This Sacred Earth

By Rachel Field, Heartberry Hollow Farm & Forest – April 25, 2023

 

Easter season on the farm coincides with the stirring of new life. Our newly purchased incubator is holding 20 chicken eggs, the maple trees are filling our metal buckets with sweet sap, and the grass is beginning to emerge from underneath the snow. The signs and stirrings of life are rising all around us. Even our bodies are beginning to feel itchy for long planting days and setting grazing pastures again. Held alongside this reality of earth, the story of the resurrection and the imagery of the body of Christ captures my attention. In the resurrection stories we receive a fairly bizarre emphasis on the material reality that those who encountered Jesus were a part of: the breakfast of fish on the beach, Jesus’ directive to Mary not to hold on to him, and most vividly Thomas putting his finger into the wound on Jesus’ side.

 

The resurrection of the body – of the actual cells and muscles of Jesus – shows us clearly the sacred nature of the material world. In God’s economy, there is no scrap of DNA that is left behind. Every part of Jesus’ body, including the scars, is not just reanimated but brought into new life. Walking through the hollow during springtime is a taste of this movement of resurrection. The trees are, of course, not being resurrected. They are engaging in the pattern of survival that they have been perfecting for millennia. The birds returning on their migration feel like a blessing of new life, but of course, they are just wandering along the seemingly imperceivable magnetic lines that draw them to breeding grounds and winter resting territories. 

 

And. 

 

The resurrection of Christ was such an event in the history of the cosmos that it changes and sanctifies all flesh. Now that Christ is risen, we can look at the emergence of spring and taste the fulfillment of life that is waiting for each of us. We can witness the arrival of the birds and feel in our own bodies that stirring of “I have found again that which I did not even realize I had lost,” which Mary might have felt when Jesus addressed her by name in the garden on that day of resurrection. 

 

This means that my body, your body, each broken and beautiful creature on this earth, is touched and changed by Christ’s act of resurrection. It means that we are – each one of us – in the process of being remade into God’s own glorious image.

 

 

Trillium, one of the first flowers to appear in the spring woods, is named for its trinitarian pattern of petals.

 

Easter Meditation 

 

Author Cole Arthur Riley posts a series of embodied practices on her social media. I have found inspiration in her pattern of breath prayers for this meditation. I invite you to settle your body in the space where you are. Allow your feet to rest on the floor, feel your spine lengthen and reach toward the heavens. Relax your shoulders and the muscles of your face. Feel the muscles around your eyes soften. Then take a deep cleansing breath. As you breathe in deeply (pause) and breathe out deeply (pause), hold these phrases in your mind’s eye:

 

Breathe in: My body is sacred. 

Breathe out: My body is loved.

 

Allow this pattern to settle your mind and body. Feel free to breathe normally and rest in this space of stillness. If you find your mind beginning to wander simply invite yourself back into stillness using these breath prayers.