Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth by Alice Walker Page A

realms from which might come new (or ancient) visions of how humans might live peacefully and more lovingly upon the earth. I learned a lot, some of it fairly obvious. Our children take addictive drugs partly to allay their fears about what begins to look like a severely compromised future, one filled with hatred and with war. They take drugs to feel less lonely in a world that consistently chooses “profit” over community. But the most fundamental reason they take drugs, many of them, is the desire to have a religious or spiritual or ecstatic and trans-formative experience, a need hardwired into our being. Until relatively recently—the last five hundred years or so—most of our people had rituals during which they used all manner of inebriants to connect them with the divine. No one had invented a system to make money off of making others intoxicated. Nor were there laws forbidding the use of sacred plants used in healing and in ceremony—laws that, in the United States, have had a soul-killing effect on the native peoples whose connection to the infinite for thousands of years centered around the eating of mushrooms and particularly of peyote. I returned to my “ordinary” magical life much changed, and much the same, but deeply respectful of all our ancestors and their great inquisitiveness about, and belief in, the universe around them.
    It was during these travels, internal ones and external ones, that I became aware of María Sabina, whose beloved face appears near the poem that invokes her name. Shaman, healer, priestess of the mushrooms, she was a legend in Mexico even while alive. Today she remains passionately revered, respected, loved, because she dedicated her life to the health and happiness of all humans. Whatever she is smoking will be used to cure whichever patient might be lying before her. She may receive a vision of what the illness is, or she may blow smoke over the sick person, purifying them and everything they touch. A poor Mazatec Indian from the mountains of Oaxaca, she has left a legacy of an amazing freedom, the foundation of which is absolute trust in the goodness of the earth; in its magic, in its love of us humans, in its ever present assistance the moment we give ourselves, unconditionally, into its wonder.
    Woman who thunders am I, woman who sounds am I,
Spiderwoman am I, hummingbird woman am I,
Eagle woman am I,
Whirling woman of the whirlwind am I,
Woman of a sacred enchanted place am I,
Woman of the shooting stars am I.
    â€”María Sabina 1

Acknowledgments
    I wish to thank Wendy Weil, Kate Medina, and
Jessica Kirshner for all their thoughtfulness
and help.

I Can Worship You

I Can Worship You
    I can worship
You
But I cannot give
You everything.
    If you cannot
Adore
This body.
    If you cannot
Put your lips
To my
Clear water.
    If you cannot
Rub bellies
With
My sun.

The Love of Bodies
    Dearest One
Of flesh
& bone
    There is in
My memory
Such a delight
In the recent feel of your warm body;
Your flesh, and remembrance of the miracle
Of bone,
The structure of
Your sturdy knee.
    The softness of your belly
Curves
My hand;
Your back
Warms me.
    Your tush, seen bottomless,
Is like a small,
Undefended
Country
In which is grown
Yellow
Melons.
    It is such a blessing
To be born
    Into these;
And what a use
To put
Them to.
    To hold,
To cherish,
To delight.
    The tree next door
Is losing
Its body
Today. They are cutting
It down, piece
By heavy piece
Returning,
With a thud,
To
The earth.
    May she know peace
Eternal
Returning to
Her source
And
That her beauty
Lofty
    Intimate
With air
& fog
Was seen
And bowed to
Until this
Transition.
    I send love
And gratitude
That Life
Sent you
 (And her)
To spend
This time
With me.
    After the bombing of 9/11, September 25, 2001

All the Toys
    You have all
The toys
& you keep them
To yourself.
Every once
In a while
Each hundred
Years
Or so
A few of us
Get a toy or two
& go skimming about the earth
Just like
You do.
    But we feel
Foolish
Out