A Meme for Book Lovers

Beautiful Sister Mermaid Joanna of the Gaian Tarot Artist's Journal has tagged me with a book meme, and one which is rather interesting to comply with. This is the perfect day for such an exercise, for when I pulled the draperies open this morning, there was another foot (at least) of snow down on the ground, and it will continue to snow here for the rest of this day. This is the kind of weather which propels one into lassitude, cabin fever, and thence into a profoundly insular state of mind.

The rules for this meme are:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Beside me as I write is a beautiful thoughtful book into which I dip into frequently for refreshment, encouragement and wisdom, The Fruitful Darkness: Reconnecting With the Body of the Earth, written by Joan Halifax Roshi, Founder, Abbot and Head Teacher of the Upaya Institute and Zen Centre in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her smile is absolutely incandescent, and her heart is as wide as the world.

I turn to page 123, and count down as the meme instructs me to do, and I find these words:

"Stories and their ceremonies weave our world together: the story of corn maiden and mother, of salmon's death and rebirth, of bear's human wife, of coyote's foul tricks and lynx's loneliness. These stories of ecological conscience are a council where the voices of all species may be heard. It is through these stories that the earth can be restored, for these eco-narratives are an ilbal, a 'seeing instrument.'

In my turn, I am tagging:

Fran at Sacred Ordinary, Caroline at Caroline's Crayons, Kate at Kate Smudges in Earth, Paint and Life, Shelli at Mama of Letters and Rowan at the Circle of the Year.