Bestiary – Gaian Gathering 2023

Mother Earth 

Wait. 

Wait. 

Don’t leave us alone in a world we have wrecked.

A collaboration between Reconectando, ImaginAction and Work That Reconnects Network 

Reconectando, ImaginAction, and The Work That Reconnects Network collaborated on the 2nd of November, 2023.  Ilaria Olimpico, Shyontoni Ghosh, Hector Aristizabal, and Uri Noy Meir, facilitated the session titled “Bestiary” at the Gaian Gathering organized by The Work That Reconnects Network. The essence of this session could be captured in the phrase: “Honoring our pain with tears, celebrating community with laughter, and dancing between the two.” 

The presence of Joanna Macy during the session was a touching and powerful surprise. Together, we viewed a video that we co-created with people of various ages and languages, reciting parts of a poem written by our revered teacher, Joanna, almost 50 years ago. The poem had been edited by Liliana Moreno (Reconectando).

You can watch it below

After the viewing of the video, we dedicated our focus to acknowledging our emotions and senses, allowing them to take shape, and then expressing them in poetic language. Subsequently, we experienced them in our bodies, letting them flow and dance, undergoing transformation. 

If you want to organize a session called “Bestiary and Beyond” 

Contact: Ilaria at ilarialmp (et) gmail dot com

Below the poems that participants were creating and sharing in the zoom chat:

The heart of the earth in mine, in yours, embracing us all, so that we give our hands, at last. 

– Vanessa de Jesus 

The dried cracked mud/ heaviness, dropping/ the open arms of an old woman with loose skin drooping down, so soft 

• Carmen Rumbaut 

I see a lot of people collaborating. I see plants and animals caressing us in the meanwhile we were speaking. Listen to us and to the nature  is possible?! 

– Claudia Angelini 

Jaguar, sleek, powerful, fierce. Hector moving like his beloved jaguar brother and moving us 

Connecting in grief all across the world, in many languages and images 

Let us stay together in our grief 

– Gretchen Sleicher 

Green rebirth, so many different greens. The scattered scatterness, the fragmented fragmentation. Warmth, new life, a warm new life, life, new, new ways. 

– Francesco 

the eyes of a boy whose house was bombed 

pain in the heart 

to know what to do to be like a shelter 

– Lia Beltrao 

Tree withered and worn. Burning searing pain. Gather strength from soil, wind, and sun to live on. 

– Leslie Wood, Juneau AK 

Jaguar, badger, roaming free. Humans helpless with the destruction we have created. Feeling anguish, loss, fear, sadness, anger, desperation. Seeking to release reverence, protection, honoring, caring, nurturing. 

• Zsanna, France 

I see lush Jungle 

I feel like a Liana 

Tied from the Earth to the Sky 

I cannot move, even if I am connect

– Joanna Tomkins 

An ocean of bravehearts / A wall in my neck / Help me, help me. 

• Shayontoni Ghosh 

Beauty in the exquisite diversity of Gaia’s great expression…makes my heart ache and leap with joy…longing towards curiosity, creativity and connection 

• Jo delAmor 

I see the jaguar, the badger. / I feel joy and grief combined./My passion for Life demands to be freed. 

• Molly Brown 

Under the roots of a tree, I sensed the nostalgia of being sheltered and started to cry 

• Nancy Emilce Carvajal Medina 

Jaguar prowling, alive, wise, threatened/.    sweet moist tears, exhausting but comforting and energizing/.    courageous, (com)passionate Shambala warrior 

• John MacDougall 

Little girl speaking her love as glacier collapses. Grief at loss. Awe of beauty. Together we grieve, rejoice, reclaim our wholeness and connection with all life. 

– Kathleen Rude 

grandmothers with long white hair dialoguing with the Mother, a heart broken for the pain, open for the tenderness, and an extreme need of togetherness\ 

– Ilaria Olimpico 

Desperation and pain / despair and anguish / burning rage 

• Gwyneth 

I am struck by the honesty of the people speaking – their vulnerability in their presentations. Honesty. 

• Clare Hedin 

The Jaguar steadily moves through the jungle  

while cities crumble upon the ground 

Arms squeeze in, hands cry out to the sky WHY?! 

Why is ever there  

Why is never there  

Why is a distraction from 

– FairyAnn 

The urge to move slow. From the ground up, seed. By seed 

Marvelous beings/ awakes wavings of wonder on my skin/ 

infinite Peace emerges 

– Bruna (she/her) São Paulo/Brazil: Guarani land 

Beauty and destruction 

Love and sadness 

Arks, many arks 

• Marie, (she/her), Plymouth/UK 

the guepard moves with velvet steps on the shivering Earth. I shiver with her. Every pore of my skin becomes a suspended crater. From every pore of my skin flows a tear.  

I actively hope for the crack where the light will come from. 

• Amaya 

Ice melts at child’s embrace / flow in the depth / it is our collective call-ing 

• Uri Noy Meir 

I see you, and through your lifeless eyes a gaze tears straight through me. All of your water is in my eyes. I can never look away again. 

love ache awe ache awe 

hypho-haptic 

• Ayanna Woods 

Earth breaking and melting 

collapsing into a song. 

Grief. Rivers that move through stones 

and wash them. 

A bird that sings the song 

all the earth and a little bird 

at the same time. 

• Elena 

What emerged is more TENDERNESS! More care, more love, renewed impulse to fully live engaged, recommitting and deepening my vows—eco-vows and my own morally chosen vows! 

– JiLLy Marie 

Mother Earth’s magnificence slowly fading into the depths, silent disappearance. Parts of me contracting, dying within as our world dies, relief as tears start flowing, reconnecting me to the flow of Life, feeling this deep interconnectedness and acting from there is where I want to bring my breath, hands, body and care to 

• Marjorie Lumet 

image of Kelsey Creek:   a creek filled with filled with tears because it is named after a man who is the reason for massacre of hundreds of Native Americans here in Lake County CA 

• Barbara Christwitz she,her Clearlake CA 

Innocent nature-beings begging for connection in a cruel and violent world. Hearts racing, jagged, jarred, can’t breathe. Everybody screaming in bodies and words. 

• Sonya Dibbin-Nature Connection Guide 

amazing creativity bringing together images & sounds to help us be with these difficult realities & realizations of the fellow Beings we have lost & continue to lose …

emergence for me is an idea to collaborate with people where I live to help create a space in-person to help us experience a similar offering of the Bestiary. 

– Teresa Chilkowich & Sherpa Dog 

Diversity of creatures; human, jaguar, crocodile, tree,   

United in loss, Grief in our hearts & throats, Pain in my heart & throat,  

Tears that wash away the denial, For the truth & love to emerge.  

– Liz N 

Back to life! 

Hopeless, sad, numb, 

Surrendering to the „out of control“  

Calling for mercy  

The beauty of nature  

Calling for mercy 

…back to life 

– Caren Nieman