I had heard the song many times before—but wow this day, I started sobbing at the sound of it, then smiling and giggling. Oh and then my heart swelled, seriously. So I played it again and again and again. I didn’t want the feeling to stop. I laughed excitably through the tears that tasted exactly like the ocean from which I had just left behind. Something inexplicable was shifting within me. My entire body responded to this song, its lyrics, it pulsating eco-spirituality and truth, its beauty and awakening:

On a sleepy endless ocean when the world lay in a dream
there was rhythm in the splash and roll, but not a voice to sing
So the moon shone on the breakers and the morning warmed the waves
till a single cell did jump and hum for joy as though to say
This is my home, this is my only home . . .

The interstate was lined with luscious green trees of all shapes and sizes, and I really noticed them. Thick, curvy clouds further shaded the path—a coverage that would normally leave my mood melancholy. Instead, in this moment, I felt surrounded, completely joy-filled, not alone nor afraid. A lone bird flew across the landscape with his wings stretched so far and wide as if reaching out to embrace me.

Every atomic energy force within me felt it, as if I was hearing the song for the first time. I played the three-minute song from Grandy, North Carolina to beyond Richmond, Virginia. It’s mesmerizing and meditating effect was like the Hindu mantras we chanted in Nepal for no less than 108 times. The song choked me so intensely that I could feel my third-eye chakra swirl, just like I remember from those Himalayan mountains. Call it a daze or a dream or ecstasy, but I felt elevated into a space of pure grace and gratitude, especially as I shouted out the refrain:

This is my home, this is my only home
This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known
and should I stray in the dark night alone
rock me goddess in the gentle arms of Eden

It was as if I was emerging from my mother’s womb about to see the light after months of growing, evolving and changing shape in a hidden, secluded cocoon; as if the ocean that cradled me the day before handed me back to the world baptized in a Love of perfectly complete connectedness. Why should I be surprised? It was exactly the prayer I prayed on the evening of the super full moon, as the tidal waves of the Atlantic Ocean washed my feet . . .

 Goddess Moon, Mother Ocean,
I want to know that feeling of Infinite Oneness with all creation.

I grew up surrounded by cornfields and cows. We lived on a four-acre land with apple and cherry trees, grape vines, and a huge, vast garden with the biggest tomatoes and pumpkins ever, and that sweet, sweet corn on a cob. I climbed those trees and scraped my knees, and returned home with a thousand mosquito bites that my mother thought sure would scar for life. I remember my older brothers and father practicing baseball in the back yard; occasionally they’d play catch with me, too (I was never any good, always the right-fielder). On the fourth of July, dad built this huge, high-in-the-sky tower, where our fireworks would launch into the cosmos, painting it with color and cheer that one day would disappear . . .

I’m not entirely sure when my parents fell out of love, or when forcing a façade of marriage and family became too much of a burden to bear. But when they divorced, it was as if each of us went to our respective corners, four walls built between them and me and the rest of the world and all its wonder, and never again did we come out to play.

Dad moved away, mom worked evenings and weekends, and at age eleven, I felt alone and abandoned. Perhaps it was then, in this loss of innocence, that I began shielding myself and slowly detaching from anything offering me an embrace. I never before thought this included the dirt and dust, roots and wings of Mother earth and Father sky, but that’s exactly what this day and this song revealed to me.

In a culture inundated with rules and responsibilities, schedules and expectations, we forget to listen, taste, touch, smell and see the wonder in our world, or as my mentor Dianna Connelly says it, the “wowness” of all creation, including the wowness of our very own body/mind/soul. Without the wowness and wonder, we forget what brings us joy, what makes us come alive. We do, think, say what we do because we have been imprisoned by a system, a matrix if you will, built on fear and brokenness, rather than the Love and wholeness that we truly are. Realizing and recognizing we are whole and holy is first and foremost about coming alive, awake and aware: coming home to ourselves and the Infinity that connects us to all living creation. Ubuntu, an African philosophy, teaches us, “I am because you are” . . .

I am because the trees breathe. I am because the plants grow. I am because the wood burns. I am because the birds sing. I am because the ocean purifies. I am because the wind scatters. I am because the sun rises. I am who I am because of you. We are not separate, nor have we ever been or ever will be. We are one soul with a cornucopia of shapes and sizes, textures and taste, hues and hums.

When did we stop coming out to play? When did we stop rolling in the dirt? When did we stop delighting in the burst and splash of the strawberry? When did we stop smelling the tasty salty air? When did we stop touching the rock and the bark and the moss? When did we forget our lives rely on the health of the earth? When did we forget we are whole and holy connected to all that is, and all that ever will be? When did we forget we are already home in Eden?

And on some virgin beach head one lonesome critter crawled,
and he looked about and shouted out in his most astonished drawl,
This is my home . . .

Listen to an endearing public performance of “Gentle Arms of Eden“
written by Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer

and thank you Anna Lisa for introducing this gem and gift into my life

falling into the gentle arms of Eden,
Elizabeth