our steps upon the earth

as our ancestors walked in step with you

and strayed from you.

We are present with you today to awaken

a more loving world.

To know you, our beautiful Earth,

as our nourishment for mind, body and spirit,

as our inherent belonging and wholeness,

for this can only be found with you, Great Mother.

As we are reminded through

the praise of birds—

the sun rises and sets,

the trees reach for the skies,

and we bathe again in the waters of light.

You are our home, Great Mother.

We are here to honor you,

to give you strength to heal from

acts of ignorance, greed, and forgetfulness.

We offer you our love and attention

and send it deep into your body

to rise up through the air,

to flow through the waters,

to the sun, our fire,

to the cosmos

from whom we were born

14 billion years ago.

We stand in reverence to you, Great Mother,

and abide to protect and serve you

and all of life.

We offer you these seeds of care

as a gesture to your healing

and to those inhabitants

who have been displaced

and who long

to thrive with you again.

We wish you well in your recovery, regeneration, and renewal.

Our hearts are with you.

Circles of seeds. An invitation to nourish and heal.